28 August 2011

Stories from 28 August 2011

Saudi Arabia: A Special Twitter Hashtag for the King!

A Saudi hashtag entitled #tal3mrak which literary translates into “May god prolong your life” or “your majesty” if translated into a Western context, took Twitter by storm today. The hashtag came as a surprise to those who never thought Saudi netizens would have the courage to address their authorities via social media.

28 August 2011

Central African Republic: Violence Marks Lead Up to Elections

The Central African Republic is set to hold partial parliamentary elections on September 4, yet tensions have arisen after an opposition party rally was marred with violence. The country is still recovering from violent conflicts that started in the late 1990s. Lova Rakotomalala reports.

28 August 2011

Nepal: A New Prime Minister

United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal reports that Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) leader Dr. Baburam Bhattarai has been elected the 35th Prime Minister of Nepal. The previous...

28 August 2011

Egypt: Omar Soliman Facebook Army

A poll conducted by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces on their Facebook page to see how much support each of the potential Egyptian presidential elections candidates had on the ground yielded 'fishy' results. Here are reactions online after news emerged that a Facebook army was hired to tweak them.

28 August 2011

South Korea: Pop Music Censorship Meets with Strong Opposition

More than 2,600 South Korean pop songs have been censored in the past two years for their "hazardous" lyrics. One entertainment agency, however, filed a lawsuit against the government that deemed its singer’s album as ‘inappropriate for youths’ and won the case. The decision was widely welcomed by Korean public.

28 August 2011

Singapore Elects New President

Dr Tony Tan was elected Singapore's seventh president on August 27 with a winning margin of only 7,269 votes. This was enough to beat the three other candidates in Singapore’s first presidential election in 18 years.

28 August 2011

Cameroon: Deeply homophobic laws

Talking about risk of toughening the law on homosexuality in Cameroon, the bonaberi.com site reveals [fr] that: “While the first paragraph of Section 347-1 of the penal code banned homosexuality,...

28 August 2011

Pakistan: Praying For Shahbaz Taseer

Shahbaz Taseer, the son of slain Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, was kidnapped in the broad day light in Lahore. Many Pakistani netizens are sharing their shock and are joining in prayers for his return; but one wonders, will prayers work for the young Taseer?

28 August 2011