8 January 2010

Stories from 8 January 2010

Sri Lanka: Rumor Mill At Work

  8 January 2010

“All I can wish for from now on till election-day is to permit all our eligible voters the chance to cast their secret ballot as they wish, and not be coaxed by monetary or illegal acts to go against their true wishes,” comments Serendipity on the upcoming presidential election in...

Barbados: Road Toll Gang

  8 January 2010

Barbados Free Press chastises the police for not clamping down on the Boscobel “Road Toll Gang”, which “stop[s] tourist hired cars by standing in front of them. They inform the drivers that the road is closed, instruct them to drive another way and then demand money for the ‘assistance’.”

Puerto Rico: Three Kings Day

  8 January 2010

Gil the Jenius is disheartened that “on Three Kings Day, the traditional Puerto Rican day for sharing gifts and celebrating the (extended) joy of Christmas, the death toll by murder on My Island this year stands at 19.”

Bahamas, U.S.A.: Same Old Story

  8 January 2010

The Bahamas’ The Gaulin Wife “wasn’t fooled” by the new film Avatar: “The story is clichéd, dangerously so, because while it appears to call into question colonialism’s devastating effects on the colonized, it ultimately reinforces a colonial worldview…”

Haiti: Free & Fair?

  8 January 2010

Haitian blogger Wadner Pierre features a letter from a U.S. Congresswoman who expresses concerns that the island's upcoming elections would be “a set back for Haiti's democratic development if these elections will not be fair and credible.”

Australia: Whaling War of Words

  8 January 2010

The whale hunt seems to be the forgotten war in the public relations hype that surrounds the collision of the Sea Shepherd’s Ady Gil with a Japanese whaler in the Southern Ocean. GV author Kevin Rennie gathers blog reactions from Australia

Egypt: Naga Hammady Massacre

Egyptian bloggers express shock and rage at the killing of Coptic Christians on the eve of their Christmas celebrations in Naga Hammady, in Upper Egypt. An unknown criminal opened his fire randomly on people there after they finished their prayers and were on their way back to their homes.

China: “Avatar” and forced demolition

  8 January 2010

Fauna from ChinaSMACK translated Chinese reaction of the Hollywood movie “Avatar”, some comments related the struggle to the forced eviction and demolition of people's home in development project.

Japan: Witnessing a Tibetan sky burial

  8 January 2010

Blogger Huixing assisted to witnessed a Tibetan sky burial [en] in Litang. At his blog [ja] a sequence of pictures document the traditional funerary practice wherein a human corpse is exposed to birds of prey.

A Global Look at Anti-Corruption Day

  8 January 2010

In preparation for the coming launch of the Technology for Transparency Network, this is the first in a series of posts that will explore transparency, government accountability, and civic engagement through the eyes of the world's bloggers.