Stories from 19 June 2009
Egypt: American High School Students Visit Farm
From Egypt, Maryanne Stroud Gabbani writes about the two-week visit of a group of California secondary school students to her farm to learn more about real life. “They've stayed at my farm in the midst of Egyptian farmers and visited some of the less touristy sites of Cairo […] two...
Israel: Journalism 101
At Checkpoint Jerusalem, Dion Nissenbaum discusses what he describes as Israeli Journalism 101 in this post.
Jordan: Hands off private schools
At Creative Jordan, Yusuf Mansur argues in favour of private schools. “Jordanian policy makers, lacking the resources to promote world-class educational systems, have focused their attention on overregulating the private schooling system,” he writes.
Egypt: Weekend Digressing
Egyptian blogger Nermeena has been away from the Internet for a while and shares tidbits from her life in this post, including the latest book she is reading.
Bahrain/Tunisia: Censors of the Net
Sesawe‘s blog publishes an English translation of an article which appeared in France's Le Monde 2, entitled Censors of the Net, written by Claire Ulrich, which focuses on censorship, including that in Bahrain and Tunisia, to name a few.
Mauritania: A Page from Khomeini's Playbook
Mauritanian Nasser Weddady and American Jesse Sage, who direct the HAMSA civil rights initiative of the American Islamic Congress share their thoughts on developments in Iran in this post, entitled “Revolution: Taking a Page from Khomeini's Playbook.”
Egypt: Sign Avaaz Settlements Petition
Egyptian Dalia Ziada announces that she has just signed an Avvaz petition, which supports US president Barack Obama's call to stop the building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territories. So far, 179,699 people have signed the petition.
Arab World: Berkman Launches New Arab Blog Study
Harvard University's Berkman Centre for Internet and Society has released a study of the Arabic blogosphere entitled Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere. About 35,000 active blogs were covered. “The goal for the study was to produce a baseline assessment of the networked public sphere in the Arab Middle East, and its...
Palestine: Finding Lost Relatives Online
Palestinian Mona, who lives in Canada, discusses how the Internet is being used to search for long lost relatives.
Egypt: A New Presidential Candidate in the Making
In September 2005 Ayman Nour of Al Ghad Party and No'man Goma'a of New Wafd Party nominated themselves against President Hosni Mubarak. Nour was charged with fraud and Goma'a was accused of insanity! Since 2000, Gamal Hosni Mubarak has the been groomed to be his father's successor as the next president with no apparent opponent. Today, rumor has it that Omar Soliman, Chief of The Egyptian General Intelligence Services, is an eligible presidential candidate.
Iran: Reformist and activist bloggers arrested
As demonstrations continue in Iran against the results of the June 12 presidential elections, authorities continue their clampdown on activists, journalists and bloggers. Hamid Tehrani reviews the Iranian blogosphere, where several reports of blogger arrests are being circulated.
Tanzania: Blogger arrested for publishing manipulated images of the president
The alleged owner and blogger of the blog Ze Utamu (zeutamu.com) has been arrested in Tanzania. The alleged arrest has been in discussed at Jamii Forum, a popular Tanzanian Online Forum, since yesterday. And today, Swahili Time has posted the news along with a picture of the arrested blogger, Malecela...
Egypt: Between the Swine Flu and Approaching Plague
Terror and panic have gripped many Egyptians after the first case of H1N1 influenza, or Swine Flu, was detected in the country. The panic had actually started before the virus hit, prompting the Egyptian government to cull pigs. Bloggers are also voicing their concerns about the spread of the deadly plague in a neighbouring Libyan town.
Nepal: The Musicians
Kathmandu Blogger writes about the unsung heroes of Nepali Weddings, the musicians.
Pakistan: Karachi Without Power
On the 17th of June Karachi witnessed the worst power breakdown which lasted about one day. Raja Islam at Karachi Metblogs liveblogged the power outage. Doodh Patti posts pictures showing some people sleeping on pavement outside their residences to beat the heat.
Bangladesh: Back From No Wo/man's Land
Renowned photojournalist and blogger Shahidul Alam, who was arrested by Indian border guards first and later by Bangladesh police, has been released on bail and has written in his blog about the incident.
India: Doing Something For The Country
Parth Dave at The Indian World introduces an website titled One Letter A Week (ONLW) which aims at addressing socio-economic or cultural issues of India by encouraging readers to write a letter each week to the respective authorities and publish them in the site.
Iran:'Life imitates art’
It's all connected writes about Iran’s Opposition and Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (The Story of Zahhak and Kaveh).
Confederation Cup: Egypt beats World Champions Italy in Football Victory
Egypt moved closer to reaching the semi-finals of the Confederation Cup after a famous 1-0 win over Italy, the world champions. After the match, many Egyptians took to the streets loudly beeping their car horns at midnight. Streets became crowded after traffic was light during the match. Young men were seen hanging from the windows of moving cars, cheering and waving Egyptian flags. Tarek Amr reviews messages on Twitter during and after the match.
Pakistan: Enriching Google Map Data
Pro Pakistani informs that “Pakistani netizens are posting more localized information and data to the Google’s ‘map maker’ than the web users of any of the 160 countries”.
Iran: Khamenei on the election
Change for Iran tweeted that Iranian Leader, Ali Khamanei today said “people should not go to streets killing Innocent basij & police troops, it will have a bad outcome if it continues.” and “defeated candidates should accept the outcome of election and by calling people in streets, they help ennemies.”
