21 July 2005

Stories from 21 July 2005

Guyana: Skyping the Remote Guyanese Interior

  21 July 2005

Caribbean Free Radio links to a Skype interview with “Guyanese adventurer Duane de Freitas, who lives in the Guyanese interior and uses a satellite internet connection to communicate with the outside world.

Peru, Chile: Quecha and Mapuche

  21 July 2005

Roberto Arancibia notes the rise [es] in websites dedicated to indigenous language pointing both at a new Peruvian blog which aims to teach Quecha [es] to Spanish speakers as well as a Chilean site dedicated to explaining Mapuche [es].

Cuba: Blackouts Continue

  21 July 2005

Mora reports on Babalu Blog that the blackouts are continuing throughout Cuba as the island tries to get back on its feet after a series of hurricanes and tropical storms.

Venezuela: VOA for Latin America

  21 July 2005

Boz responds with scepticism to a US House approval of specifically focusing Voice of America-like broadcasting at Venezuela, which will soon begin its own hemisphere-wide cable television channel.

Nicaragua: Voting Machines and ATM's

  21 July 2005

Picasso Dreams reports that the same company that makes ATM's in Nicaragua made the electronic voting machines in the last US presidential election. Jokingly she writes, “I found it ironic when it asked me if I wanted a receipt for the transaction, as Diebold executives claimed it was impossible to...

Venezuela: From the Left and Right

  21 July 2005

Venezuela News and Views takes a look at the coverage of Venezuela amongst the most popular liberal and conservative blogs in English. His conclusion: “Venezuela is indeed only a blip on the US public opinion radar and my blog a niche blog as a reader once told me.”

Zimbabwe: Riot Police hit Churches

  21 July 2005

This is Zimbabwe is reporting that riot police have forcibily removed homeless who had found housing in churches–most, if not all, of whom were made homeless by “Operation Cleanup”–from their temporary shelter.

Singapore: Xiaxue hacked

  21 July 2005

Daryl Sng is reporting that popular Singapore blogger Xiaxue has had her blog and email broken into. Mr.Brown notes that another Singaporean blogger also had her blog hacked and recommends that Singapore bloggers change their passwords (he also gives good hints on how to pick a good password).

Malaysia: Are we staring at RM3.20?

  21 July 2005

Malaysia lost no time in following China's move to decouple its currency from the US Dollar; Jeff Ooi reports that Bank Negara Malaysia has abandonded the US Dollar peg, replacing it with a managed basket of currencies, effective immediately.

Bahraini: Food Fight!

Chan’ad Bahraini will be taking a blog-vacation for a couple of weeks, but before he left, he couldn't help but to bring us a photograph of a scuffle that took place on the floor of the Bahraini parliament. Apparently one MP took exception to the statements of another MP and...