30 October 2006

Stories from 30 October 2006

Jamaica: Mediocrity

  30 October 2006

“We are the people of the plateau—we work as much as is necessary to reach a flat, safe place,” says Jamaican novelist Marlon James of his compatriots. “Then we stay there for thirty years.“

Bermuda: Dr. Brown's opportunity

  30 October 2006

Valentine Michael Smith leaves aside satire for a moment and considers the opportunity that lies before Bermuda's newly elected Premier, Dr. Ewart Brown.

Belize: Dangriga Town

  30 October 2006

Nyasha Lang reports on a visit to Dangriga Town, Belize, where she visits a radio station run by a Garifuna perfomer and learns how easy it is to fall into the habit of wearing several hats.

Japan: confession service

  30 October 2006

Lee at Tokyo Times introduces a confession service in Japan. Most of the clients are men in 30s who want to express their love but are afraid of being rejected.

Korea: North Korea spy case

  30 October 2006

Robert Koehler in Marmot's Hole blogs about the details of spy case against the general secretary of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and a former DLP central committee member.

Mexico: The last moments of Bradley Roland Will

  30 October 2006

Journalism seems like a precarious profession to practise in Mexico. It's ranked by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist. The latest tragic example of this came on Friday 27th October, in the southern state of Oaxaca, with the shooting...

Kazakhstan: Social Business Corporations

  30 October 2006

KZBlog reports on Kazakhstan's plan to found “social business corporations” in the country's regions to drive economic growth and meet social needs. Though the idea behind them is seemingly similar to “social entrepreneurship,” KZBlog notes that no one seems too interested in the social end of the things with the...

Kyrgyzstan: Lack of Competence

  30 October 2006

Mirsulzhan Namazaliev writes that both the government and the opposition in Kyrgyzstan are destabilizing the country by failing to engage in dialogue. He says that only well-known and respectable centrist politicians can fix this situation.

Brunei: New GDP Figure

  30 October 2006

The guest blogger at Brunei Resources explains why the new GDP figure for Brunei is both a good news as well as bad news.

Violence and Misinformation Abound in Oaxaca

  30 October 2006

The usually tranquil Southern Mexican tourist town of Oaxaca – with its large, shaded plaza and gallery-lined alleys – had transformed into a political pressure cooker over the past few months in what began as a seemingly routine teacher's strike in late May. The lid then blew straight off yesterday...