15 January 2007

Stories from 15 January 2007

Bangladesh: Political Crisis

  15 January 2007

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying on the political crisis in Bangladesh. “Bangladesh has, by a quirk in its Constitution, been legally transformed into a dictatorship. A democracy of 125 million people is now at the mercy of a handful of unelected rulers and the military.”

Bangladesh: Cross Culture Marriages

  15 January 2007

a Bengali in TO on cross culture marriages and racism. “I am not going to debate whether marrying outside your ethnic group is right or wrong. That's like debating whether liquid soap is better than a bar of soap. There is no right answer.”

Barbados: New commercial for B'dos tourism

  15 January 2007

After receiving information suggesting that a new Barbados tourism promo appearing on US television may be sending confusing messages, Barbados Free Press posts a YouTube link to the TV spot and invites comments.

Bahamas: Junkanoo and music

  15 January 2007

Nicolette Bethel presents a thoughtful essay deconstructing of some of the changes taking place on the musical front of in the Bahamas’ Junkanoo festival.

St. Kitts: A virtual airport landing

  15 January 2007

Travel consultant Simone Champagnie reports on her blog that she and a partner company in St. Kitts and Nevis have begun to use YouTube to share “virtual site inspection” videos. Emedded in the post is one of the videos, a passenger's-eye-view of the landing at the St. Kitts airport.

Kazakhstan: Discussing the New Government

  15 January 2007

“The Government resigned… It was expected for so long that I am not even surprised…”, wrote Slavasay in Livejournal community on Kazakhstan politics. On 8 January Kazakhstan Prime-Minister Danial Akhmetov resigned, as did the whole Government. Not much change was expected though: “In Kazakhstan's autocratic presidential system, changes of prime...

Cuba: New TV channel

  15 January 2007

The Cuba Travel Guide blog announces ACN, a new Cuban television channel, designed to “bring press material and messages from Cuba to Cuban collaborators abroad, mainly in Bolivia and Venezuela.”

Puerto Rico: Religion? None

  15 January 2007

Eugenio Martínez Rodríguez gives a nurse at a Puerto Rican medical centre pause (ES) when he reveals that his religion is “none”: “On the other hand, I'm almost sure that the nurse's reaction would have been similar if I had answered that I was Spiritist, Muslim or Buddhist.”

Puerto Rico: Writers who blog

  15 January 2007

Eugenio Martínez Rodríguez is pleased (ES) to see that at least one Puerto Rican writer has a blog (or two), which doesn't prevent him from offering the writer a bit of advice. In an update, Eugenio reports that the writer has responded to his critiques on his own blog.

Japan: Foreign Minister's cultural diplomacy

  15 January 2007

Adamu from Mutantfrog blogs an interesting photo of Japan Foreign minister Taro Aso: If Foreign Minister Taro Aso can keep wonderful photo opportunities like this up, I would support him for prime minister no matter who he might want to nuke…

Japan: white collar exemption

  15 January 2007

Adamu in Mutant frog has a nice article discussing the recent debate on white collar exemption, which means office workers who earn 4 million yen or more annually could no longer be eligible for overtime.

Bangladesh: State of emergency, bloggers as information source

  15 January 2007

Bangladesh witnessed some dramatic changes recently. Last Thursday night president Iajuddin Ahmed declared a state of emergency and resigned as the chief of the caretaker government, the prime demand of the opposition grand alliance. He also postponed the January 22nd election, the process of which was alleged as being engineered....

South Korea: new history textbook

  15 January 2007

Owen from Korean history group blog has a round up on history textook debate in South Korea: Han Hong-gu of Sungkonghoe University (bastion of all things progressive) commented that the textbook was no different from those currently being promoted by the Japanese far right.