2 October 2009

Stories from 2 October 2009

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.

2 October 2009

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...

2 October 2009

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...

2 October 2009

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...

2 October 2009

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...

2 October 2009

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...

2 October 2009

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...

2 October 2009

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.

2 October 2009

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.

2 October 2009

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.

2 October 2009

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.

2 October 2009

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.

2 October 2009

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.

2 October 2009