17 August 2007

Stories from 17 August 2007

Turkey blocks popular blogging platform WordPress.com

The popular, and free, blogging platform WordPress.com has been blocked in Turkey and those who are trying to visit it are seeing this message: “Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance.” “I didn’t realize Turkey had...

Argentina: Carpooling Match Site

  17 August 2007

Blog Pasa en Buenos Aires [ES] writes about a new site called Comparte Coche [ES], which is a way for commuters into the city of Buenos Aires to find carpooling matches, which will help to reduce transportation costs and be a little easier on the environment.

Russia: Racism

  17 August 2007

Mark MacKinnon writes about violence against non-Russians in Russia and the Kremlin's “strategy” of making Putin look like “a least-bad option” by not discouraging more radical political views: “…the monsters it created are now out of even the Kremlin's control.”

Guyana: Thunder and Lightning

  17 August 2007

“I wonder if is true, that when you want to know how far away the storm is, count the seconds between the thundah and lightening?” Guyana-Gyal thinks she's caught in the eye of the storm.

Barbados, Jamaica: Dean Moves On

  17 August 2007

Cheese-on-Bread gives a Hurricane Dean update from Barbados: “When I heard on the news…that the all clear had been given I was surprised, 'cause in St. Michael the wind was howling and the rain beating down”, while Jamaican Veiw says that “Hurricane Dean could be in Jamaica’s territorial waters by...

Haiti: Preparing for the Storm

  17 August 2007

As Haiti continues to prepare for Hurricane Dean's arrival, The Livesay Haiti Weblog reports: “The newest projections are saying ‘Dean’ will hit Southern Haiti sometime Saturday afternoon. It has not strengthened that we see, we're just expecting rain and wind”, while Pwoje Espwa says: “It's a busy time for us...

Zimbabwe: Rigging Zimbabwe's 2008 elections

  17 August 2007

Mugabe has started rigging next year's elections: “Even though they plan to rig the election as usual, they want to give the result a semblance legitimacy by polling the largest number of votes. Some of the stages of the plans have already been implemented, the events in the past 3...

Iraq: Abu Ghraib Attack

Ladybird from Iraq posts a video of Iraqi ‘resistance’ forces attacking the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. She also reports that US forces killed two women and two children in Mada'in city.