2006

Stories from 2006

Iran:Internet Sites in Iran

  29 December 2006

FaryadNameh says blogging has become popular in Iran due to the lack of free media, but internet,in general, has not been really developed in country.The blogger says it is rare that we find an institution in country with an active website[Fa]. The blogger adds even very popular sport clubs don't...

Iran:Sleepless Dictators

  29 December 2006

Futurama says if you listen to one of Saparmurat Niyazov's, former Turkmenistan President, speech, you find out he had never thought about his death. The blogger says the day of Niyazov's death, all dictators in the world were sleepless[Fa].

Dominica: Respect the Caribbean consumer

  29 December 2006

Kenny Green of Dominica berates multinational companies for failing to create advertising and marketing campaigns that specifically target the Caribbean consumer, reserving some praise for Irish telecoms services provider Digicel: “I would love to see some multinational, be it LG or Pepsi or Starbucks or someone credible actually show Digicel...

Bahamas: Police brutality

  29 December 2006

Lynn Sweeting calls for an immediate investigation into police brutality in the Bahamas: “I call on the police force to recognize the enormity of this crisis in their ranks, and to assume that most men and women applying to the college are the products of violent homes, and to make...

Cuba: Christmas traditions

  29 December 2006

Cuba-based blogger Kaloian Santos Cabrera posts an excerpt from a book on traditional Christmas observances in San Juan de los Remedios, Cuba, plus some photos.

Indonesia: Internet Outage and Flood in Aceh

  29 December 2006

There is nothing worse for Indonesian bloggers in particular around the new year eve but to see the sudden temporary “demise” of internet connection. The cause as reported by Budi Putra, , Sani Asy'ari and Enda Nasution is “the strong quake off Taiwan’s coast on December 26 damaged submarine cables...

Burkina Faso: army-police dispute

  29 December 2006

The Head Heeb asks whether we are experiencing another Sahel domino: “As the year draws to a close, another Sahelian country is dealing with growing unrest. This time, the warning signs are coming from Burkina Faso, where a simmering army-police dispute erupted into pitched battles on the streets of the...

Africa: James Brown and Africa

  29 December 2006

Blake Lambert, blogging at Sub-Saharan Africa Roundtable, writes about James Brown's connection to Africa, “Yet JB’s best-known visit to the continent was in 1974 when he performed at a concert as part of the famous “rumble in the jungle” in Kinshasa. Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman in one of the...

Zimbabwe: Saddam's lesson for Mugabe

  29 December 2006

The Beardedman posts links and commentary about the latest political news in Zimbabwe, “I watch the events surrounding the condemned ex-dictator of Iraq with interest. Maybe Mugabe should ‘look East’ – but not as far as he has been doing. Then, perhaps, he might realise what he has done to...

Somalia: Islamists should be stopped

  29 December 2006

Somalia Islamists should be stopped, writes Bashir Goth, “Somalia for Somalis! Let them run their country as they please. Easy words to say but difficult to accept when it means beheading people for not praying five times a day, chopping hands of those who steal to stay alive in a...

Trinidad, Guyana, South Africa: Book talk

  28 December 2006

85-year old Guyanese writer Wilson Harris has a new novel and Nobel prize-winning South African novelist Nadine Gordimer's estranged biographer is half-Trinidadian, reports Jeremy Taylor, who also reveals his favourite Caribbean novels of 2006.

Barbados: The other Eid

  28 December 2006

Titlayo discovers the “other” Eid — Eid al-Adha, when “Muslims who can afford to do so sacrifice domestic animals, usually sheep, as a symbol of Ibrahim’s sacrifice.”

Iran:Meeting with Hanieh

  28 December 2006

Mohammad Ali Abtahi,former Vice President and reformist politician,writes in his blog that he and some other political personalities had been invited to Embassy of Palestine in Tehran when Mr.Hanieh,Palestinian Prime Minister,was there. Abtahi says Hanieh praised financial help coming from Iran and Qatar but it seems Bahrain did not help...

Lusosphere: Who? Me? You!? Why not Hugo?

  28 December 2006

TIME Magazine's choice of ‘You’ as the ‘Person of the Year’ has created interesting reactions in Lusophone blogs. The coddling move from the editorial giant towards the new class of content creators among its audience initially seduced the web 2.0 crowds. Many commentators were quick to agree effusively with the...