Stories about Weblog from February, 2007
Egypt: FOUR Years Prison Sentence for Blogger
Egyptian blogger Kareem Nabil Sulaiman made history today by being the first Egyptian to be sentenced to jail for articles he wrote on his personal blog. An Alexandria court found him guilty of insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced him to four years in jail based...
The Global Voices Valentine's Day Poetry Contest – The People's Choice!
OUR CONTEST JUDGE has spoken, and very beautifully too. And now we have the far easier task of announcing the People's Choice winner. There were 54 votes in all. Leading, with 16 votes, was “l’Amour ‘MoraMora'” by Harinjaka. Congratulations, Harinjaka! In a close-ish second place, with 13 votes, was Geoffrey...
The Global Voices Valentine's Day Poetry Contest – Judge's statement & official result!
WHEN I LEFT a comment at the original post announcing this contest, asking who'd be doing the judging, I didn't realise I was answering my own question. But I was happy to say yes to GV's gracious co-managing editor Georgia Popplewell when she asked me to take on the task...
Lusosphere: Reporting Carnival
Olha a cabra!! (parte 2) – Socoh.net After four days of official Carnival revelry — and seven weeks of regular preparations and rehearsals since the year started — Brazilians will finally start thinking about getting back to work. The interested reader will be pleased to see how blogs are full...
World, meet Africa! A new way of reporting the continent
It's frequently depressing reading accounts of Africa in the mainstream media. Doubly so, in fact. Firstly because what is defined as worthy of reporting is, well, depressing. And secondly because it so seldom engages with the complex and vibrant reality of the continent in all its massive diversity, preferring instead...
Landing at the Iraqi Blogodrome
Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi...
Rigoberta Menchu as Candidate?
Rigoberta Menchu 1992 Nobel Laureate by “ladyloneranger“ In the early 20th century, the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo quit wearing her Western clothes to adopt a more indigenous appearance, showing her heritage with pride, not in the genetic sense, since she was not indigenous at all, but with the pride of...
Turkey is Typing…Midnight Express, Sweaters, and a Jar of Peanut Butter
What do the above items have in common? All of them and much more will be part of our hodge-podge edition of Turkish is Typing. A couple of our bloggers have mentioned the film Midnight Express in their tomes lately, due to a new interview with the subject of the...
Bangladesh: Celebrating the Mother Language day
Today is the International Mother Language Day, an annual event in UNESCO member states to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. This is mostly the international recognition of Language Movement Day called ‘Ekushey February’, which is commemorated in Bangladesh since 1952, when a number of Bangla-speaking people were massacred...
Superstars spice up Philippine elections
Philippine elections is in danger of being reduced again into a popularity contest. Showbiz actors are running again in the Senate. Politicians from both the Administration and Opposition camps are hiring actors/actresses to endorse their candidacies. Since 1998, TV personalities have been topping the Senate race. Candidates are allotting more...
What Salvadoran bloggers are saying — unable to escape the past
The ghosts of El Salvador's twelve year civil war continue to surface in the news from El Salvador. First there was the story of Will Salgado, mayor of the city of San Miguel. On January 29, the Washington Post ran a cover story on the aftermath of the civil war...
Bolivia: Rain, Rain, Go Away … At Least Before Carnaval Starts
Carnaval is in the air, as Bolivians enjoy a four-day weekend. Much of the nation’s focus is on the Carnaval of Oruro, perhaps the most well-known in the country and declared by UNESCO as Mankind's Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. During the anticipation of this festival...
Arabisc: Pictorial Tour of the Middle East
Fed up of all the politics in the Middle East? Me too. This week we will take a pictorial tour of the region, making stops in Qatar, Bahrain, Tunisia and Lebanon, to name a few. There are real amazing photographers out there and the scenery and mood quickly changes from...
Deadwood cabinet stokes the fire of public ire in Zimbabwe
Facing unrelenting pressure for change, Zimbabwe's beleagured leader, Robert Mugabe, reshuffled his cabinet two weeks ago, but did little to aleviate the suffering of a nation that has been ravaged by a porous leadership and failing economy. The reshuffle, which wasn't much of a reshuffle, only saw one minister dismissed,...
Touring Libyan Blogs
Equality among sexes in Libya? Yes, because now you have to pay attention to Libyan female pickpockets! This is what Khadijateri discovered yesterday when she went into a shop to buy some clothes. But Khadijateri was lucky indeed as she realized what was happening and used common sense. “Now, I...
India, Pakistan: 66 people killed on the “Peace Train”
66 people were killed on the Samjhauta Express with homemade bombs last night. According to Wikipedia, The Samjhauta Express is a bi-weekly train — Tuesdays and Fridays — that runs between Delhi and Attari in India and Wagah and Lahore in Pakistan. Until the reopening of the Thar Express, this...
A Week in the Saudi Blogosphere
False assumptions of a Saudi threat to US campuses, a bald Britney Spears, two new Saudi air carriers, Valentine's day, and the infamous “burqini;” all that and much more is in this week's roundup. I noticed many Saudi bloggers referring to the recent happenings in Jerusalem. As it turns out,...
Syrian Blogsphere in a Week
We start off with a very special goodbye from Brian Anthony… Brian has lived, taught, and blogged from Damascus for more than two years, he returned to the US a couple of months ago… We all want to wish him the best of luck. This was his last goodbye post...
The Global Voices Valentine's Day poetry contest: let the judging begin!
Many thanks to all who submitted entries for the Global Voices Valentine's Day poetry contest. We had 28 submissions in all, including some fine doggerel, plus one entry from an actual dog! As this contest was a spur-of-the-moment idea cooked up on the GV mailing lists, a few things fell...
A Week Goes by in Kuwait
From a new movie to a naming special day after a popular soft drink (pop for Americans) to creating Kuwait's very own supermarket brand. These were some of the conversations going on at the Kuwaiti blogospehere last week. K TheKuwaiti talks about a new movie Sharq that is produced in...
