Middle East & North Africa Roundup

The prolific Bahraini blogger Mahmood of Mahmood's Den has done an Arabic translation of Reporters Without Borders’ 6 Recommendations for freedom of expression on the Internet. (PDF version is here.) He encourages people in the Arab world to: “link to it, replicate it on your site or use it to print and send to your lawmaker.”

Silly Bahraini Girl responds to a commenter who asks her why she stays in a country she complains about so much…

Chan'ad Bahraini
has a long post on the local Shia backlash against a cartoon depicting Iran's supreme leader and wishes people would learn to tolerate satire.

From Egypt, Manal and Alaa have a long account (with many pictures) of last week's Zeitun Church protest. Alaa claims that contrary to press reports, the pro-democracy organization, Kefaia, did not organize the protest. (Global Voices recently interviewed Alaa here.)

The Big Pharaoh has views on the kidnapping of Egypt's ambassador to Iraq.

The Free Ganji weblog and Zaneraini have both translated a letter by imprisoned journalist Akbar Ganji, who is on hunger strike. (via Iran Scan)

Mr. Behi is worried about the next round of clashes between Iran and the West.

Iran Hopes thinks Americans “need some anger management” in dealing with Iran's new president.

Hossein Derakhshan (Hoder) is annoyed that Apple's new iTunes doesn't support Persian podcasts – which are an important new vehicle for independent, non-regime voices from Iran. He hopes iTunes users will lobby Apple.

Hammorabi writes on Syrian support for terrorism in Iraq.

At Baghdad Burning, Riverbend reacts to Bush's speech last week (in some browsers you may need to scroll down a screen to read the post).

…and on the light side, Desert Kuwaiti Girl describes frustrations of dating familiar to women around the world… how online webchat is the new place for Kuwaitis to meet…and according to some of the comments, at least some marriages have resulted.

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