Stories from 11 April 2006
Bolivia: BBC on Morales
Both Alvaro and Eduardo give their impressions of a recent BBC feature on Bolivian President Evo Morales.
Peru's First Round Elections
“Ubique Su Mesa” (Find Your Polling Place) by Patrice. With about 85% percent of the votes counted, the fate of Peru's second round presidential elections depends largely on the narrow (and narrowing) race between moderate leftist Alan García and pro-business candidate Lourdes Flores who currently trails García by only one...
Mongolia: Shadow Government
Luke Distelhorst of neweurasia writes that Mongolia's Citizens’ Will Party is forming a shadow government and hoping that the Democratic Party will join them.
Armenia: Softened Blow
Blogrel reports that Armenia has probably avoided anticipated huge gas price increases.
Kyrgyzstan: From Such Darkness…
Larry Tweed, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, writes about the thoughts that follow waking up to the muezzin's morning call to prayer.
Mongolia: Paid Protesters
Luke Distelhorst has an update on the protests in Mongolia and reports that one of the country's political parties has paid students to stage a counterprotest.
Kyrgyzstan: Trilingualism
David Read writes that his young son is speaking three languages–Kyrgyz, Russian, and English–and wonders how he can make sure his son is able to use all three.
Slovenia: PutFile's ‘Collective Punishment Policy’
Michael of The Glory of Carniola reports on a video hosting site's ‘collective punishment policy’ toward Slovenians.
Hungary: Little or No Blogger Reaction to Election
Henrik of Hungarian Accent comments on the bloggers’ lack of response to the recent general election in Hungary.
Belarus: “Almost an Open Letter to Hollywood Producers”
Andrei Khrapavitski wonders why there hasn't appeared a single Hollywood movie about Belarus, “the baffling country between Russia and Poland.”
Russia: Sibir Airline Image Revamp
Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog writes about Sibir Airline's new identity – and its new name: S7, or – if you listen to the airline's flight attendants – “Ass Seven.”
Russia: Grigoriy Oster
Raffi Aftandelian of maaskva: nashimi glazami translates a few poems by the Russian children's poet Grigoriy Oster, author of the Harmful Advice: A Book for Naughty Children and Their Parents.
Jamaica: Homophobic blog?
Mad Bull wonders if the homophobic agenda of a Jamaican blog called Killbattyman.org is a huge joke — or deadly serious.
Aruba: Linguistic prowess
“When our tourists find out that those who grew up here can speak at least four languages, there are usually exclamations of wonder and marvel at our linguistic prowess,” says ArubaGirl, in her explanation as to why most Arubans speak Dutch, English, Spanish and Papiamento.
Smog in Santiago
Photo by pura naturaleza Santiago is a very beautiful valley. The mountains are very impressive. That is, if you have the chance to see them. Smog is a permanent problem that has no solution yet. In winter, between May and August the situation is critical. We have three statuses for...
Traffic In Viet Nam
The traffic can be a nightmare for visitors to Viet Nam for the first time. Believe it or not, there are transport rules but people don't seem really interested in following them. Three or four people on one motor bike is a common sight, particularly with the young and young...
Ukraine: Promoting Books in Ukrainian
A group of Ukrainian LJ users concerned about the sorry state of Ukrainian-language book publishing had a lively discussion on how the situation could be improved. One blogger even drew a parallel with the Aymara language of faraway Bolivia. Below are just a few snippets of this conversation (UKR): swalllage-kits:...
Argentina: Borges & Judas
After a month-long blog break to finish a novel, Jeff Barry is back to point out that Borges wrote about Judas’ potential good side long before National Geographic.
Nepal: Violence in Gongabu
The strike in Nepal was dotted with violence. United We Blog! on what happened in Gongabu – “Armed police fired more than hundred rounds of real bullets as the bloodiest people-police clash at Gongabu injured more than 130, some of whom are serious”
Bangladesh: Getting friendly with Israel
imperfect world 2006 on the appointment of Richard Benkin as the PR man for Bangladesh. “In other words, can foreign policy principles be bought? We will have to wait and see. Israel, incidentally, was one of the first countries in the world to recognise Bangladesh.”
Argentina, Spain: More Music
Two more Argentine indie groups recommended by musical connoisseur Fernando Casale. Check out sample tracks from Sync Filmico and Alvy Singer. From Spain, 4024 Segundos is a compilation available for download of new songs licensed under the Spanish Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.
