Stories from 15 January 2007
Hungary: Irish Criminal Allowed to Escape
Irishman Ciaran Tobin, the killer of two Hungarian kids – Marton (5) and Petra Zoltai (2) – has gone unpunished, because he had to attend a wedding back home. Further Ramblings of a N.Irish Magyar examines the issue.
Serbia: Election Forecast
“In anticipation of the parliamentary elections in Serbia a week from today, an assessment and some hesitant predictions” – from East Ethnia.
Albania: Coffee in Tirana
Our Man in Tirana writes about the situation with coffee in Albania's capital.
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama: Rosca de los Reyes
We're about a week late, but Melissa de León has a delicious Rosca de Reyes al Café recipe to put an inventive twist on the traditional bread for Three Kings Day (January 6).
Bangladesh: Political Crisis
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
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
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
Nicolette Bethel presents a thoughtful essay deconstructing of some of the changes taking place on the musical front of in the Bahamas’ Junkanoo festival.
Caribbean: The WI's chances in the Cricket World Cup
Ryan Patrick posts of the West Indies Cricket blog posts an audio interview in which he describes the West Indies’ chances of winning the 2007 Cricket World Cup as “slim to none”.
St. Kitts: A virtual airport landing
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
“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
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
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
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.
China: Ice and politics in Curse of the Golden Flower
Joel Martinsen from DANWEI translates some comments on the movie: Curse of the Golden Flower.
Japan: Foreign Minister's cultural diplomacy
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
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.
South Korea: intra-Korean summit in 2007?
Robert Koehler from Marmot's Hole reports on a local breaking news concerning intra-Korean summit in 2007. The story was denied but the discussion shows local political dynamics.
Bangladesh: State of emergency, bloggers as information source
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: Chomsky's solidarity
Chomsky recently signed a statement of solidarity with Pypeongtaek farmers against U.S military base construction in Daechuri.
South Korea: new history textbook
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.