Stories about Middle East & North Africa from January, 2006
Bahrain: A culture of hate is invading Bahrain
We now have a novel site whose author would like us to think that he is doing us Bahrainis a huge favour by “exposing” activists with an agenda. Activists which he describes as not only as cowardly traitors, which it seems he can put up with, but much more disgustingly...
Iran: BBC & Abtahi
Abtahi (Persian), cleric blogger and former vice president, says filtering BBC is a weird action, because people get information from BBC radio broadcasting. He adds filtering political sites is similar to censorship in North Korea or Saddam's Iraq, where people even can not listen to non governmental radios.
Football and media's trial in the Moroccan blogs
January 12th is Yennayer, the Amazigh New Year . So I'll start by wishing Amazighs all around the world a happy Yenayer 2956! Last week was a sportive one in the Moroccan blogs. And most of the bloggers encouraged the Moroccan football team playing in the African Cup of Nations...
Yemen: Al Mukalla
A new blogger from Yemen, in fact one of the very few. Omar Barsawad started Moments in Words from Hadhramout blog (more about Hadhramout here). If you haven't seen/heard anything about this place before, this is your chance to see a photo of Ghuwaizi Fort (Built in 1884 AD at...
Iran: Hoder in Israel
The Iranian blogger, and GVO member, Hoder, is going to Israel in a peaceful mission which he describes as breaking a major taboo. Luckily, another GVO member, Lisa, will be his host. However, while Hoder gets the support, a third member of GVO, Sabbah, gets the criticism because of his...
United Arab Emirates: Please do, please don't
An open letter to the new telco in UAE. Drafted by Moryarti of Dubai Consumer Mirror blog, it just shows how desperate this country is for a new and telecom operator.
Bloggers in Pain, National Interest & Broken Promises
According to ManNamanam, Mojtaba Samininejad, imprisoned blogger, accompanied with two prison guards, with handcuffs, was permitted to write one of his final exams. He is a student in social communications, in Azad University (Tehran). He couldn't write the first three of his final exams because of the shortcomings of the...
This Week in Palestinian Blogs: Here's Tomorrow
News of the blogosphere… It's Laila el-Haddad‘s birthday! She spent a day full of surprises with her son Yousuf. Sabbah is one of the finalists on Bloggies 2005 Weblog Awards. Promises of Arabesque Rhapsody has suggested JordanPlanet‘s citizens form their own Book Club. She's come up with another idea too,...
Iran: National Confidence Party
Teste democracy (Democracy Test in English!) says other political parties can learn a lot from new National Confidence Party. Blogger adds ” this new party has a site, a news paper and on its site we know how can we become party members“(Persian). This party has been launched by cleric...
Iraq: Backroom Dealing
Nibras Kazimi of Talisman Gate has heard rumours that a secret deal has been struck between Ayad Allawi and Nadim Al-Jabiri of the Fadhila Party under American auspices. This could move 20 seats from the UIA to Allawi's coalition. The idea being that Allawi can then assemble enough supporters to...
Iraq: Bush should apology
Raed Jarrar jotted a sample email and asked his reader to send it to White House, which should be quick to apologize for its mistakes, such as bombing of civilians in Pakistan, he said. “This war administration should start admitting its mistakes. Whether you were a US citizen or not,...
United Arab Emirates: Accuracy and libel
Iqbal Al Tamimi, a TV journalist and one of Sharjah slasher’s victims, has asserted that she was quoted without her knowledge or consent by the local daily Gulf News. Secret Dubai don't agree and tells her that the best thing for her would be a course in basic journalism and...
Kuwait: Roll Back
In my humble opinion.. the far more worrying aspect about the current Al-Sabah family feud is not who will finally be named Emir of Kuwait, but that the reforms that the late Sheikh Jaber implemented might fall by the wayside or even get rolled back sooner than we fear, Zaydoun...
Iran: Last Gamble!
Hasan Agha, says by inviting Moqtada Sadr to Iran, Iranian rulers clearly show their role in making troubles in Iraq to whole world(Persian). According to blogger, it seems Iranian rulers are playing last cards!
An ordinary week in Bahrain
The weekly round-up of the Bahraini blogosphere where a week, for a change, seems quite ordinary!
Iraq: NY Times buys up Iraqi bloggers
After a hiatus of three months Zeyad of Healing Iraq is back. But only to give the news that he and four other Iraq bloggers are now writing for the NY Times. Unfortunately yours truly cannot tell you what is in there unless he pays out the $50 it costs...
Turkey is Typing….
Two weeks and no “talking Turkey”, I apologise dear readers. Let's just jump in shall we? The best thing to come out of the Turkish blogs in the last two weeks is the creation of the Amerikan Turks Yahoo Group. Started originally by Murat from Amerikan Turk, with the creation...
Palestine: Countdown to crunch time
Laila el-Haddad (Blogger of Raising Yousuf) writes her third post in a series of five parts to Guardian Unlimited about elections in Gaza, Palestine. She updates on the situation saying: “Things are getting heated between the frontrunners, Hamas and Fateh, who have been exchanging blows over credibility over the past...
Iran: BBC Filtered!
According to Hoder, BBC Persian which is very popular in Iran and Entekhab a conservative site, have been filtered. It seems Iranian government is filtering more & more.
Kuwait: Kuwaiti leadership on the brink
After the sad passing of the Kuwait Emir earlier this week, everything was supposed to be figured out within the week or so to clear the view for us as Kuwaitis to know what is the future of our leadership. The new Emir, Sheikh Sa'ad, is physically in very bad...
Egypt: Visit Nefertari
A special fund raising tour for Theban Mapping Project will cost you $5,000 not including flights plus a donation of $500, Tour Egypt said. The tour promise to take you to visit Nefertari and other closed tombs like KV5 and Seti I.
About our Middle East & North Africa coverage
