Stories from 22 March 2006
Thailand: Money and Sex
Claudio Romano at wanderingkhunphu struggles with the eternal question of money and sex as he fights off Thai transvestites.
Vietnam: Ban on Overseas Films
Vietnam's Ministry of Culture and Information is considering banning overseas Vietnamese filmmakers from releasing films within Vietnam. Diacritic.org has more here.
Philippines: Linguistic Divide
Howie Severino talks about the linguistic divide in the Philippines between Tagalog a.k.a. Filipino (the language spoken in and around the capital Manila) and English (the widely-used colonial lingua franca). “…a foreign correspondent once noted that our presidents use Filipino only when they want to tell jokes or be folksy....
Sri Lanka: Online communities
Mahamoor on the growth of online Sri Lankan communities in recent times and the growing conversations in the Sri Lankan context.
Pakistan: The day the idea was born
Light Within on Pakistan Day -“The people of Pakistan celebrate the 23rd of March, every year, with great zeal and enthusiasm, to commemorate the most outstanding achievement of the Muslims of South Asia who passed the historic Pakistan Resolution on this day at Lahore in 1940.”
India: An artist and her art
The Middle Stage on the art, life and times of Amrita Sher-Gil. “Half-Indian and half-Hungarian, of aristocratic lineage, she was born in Budapest and brought up in the Hungarian capital and in Shimla. She studied art in Paris in the wake of high modernism”
Latin America: 11 feeds
Argentine blogger Diego F. González has created 11 Feeds, an aggregation of eleven of the most-read feeds by techie Spanish-speaking bloggers.
The (virtual) life of a regional editor
GVO's South Asia editor podcasts about her online activities
Irshad Manji deceives and doctors are the most likely to blog in Morocco
Now that I'm becoming more familiar with the Moroccan blogosphere, I can tell that one of its characteristics is the fact that many of its members are doctors or student-doctors. In this week's roundup, we'll find out what interested some of those doctors-bloggers last week. We'll also pay a visit...
Mexico, Puerto Rico: World Water Day
Today is World Water Day and Oscar Reyes has a collection of photos from the World Water Forum currently underway in Mexico City. Gil Schmidt notes that 15 – 18% of Puerto Ricans lack consistent water services. Monica Campbell writes of innovative solutions by young people across the globe. Majda...
Nigeria: And it's Census Time Once Again
Nigeria is having another population census after 15 years since the last one was held. Unsurprisingly, the Nigerian blogosphere is buzzing with information and opnions about the national activity. Grandiose Parlor is pessimistic about the whole exercise, and bears his mind on the issue: Census 2006: Another Nigerian Spectacle? Despite...
Africa: development economics
Idland on the continued “Scramble for Africa” and the business of development economics and creative statistics.
Nigeria: Progressive?
Grandiose Parlor comments on the Nigerian census and wonders despite 4 censuses and the widespread violence reported around the census whether Nigeria has what it takes to exist as a progressive nation.…”How does the insurgency in the Niger-Delta impact the census in this area? Is there any provision (by the...
Kenya: Dare to be Different
What an African Woman Thinks writes about “daring to be different” and discusses what is normal and what is deviant…..Because sometimes, too often in fact, it seems to me that that question degenerates into who is like us and who is not. And, it can, in this cruder form, make...
Kenya: Water conflicts
Kikuyumoja’s realm also posts on World Water Day. He forcuses on the global water statistics and conflicts that arise over access to water. …”Over 260 river basins are shared by two or more countries. To date, the UNESCO’s International Shared Aquifer Resource Management project (ISARM) has inventoried over 150 shared...
Ethiopia: World water Day
Concoction reminds us it is World Water Day. She focuses on the act of “fetching water” which is largely ignored….fetching water is not something men do unless they are alone.” At which point the man has daily incentives to pay a lobola to purchase his daughter as his lover, wife,...
Diaspora: Football wins
Ayaan Hirsi Ali blogs reports on a football match between gay men and muslims that took place in Amsterdam to mark the International Day Against Racism. The Muslim team won 4-0
Nigeria: Vagina Monologues
Ore's Notes writes about her visit to see the Vagina Monlogues in Lagos last Thursday… Ore is not so sure about the call to reclaim words like “the C-Word” as a means of removing power from the speaker of the word.
Kenya: Home again
Kenyan poet, Mshairi expresses her homesickness through a poem “Home (Again)” It is that time of the year for Africans in the Diaspora to begin to pine about warmer climates.
Guyana: The phone conversation
Guyana 360 has received their copy of the recording of a phone conversation between the police commissioner and a member of parliament. Living Guyana doesn't seem to have received theirs, but posts a transcription of the conversation anyway.
Iran: Sufis under Pressure
Akhbar Sufi (Sufi news) is a new blog which is talking about Iranian Sufis’ problems with Iranian government. Akhbar Sufi (Persian) says in Semenan decision has already been taken to destroy Sufis’ worshiping building as it was done in Qom.
