· November, 2008

Stories about Western Europe from November, 2008

The Balkans: Tragic Legacy

  29 November 2008

Cafe Turco writes on the inaccuracies in Resolution 819 film and posts a translation of Hasan Nuhanović's article that challenges “the veracity of some scenes.” Srebrenica Genocide Blog writes on a recent exhumation of “50 complete and 883 partial human remains of Srebrenica genocide victims” and links to a documentary...

Madagascar: Designer is one of the victims of the Mumbai Attacks

  28 November 2008

Gaelle Mann writes that Malagasy-born designer Loumia Hiridjee and her husband Mourad Amrasy were among the casualties of the attacks at the Oberoi Restaurant in Mumbai (fr). Loumia Hiridjee, 47, had  a dual Indian/ French citizenship and created with her sister Shama the successful lingerie brand princesse tam-tam (fr).  The...

Egypt: Locking Al Azhar students in the dark ages!

  28 November 2008

Al Azhar English Training Center is funded through a partnership agreement between Al Azhar University, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Global Opportunities Fund and the British Council. The Center was supposed to provide English Language courses in its first semester to 125 students from various disciplines until Ali Laban, a Muslim Brotherhood deputy, decided otherwise. One enraged instructor speaks up on Facebook.

Watch ‘Best of the Blogs’ Awards LIVE

  26 November 2008

The winners of this year's Best of the Blogs awards (The BoBs) will be announced in Berlin tomorrow, November 27, 2008 (8pm CET). The event is open to the public. If you're not in Berlin, you can watch the whole thing online via this post. Global Voices website, Rising Voices has been nominated in the Best Blog category.

Denmark: “Deep Linking” Under Fire by Newspaper Publishers

  22 November 2008

Blogging journalists in Denmark are up in arms over a renewed effort by Danish newspaper publishers to stop websites like Google News from linking to individual articles rather than a newspaper's homepage. They call this “deep linking”, and it is precisely what bloggers usually do. Regardless of what is considered normal practice around the world, the Danish Association of Newspaper Publishers insist they only want homepage links.

Religious unity: The Charter for Compassion

  21 November 2008

As children we may all have heard the Golden Rule expressed in many different ways, but the basic idea is: Treat others as you would like to be treated. This is Karen Armstrong's TED wish, to create The Charter for Compassion, a platform in which the different Abrahamic faiths could focus on what was common to all, the moral backbone of all their faiths towards a greater unity and better communication among people of different faiths.

Egypt: Sawiris Takes on Switzerland

  20 November 2008

Cairo's Scene & Heard celebrated entrepreneur and hotelier Sameh Sawiris's new project in Switzerland saying: “Now that we're branching out into Europe…do you think we stand a chance next to the already existing competition?!?”

Egypt Ranks High in Corruption

  18 November 2008

Egypt ranks 115 in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, which tracks 180 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. The rankings are in ascending order, with the more corrupt countries scoring higher ranks.

Syria: Love is in Stuttgart

  15 November 2008

Forget politics, Obama or the economic crisis. The new buzz in the Syrian blogosphere is about love. Mariyah, a Syrian blogger from Damascus, has been playing with the hearts of her readers with the most delicate series of posts about the story of Ghassan and Alexandra. It all starts on...

Japan: Street View and the Burakumin

  14 November 2008

The Internet, many would argue, has created the possibility for anyone to express their opinions freely. Recently, however, some have worried about an increase in the number of racist and denigrative comments against minorities spreading across the web. In Japan, the advent of Google's new Street View service has led some bloggers to discuss the relationship between areas photographed and discriminated communities.

Serbia: Reflections of a Bosnian Refugee

  14 November 2008

27-year-old Amila Jašarević fled Bosnia & Herzegovina in 1993 and has since been living in Denmark. On her blog, Amila Bosnae, she describes her first visit to Serbia: “Although our hosts from the different Serbian NGOs did whatever they could to make us comfortable, there was nothing they could do...

Japan: Italian students demo seen through Japanese eyes

  13 November 2008

Id:sawabonroma, a Japanese writer living in Rome, describes her everyday life in the Italian capital at Roma no Heijitsu (ローマの平日). In a post on October 30th, she writes about a students demo against the education reform proposed by Minister of Education Gelmini. Millions of high school and university students, professors,...

Jerusalem: Unholy Behavior

  12 November 2008

Yerevan Journal says that despite reported momentum in the peace process to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the number one talking point on the streets of the Armenian capital is the recent brawl between Armenian and Greek monks in Jerusalem. The blog sums up reactions which mainly clear Armenians of...

Jerusalem: Armenian, Greek Monks Brawl

  10 November 2008

Friction between various religious denominations is not new, but an incident that occurred between Armenian and Greek monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem has drawn the attention of many bloggers to such rivalry.