19 June 2009

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...

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

Pakistan: Karachi Without Power

  19 June 2009

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

  19 June 2009

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

  19 June 2009

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.

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

  19 June 2009

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.”

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