21 September 2007

Stories from 21 September 2007

Africa: Satellite coverage in Africa

  21 September 2007

White African finds a map showing satellite coverage in Africa: ” I found the following map showing satellite coverage of Africa in the Acacia Atlas -2005, part of the International Research Development Center (IDRC). It has a wealth of information on connectivity – satellite, internet and mobile data that many...

Japan: Tokyo's Urban Ruins

  21 September 2007

Roy Berman at Mutant Frog Travelogue has posted a series of fascinating pictures of soon-to-be-demolished buildings in the backstreets of Shinbashi, Tokyo. Objects photographed include pots and pans, children's toy guns, and a note left behind with the lyrics (in English) to the song “I could have danced all night”.

Confronting Euro-American media biases against Africa

  21 September 2007

Malawian blogger on africa-aphukira (African Rebirth), Steven Sharra, chronicles serious biases by Euro-American media and scholars against Africa in not crediting the recent archeological finding to a Kenyan palentologist, Fredrick Manthi. He writes, "The question for us now becomes how to move beyond the cliché that describes the blatant anti-Africa biases not only in the EuroAmerican media, but also in the entire knowledge enterprise. "

Jamaica: Extravagant Books?

  21 September 2007

Jamaican Geoffrey Philp wonders whether V.S Naipaul was right about book-buying in the Caribbean being considered “an extravagance” and asks his readers to weigh in on the subject.

Barbados: “Bim” Rocks!

  21 September 2007

Notes From The Margin discovers an ode to Barbados via a YouTube video: “Maybe someone should tell the tourist board about this one!”

Japan: Axe Murder, School Days and a Nice Boat

  21 September 2007

In a bizarre twist of events, the shocking story of a girl who killed her father with an axe, believed to be motivated by her interest in manga, triggered TV networks to cancel airing of the final episode of School Days, a popular anime show. In its place, broadcasters aired a series of slow, meandering shots of castles, mountains, and... a nice boat. A meme was thus born that has spread like wildfire across bulletin boards and blogs, sparked various creative offshoots, and even inspired conspiracy theories.

Japan: Personality Types By Region

  21 September 2007

Japan is divided into 47 regions, and local Japanese believes that each region has some distinctive personality traits. Ed Jacob has listed out some regional personality types in Quirky Japan.

Environment: Green Views from Africa

  21 September 2007

Can you be a fan of Top Gear, cool looking fast cars and…the environment? What blogging event is slated for October 15th this year? What happens to all the computers donated to Africa? This week the answers to these uncommonly asked questions come from several bloggers out of Africa. Image...

China: Open Coal Mine

  21 September 2007

Tiger temple writes a report on the condition of an open coal mine in Shanbei (zh). The whole landscape has turned upside down because of the mining. The report is in Chinese, but there are a number of photos in the post.

China: Boboing

  21 September 2007

Yee introduces a Chinese version of boing boing called boboing. It's news are translated from boing boing.

China: Oversea Students

  21 September 2007

Kaie looks at the statistic of Harvard students and finds out that Chinese is the biggest community in the University. And among the Chinese students, a majority comes from Mainland China and 60% of them are taking PhD.