9 August 2008

Stories from 9 August 2008

Arabeyes: Mourning for Mahmoud Darwish

Bloggers around the Arab world mourned the death of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish yesterday. Scores of posts appeared online in Arabic and English even before news of his death was officially confirmed.

9 August 2008

Albania: A muslim country?

A Nevada Yankee in King Zog's Court discusses the changing role of religion in Albanian society, claiming that “after thousands of years of changing religious affiliations by Albanians in response...

9 August 2008

Southeast Asia and Beijing Olympics

Close to 200 athletes from the Southeast Asian region are participating in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The big news (as far as the region is concerned) during the opening ceremonies are the exclusion of Brunei during the event and the “improper” waving of the Singaporean flag by the country’s flagbearer.

9 August 2008

Georgia: Missing Journalists

Regional Reporters [RU], a new blog set up by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting posts an announcement expressing its concern that two reporters, Alexander Klimchuk and Giga Chikhladze,...

9 August 2008

Georgia: Armenians Evacuated

Unzipped says that 150 Armenian citizens in the Georgian resort towns of Batumi and Kobuleti are being evacuated from the country as military conflict with Russia intensifies. The blog also...

9 August 2008

Georgia: History Repeating?

Writing from Tbilisi, Wu Wei says images of Russian tanks entering the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia bring back memories of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Meanwhile,...

9 August 2008

MENA: Visas of Fulbright scholars revoked

Earlier this week three Palestinians, recipients of prestigious Fulbright scholarships to study in the United States, had their visas revoked by the US, preventing them from taking up the scholarships. A fourth, a high-school student on a separate programme, was also stopped. Yet two and a half months ago, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had personally intervened to make sure that the grant winners would be able to go. Why the last-minute change of heart? Bloggers from around the Middle East have a number of theories.

9 August 2008

Uzbekistan: Singing in a problem

Libertad uploads a video of Uzbek schoolchildren singing old war-time Soviet song in a former shore of Aral Sea which is disappearing in the largest environmental catastrophe of the century.

9 August 2008