19 May 2008

Stories from 19 May 2008

Israel: 1000 Days Since the Gaza Strip's Evacuation

Jameel at The Muquata reflects that it has been 1,000 days since Israeli citizens and military forces left Gaza as an occupying force. “The blatant callousness of the Israeli government and of Disengagement supporters who do not spend every second of their days trying to help the solve the refugee...

Egypt: A Taxi Driver's Words of Wisdom

Israeli-American blogger Daniel Lubetsky, traveling in Egypt, interviews his taxi driver on leading figures in the Middle East. “I asked him to rank people or countries, thumbs up or thumbs down. Here were his rankings on 24 questions from Bush to Ahmadinejad, from Olmert to Nasrallah, from Bin Laden to...

Israel: New World Record for Biggest Hummus Plate

Weighing in at 400 kilos (880 pounds) on a plate that was 4 meters (4.35 yards) in diameter, Hummus Tzabar became the Guinness Book of World Record's official title holder for the biggest plate of hummus served at last week's Independence Day celebrations. The experts at Hummus101 report that Israelis...

Estonia: Anna-Maria Galojan

Inno & Irja Blog describes the case of Anna-Maria Galojan, “a young estonian politician who's accused of stealing money from European Movement Estonia”: “Finnish journalist Leena Hietanen has pointed out that we, estonians don't like russians. Well, we also don't like other nationalities, like armenians. Anna-Maria is armenian and i...

Czech Republic: Cycling Trip Report

The Journeys of Captain Oddsocks describes and posts pictures from the first week of a cycling trip through the Czech Republic: “I slept in a 13th century hilltop castle, had coffee with the mayor of Moravská Třebová, was interviewed for the Svitavy daily newspaper and met a 96-year-old man who...

Serbia: Coalition Options

East Ethnia writes on the coalition-building process in Serbia: “[…] the question remains whether for DS, the price of forming a coalition with SPS might not be higher than the price of spending some time in opposition.”

Malawi: To believe or not to believe rumors of a coup plot

  19 May 2008

Following Victor Kaonga's Monday May 12th breaking news post of the unusual arrests in Malawi of high ranking former and current military and police officers, as well as opposition figures, amid government accusations of a coup plot, Malawian bloggers and netizens have been reacting to the news with shock, skepticism, bewilderment, and ambivalence.