Stories from 19 May 2009
Caucasus: Mutual self-destruction
Security in the Caucasus and beyond… comments on the tendency of Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian nationalists to selectively use and manipulate history to justify territorial claims on each other as well as to perpetuate ethnic hatred. The specialist blog concludes that its time for the South Caucasus to decide between...
Kuwait: Election History: Four Women Win Parliament Seats
Election fever has swept Kuwait, culminating in a historic and momentous event for the nation! Kuwait was expecting at best one or two women to make it to Parliament but we got four (Dr. Aseel Al-Awadi, Dr. Rola Dashti, Dr. Salwa Al-Jassar and Dr. Masouma Mubarak)! Amer Al-Hilal here with an extra-large 'Special Edition Election' post from Kuwait with reactions from the Kuwaiti blogosphere.
Egypt: President's Grandson Dies
Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak's eldest grandson, Mohammed, has died at a Paris hospital after a brief illness. Bloggers were quick to react to the 13-year-old's death - which was met by silence in the Egyptian official media when the story first broke.
Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations
May 18 marked the 65th anniversary of Sürgün, the 1944 deportations of Crimean Tatars from their homeland in Crimea. J. Otto Pohl writes about the history of the deportations, while Maria Sonevytsky describes the current plight and the attitudes of the Crimean Tatars who have returned to live in Ukraine, and shares her thoughts on the changes that need to take place for the situation to improve.
Honduras: Trusting Congress to Reform Constitution
Some opponents of the proposal to rewrite the Honduran Constitution say that Congress can instead reform the document to meet the current needs. However, Mundo J [es] asks whether citizens trust Congress enough to be able to fix the Constitution.
Honduras: Punta Izopo National Park
Raquel of Un Año Sin Invierno [es] recommends visiting Punta Izopo National Park in Honduras where one can spot crocodiles and take part in other ecotourism activities.
Zambia: Groundbreaking HIV case in court
Priti Patel is following a groundbreaking HIV case in Livingstone, Zambia: “On Wednesday, 20 May, the Livingstone High Court will hear a ground-breaking case determining whether mandatory testing for HIV and discrimination solely on the basis of HIV status is constitutional in Zambia.”
Pakistan: Use of Soical Media Tools In Activism
Tamara Palamakumbura of DigiActive took an interview of Pakistani blogger Dr. Awab Alvi where they discussed the use of social media tools in Pakistan by citizen journalists in reporting the 2009 long march protests.
Malawi: Listen to Malawi Election Bloggers
Malawians are currently voting in the presidential and parliamentary elections. A group of Malawian bloggers were trained by PenPlusBytes, an International Institute of ICT Journalism in collaboration with New Media Institute to monitor and comment on the elections using blogs, twitter and mobile phones. Let's take a look at their blogs, which are hosted on The African Elections Portal. The African Elections Portal provides comprehensive election related information on the various countries in Africa.
The IndiBlogger.in State of the Indian Blogosphere 2009
IndiBlogger.in is a vibrant community of Indian blogs with some excellent features like a topic-wise directory with ranks (IndiRank) and a meme-tracker (IndiVine). I have put together the highlights of some interesting data from the 7895 blogs that the aggregator crawls in an "IndiBlogger.in State of the Indian Blogosphere Dashboard".
Azerbaijan: Nationalism fatigue
Fighting windmills? Take a pill, a new English-language Azerbaijani blog, comments on last weekend's Eurovision Song Contest held in Moscow. The blog laments the nationalism and petty antics displayed by both Armenians and Azeris towards each other during the international music competition.
Japan: Harvest Time In Satoyama
Martin J Frid from Kurashi introduced a video, Harvest Time In Satoyama, which explains the links between satoyama landscapes and food and fuel security. The video is produced by Anne McDonald, Mio Horiuchi, and Toshiya Kai at the United Nations University Kaori Brand at the UNU Media Studio.
South Korea: May 18
May 18 is the 29th anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement. Ask a Korean! translated a review on a movie, May 18, which touches upon the media representation of democracy movement in Korea.
China: Future school safety, but not the past
David Bandurski from China Media Project looked into the education ministry's recent project on “secondary and primary school safety” and noticed that there was no mention at all of the collapse of shoddily constructed schools in last year’s Wenchuan earthquake.
China: The democracy movement since 1989
During the last mother's Day weekend on May 10th, a number of intellectuals in Beijing organized a seminar discussing 20 years of the democracy movement in China. This is a very significant event in breaking the long silence among intellectuals on the June 4th student movement, as well as in...
Egypt: El Korba Annual Festival Allows City's True Beauty to Shine
El Korba, one of the oldest Cairene districts, celebrated its fifth peace festival on Friday. Many Heliopolis and Cairo residents from different districts await this annual event, where they can enjoy themselves and indulge in the beauty of the all time over crowded Heliopolitan district - which is closed to traffic on the day. Entertainment and cultural activities are the order of the day, when peace and diversity meet in one place.
