8 October 2006

Stories from 8 October 2006

China: bilingual photo blog

  8 October 2006

Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei's blog is now turning into a bilingual photo blog, run by a team. The blog's propaganda statement is here.

China: internationalization of movie

  8 October 2006

Feng Xiao-kang's latest movie “the Banquet” is aiming at the international market, with many international stars, such as Zhang Ziyi. However, local responses of the movie have been rather negative. Lu Na in mindmeters comments that Feng has lost his style in the process of internationalization. Instead of taking advantage...

China: celebrating national day

  8 October 2006

Absurd fool at interlocals.net reports about the politics of consumption during the national day holiday; Joel Martinsen in DANWEI translates a blog post on “National day in the age of angry youth”.

Let's Go Save the Poor Congolese

  8 October 2006

At his blog, Alain Mabanckou, a Congolese writer living in California, gives a rather comic account of a conversation he had with his landlady after she sees a story on television about “the poor Congolese” (or maybe they were Africans from some other country whose “president has a long name”)...

Haze in South East Asia

  8 October 2006

Singapore, parts of Malaysia and Indonesia are hit by haze arising from illegal bush fires in Indonesia. These fires are started by farmers during the dry season to clear land for agriculture. The haze is more severe this year with Singapore already issuing a health warning. Hazy afternoon in Singapore...

Russia: Anna Politkovskaya's Murder

  8 October 2006

Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist famous for her critical coverage of Chechnya and Vladimir Putin's policies, was shot to death in Moscow Saturday. Russian-language blogs are awash in speculation on who might be behind the murder. Anton Nossik (LJ user dolboeb, aka “the Guru of Russian Internet“) points (RUS) at...

Turkey is Typing: Food Blogs

Welcome to the Turkish food blogs edition. Today I would like to cover what I see is the top 10 of Turkish Food blogs in Turkish and English. As of today I have discovered 72 blogs devoted to the wonders of Turkish food, (I am working on compiling a list...

Kenya: Nairobi International Trade Fair

  8 October 2006

A Kenyan blogger attends the Nairobi International Trade Fair, “Things have changed. First of all this show is not exclusively about agriculture. Today I learnt how to get online using the Safaricom service GPRS service called The Edge without any wires using Bluetooth. I learnt about the Nairobi Stock Exchange...

Africa: rice and neo-colonialism

  8 October 2006

What has rice got to do with neo-colonialism in Africa? Mining Exploration has the answer: “Africa is home to 8% of the world’s oil reserves, which has prompted Beijing to spend billions of dollars to secure drilling rights in Nigeria, Sudan and Angola and to negotiate exploration contracts with Chad,...

Nigeria: Jay Z in Nigeria

  8 October 2006

Is Jay Z ripping off Nigerians? My Random Thoughts Daily writes, “Even when he played Wembley a couple of weeks ago the maximum ticket price was about £60. Why are Nigerians being ripped off in this way? I guess the CEO needs to get paid?”

China: Fifty-three things you may not know

  8 October 2006

As if learning Chinese wasn't hard enough, did you know that all bloggers in China are security encryption experts? ‘An effective way to visit Wikipedia’ [zh]—which is blocked in China—from Bokee blogger KangKang: 现在,维基媒体提供了通过HTTPS协议安全上维基网站的方法。使用下面的连接: Wikimedia now offers a way to safely access Wiki websites via HTTPS. Use the following links:...