Stories from 21 July 2012
Is Tunisia a Banana Republic?
Tunisian netizens react to a Tunisian MP's use of the term "President of the Banana Republic" to refer to interim President Moncef Marzouki, during a heated parliamentary debate.
Morocco: 22-Year-Old Arrested For Posting Cartoons of Prophet Mohammed on Facebook
According to online news magazine eMarrakech, a young Moroccan was arrested on Friday in Casablanca on charges of posting “insulting caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed on Facebook.” The accused, whose name has not been disclosed, has, according to local newspapers, published cartoons depicting the Prophet in the form of different...
Egypt: Cairo's Urban Future
Cairo from Below has recently launched an urban competition as part of an international initiative entitled Our Urban Futures, in which participants should send their proposals about their vision for the future of Cairo. It should be in a visual format, like a short video, cartoon or info-graphic. Submissions deadline...
Iran: Internet influence 43 % with 32.7 million users
The official report on Internet status in Iran by March 2012 indicates the influence rate is 43 percent, with 32.7 million users nationwide, 14.3 millions (18.9 %) connected to GPRS on their cellphones as the most common connection type, 4.5 millions of them connected through broadband ADSL, and about 860 thousands have...
Mauritania: A Journalist Behind Bars
Mauritanian journalist Obeid Ould Amegn, whose health is in bad condition [Ar], is still in the central prison of the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott. Obeid Ould Amegn, a journalist and an anti-slavery human rights activist, is the vice-president of the Club of Activist Journalists. Mauritanian police had arrested him on April 29, in the capital Nouakchott, after he gave a statement to Al Arabiya TV network regarding those arrested following a book-burning protest.
Zambia: New Minimum Wage Pits Employers Against Government
The Statutory Instrument stipulating the minimum wage payable to domestic servants, shop workers and other general workers is arguably one of the most controversial policies of the 10 months old Patriotic Front (PF) government. This issue has divided Zambian netizens on citizen media and social network sites, those for and those against it, in equal measure.
Moldova: Communism – Is It Really Over Now?
On June 12, Moldova’s parliament condemned the Soviet totalitarian communist regime and prohibited the use of the communist symbols, the hammer and sickle. Diana Lungu reports on the online reactions to this important yet belated decision.
Greece: Fake Dyslexia Certificates for Children
In ‘Where Everything Is Possible‘ [el], blogger Theodoris Georgakopoulos criticizes the news that Children's Hospital employees in Athens, Greece, have been involved into issuing fake documents certifying dyslexia. He mainly puts the blame on those parents who labelled their children with a disability to facilitate their final high school exams. @Haris_Nk...
Russia: A Conspiracy Theory Against United Russia in Yaroslavl's LJ Case
Writing in the politics-ru LiveJournal community [ru], user oficer2001 [ru] alleges that pat-index, the blogger at the center of the case in Yaroslavl (where LJ was banned by court order), is actually a United Russia member, raising concerns that the Russian authorities are already using state-sponsored trolls to flood the RuNet with illegal...
Russia, Belarus: Medvedev and the “Belarusian Circus”
A picture says more than a thousand words, the saying goes. An Instagram snapshot that the Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev tweeted as a tacit comment to his visit to Minsk sure does: the "Belarusian Circus."
Wales: The State of Welsh Language Blogging
In the 1990s, William Owen Roberts, a Welsh author and playwright, remarked that writing in Welsh is akin to "writing on the edge of catastrophe". If that is the case, a Welsh language blogger might be half way off the edge already.
Bangladesh: Dhaka Becomes Capital of Islamic Culture
The Bangladesh capital Dhaka has been declared as the capital of Islamic culture along with two other cities by the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (ISESCO). Dhaka is termed as the city of mosques, but many of the centuries old mosques are in dilapidated state.
Tajikistan: Young People Learn to Blog
Matrix [ru], a Central Asian youth TV project focusing on Internet and new technologies, has produced a video [ru] about bloggers in Tajikistan. While few Tajiks presently run blogs, some local organizations teach young people how to start blogging.
Peru: Graffiti Overshadows Coverage of Anti-Mining Protests
During a recent protest march in Lima against the Conga mining project, the monument to the liberator Jose de San Martin was defaced with slogans against the government and the mining project. The media attention, and even in the blogosphere, was more focused on this "graffiti", obscuring the message of the protests.
