20 January 2009

Stories from 20 January 2009

MENA: Reactions to Obama's Inauguration

Today marked an historic moment in United States history as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President. While Arab support of Obama has been waning over the past few months following the selection of his cabinet and his silence over Israel's attacks on Gaza, across the Middle East and North Africa bloggers still have plenty to say, reports Jillian York.

20 January 2009

The Balkans: “Whose Is This Song?”

Recently several Macedonian bloggers published the documentary “Whose Is This Song” by a Bulgarian director Adela Peeva on their blogs and started discussing the story. The documentary was filmed as an idea that the director got during a dinner in Istanbul with several friends (a Macedonian, a Serb, a Greek and a Turk), when all of them said that the song playing in the background was from their country.

20 January 2009

Russia, Ukraine: Gas and Soccer

LJ user dobrokhotov wrote this (RUS) on Jan. 18 about the Russian-Ukrainian gas deal: “What nonsense, it's been, like, two days already since they agreed on the price of gas,...

20 January 2009

Sri Lanka: Lack of Tamil Political Voices

Valkyrie writes at Groundviews: “The fundamental crisis of Tamil politics (in Sri Lanka) today is that there is no Tamil political group (except Tamil politico-armed groups) that advocates for the...

20 January 2009

Lessons From Gaza

A Bengali In TO summarizes some lessons from the recent Gaza conflict and says: “The Muslim world has a surplus of martyrs and a deficit of scholars.”

20 January 2009

Pakistan: Walking on Burning Coal

All Things Pakistan criticizes an inhuman tribal practice in Pakistan in which a person has to walk on burning coal to prove innocence.

20 January 2009

Africa: Banking on African Women

“Women own nearly half of all enterprises in Africa, but have the hardest time securing credit,” writes Guest Author on AfricanLoft discussing African women and entrepreneurship.

20 January 2009

Iran: A popular sport program under fire

Several news sites and blogs reported that '90’ ,a very popular sport program is under fire by government because it criticised Iranian football authorities. Jomhour, an Iran based blogger, says[fa]...

20 January 2009

Turkey: Hrant Dink Memorial Video

mondoDesperado posts video of yesterday's memorial to commemorate the second anniversary of the murder of Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor and journalist, Hrant Dink, outside his office in Istanbul, Turkey.

20 January 2009

Taiwan: Cross-Strait viewpoints

A-gu translates and summarises the key points of a Strait Exchange Foundation forum. The Far-Eastern Sweet Potato criticises a Bloomberg report on cross-strait security.

20 January 2009