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August 14th, 2008

China: Citizen reporter Zuola carted off

John Kennedy · 08:52

lingua → fr · mk · bn · pt

Less than an hour ago, prominent Chinese citizen blogger was visited at home by authorities and driven off. Fortunately, he had Twitter on hand and was able to get the word out as he was being detained. 23 comments · »»

Maldives: Non-Muslims to be Barred from Citizenship?

Nihan Zafar · 06:40

lingua → bn

On 7 August, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the President of the Maldives, and Asia's longest serving ruler, ratified the amended constitution of the country. It culminated a process of constitutional amendment that lasted four years. One controversial amendment would prevent non-Muslims from becoming citizens of the Maldives, curtailing freedom of religion in the country. 0 comments · »»

Japan: Debate over Google Street View continues

Chris Salzberg · 03:21

Less than two weeks after Google rolled out Street View in Japan, debate continues in the blogs over whether the new service is an appropriate match for Japanese culture and urban residential life. A letter addressed to Google written by IT professional Osamu Higuchi drew a huge reaction last week, the translation of which was picked up abroad in both the U.S. and the U.K., in Japan both in English and in Japanese, and eventually even made its way onto Chinese bulletin boards. While many bloggers in Japan supported sentiments expressed in the letter, others responded with criticism. 12 comments · »»

Video of Colombian refugees attacking a family in Chile raises concerns

Juliana Rincón Parra · 01:43

lingua → pt · mg

A cell phone video where a group of people are seen attacking a family with sticks and stones, and leaving most of them unconscious, has been determined to show 10 Colombian refugees attacking a family of Peruvian residents getting home from a party in the town of Iquique in Chile on August 3rd 2008. This video evidence was used by the District Attorney in processing and imprisoning at least two of the Colombian refugees who were later released. 1 comment · »»

August 13th, 2008

Georgia, Russia: “What's Next?”

Veronica Khokhlova · 08:49

lingua → es · pt

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced the end of the so-called "peace enforcement" operation yesterday. LJ user varfolomeev66 asked this question on his blog: "What's next?" 113 comments · »»

August 12th, 2008

Japan: Ainu recognized as indigenous people

Hanako Tokita · 15:03

lingua → it

On June 6, a couple of months prior to the International Day of the World's Indigenous People, the Japanese Diet passed a resolution to officially recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people. Immediately following the passage of the resolution, a government panel held its first meeting to start working on ... 0 comments · »»

August 10th, 2008

Kuwait: Release Hussein Al Fudalah Now

Abdullatif AlOmar · 00:10

lingua → mk · it

On July 7, Kuwaiti Hussein Al Fudalah left his home to go fishing and was never seen again. A few days later his family got the news that he was detained in neighbouring Iran. And while Kuwait's newspapers are turning a blind eye to Hussein's plight, one Kuwaiti blogger thinks that enough is enough and is running an online campaign to draw more attention to the captured fisherman. 0 comments · »»

August 6th, 2008

iSummit2008: The Japanese-English divide

Chris Salzberg · 23:03

The 2008 iSummit in Sapporo, Japan ended last week after three days of keynotes and lab sessions on open content and open culture. Blogger Shinya Ichinohe (shinyai), who attended the event, reflected on his experiences, noting that while grateful for all that he learned, he also regrets the division which emerged between Japanese-language and English-language tracks. 5 comments · »»

Links about Law

August 20th, 2008

A post from sw at the OpenNet Initiative blog looks at results of tests carried out during the first week of the Olympics and finds that while in fact not many websites have been unblocked for the Games, those that are can now be accessed all throughout Beijing and possibly even the country.

Via TorrentFreak, on the IOC's takedown notice sent not to p2p network The Pirate Bay which was hosting torrents of Olympics footage, but Sweden's Minister of Justice: “We were going to ignore the Olympics, but now we’re loading our cannons. Our weapons of mass distribution are pointed towards China.”

August 19th, 2008

Recently Bhutan government has proposed reduction of maternity leave from 3 months to 45 days only in a draft revision of the labor act. Tshokey in Kuzu Bhutan weblog builds a case against the reduction stating why the leave is important for the newborn and the mother and what the international norms are.

Steve Bandera of Kyiv Scoop writes about Russian citizens and Russian ships in Crimea - as well as about Boris Yeltsin's role in stopping the Crimean separatism in the mid-1990s.

Foreign Notes writes about some of the developments in Ukraine related to the Russian-Georgian conflict.

August 18th, 2008

East Ethnia explains why, according to “several lawyers,” “ICTY judge Alphonse Orie should not preside over the trial of Radovan Karadžić.”

Oleg Kozlovsky writes about the case of Dmitry Soloviev, an opposition activist from Kemerovo region, “accused of ‘inciting hatred, hostility and degrading' the police and FSB by posting several entries in his LiveJournal blog.”

LJ user aillarionov - Andrei Illarionov, former economic policy adviser to Vladimir Putin - has posted a detailed “Timeline of Events in the Russians Invasion & Occupation of Georgia” (Aug. 1 - 16, 2008), sent to him by Gia Jandieri, vice president of the New Economic School - Georgia. Illarionov writes in the intro note (RUS) to the English-language chronicle: “Gia Jandieri […] is a profound thinker and a very decent person. Since the war began, he's been taking notes on what's going on. He has sent some of them to me. The official Russian version is well-known. It's useful to learn a different point of view.”