Stories from 2 October 2009
Asia and Oceania: Videos of Natural Disaster Aftermath
Citizen uploaded videos of the flooding, earthquakes and tsunamis that in less than a week, have struck several different countries in Oceania, East and Southeast Asia.
Cuba: Hip-Hopper Arrested
Generation Y blogs about the arrest of Cuban hip-hopper, Aldo.
Puerto Rico: A Crisis with Many Names
This has been a very difficult week in Puerto Rico: The governor Luis Fortuño layed-off nearly 17,000 government employees. After the announcement, people immediately mobilized. Comments and analysis on the precarious political, social and economic situation that Puerto Rico is enduring have flooded the blogosphere.
Suriname: Tattoo Art
Paramaribo SPAN pays a visit to artist Pierre Bong A Jan, whose work “sets up a creative dialogue between…painting and tattoos, at a meeting-point of conventional ‘fine’ art and bodily adornment, folklore and science fiction, international youth culture and personal self-expression.”
Trinidad & Tobago: Monstre Sacre
Repeating Islands notes that on the heels of Roman Polanski's arrest, V.S. Naipaul has made the Washington Times‘ list of 5 “sacred monsters—artists who have misbehaved in on a grand scale.”
Barbados: Getting to Know Cozier
Barbados-based blogger B.C. Pires talks to Tony Cozier, “the voice of West Indies cricket”.
Bermuda: Bad Investment
“Government misses the point. Spends millions to save thousands. Shows utter inability to invest our money wisely. Again”: New Onion takes issue with the Bermuda government's subsidizing of the solar electric industry.
Armenia: Weddings
Running around Armenia post photographs and a comprehensive account of a wedding in the South Caucasus country. The blog says that in some ways an Armenian wedding is similar to those in the West, but in other ways not.
Georgia: Festival of Polish Culture
This is Tbilisi Calling announces the start of the first festival of contemporary Polish culture in Georgia. The blog notes that links between the two countries are already established and jokes that many Georgians claim to have Polish blood somewhere in their lineage even if full details are a little...
Guinea: Outrage, Grief After Brutal Massacre
Still under tight police surveillance, Guinea ended several days of official mourning today for those killed in the sudden and shocking massacre of opposition protesters by soldiers on Monday.
China: A birthday bash for the People's Republic
DANWEI puts together newspaper front pages for October 1, 2009 to show how the country's media celebrate PRC 60th birthday.
Is Japan a dying nation?
Mari writes a brief response to the BBC's article “Is Japan a dying nation?” She agrees that the population is shrinking but believes that the country will be reborn in a new and smaller form.
Japan: Panda poo power
Pink Tentacle blogs about the recent Ig Noble Biology prize winner Fumiaki Taguchi's research on Panda poo for disintegrating kitchen waste.
South Korea: Male social behaviour
Ask a Korean! discusses about the male expression of same sex friendship in Korea, which is quite different from western culture.
Japan: Reactions to Tokyo's Olympic Bid (Part One)
What does the Japanese blogosphere and Twitterverse have to say about Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Olympics? Part One introduces some reactions before the announcements at the bid ceremony on October 2nd.
Typhoon Ketsana batters Southeast Asia
Typhoon Ketsana struck several Southeast Asian countries leaving hundreds dead and millions homeless. It triggered the worst flooding in the Philippines which affected 3 million people as of this writing. It displaced hundreds of thousands of villagers in central Vietnam, Cambodia and southern Laos.
Ukraine: Broken Promises and the Presidential Election
Ukraine's presidential election is scheduled for Jan. 17, 2010, and there's no shortage of posts on pre-election politics on Ukrainian blogs. Bloggers who exhibit genuine trust in the nation's politicians are somewhat hard to find, however. Instead, there is plenty of cynicism.
Azerbaijan: Hikmat Hajizade
Hikmat Hajizade, father of detained video blogger Adnan Hajizade, speaks about his son while the Frontline Club looks at his own past as a successful academic and diplomat.
Indonesia: Post quake death toll worsens
The earthquake death toll in Indonesia surged past 1,000 while thousands more are feared dead or missing. Indonesian microbloggers are using the internet to help in the relief and rescue efforts.
Morocco: From Censorship to Seizure
The Moroccan Interior Ministry has decided to sue Arabic-language daily paper Akhbar Al Youm for publishing a cartoon lampooning the newly wedded Prince Moulay Ismail. Issues of the magazine have also been seized. Bloggers react to these latest developments in this post.
