1 September 2005

Stories from 1 September 2005

Singapore metablog Tomorrow.sg and a discussion on Linking Policies

  1 September 2005

Lately there has been a flurry of debates online about Singapore metablog, Tomorrow.sg‘s linking policy, and its policy of not asking for permission before linking people's blog posts. Some of the debates go right to the heart of issues like whether it is an accepted practice to link to blogs...

Uzbekistan: Orphanage horrors

  1 September 2005

Registan guest-blogger David Walther's eyewitness account of starvation, abuse and deprivation in Uzbekistan government orphanages makes harrowing reading, and backs up his argument for an embargo on Uzbek cotton.

Kenya: Catholic insurance

  1 September 2005

Bankelele flags a financial services tidbit with a twist; the Nairobi Catholic Church has been licensed to start an insurance company.

Sudan: Student tortured

  1 September 2005

The Passion of the Present reports on the kidnapping and torture of a student at Sudan's Alahlia University by security guards and student militia members after he called for the re-establishment of the student union.

Ethiopia: Angry of Addis Ababa

  1 September 2005

Meskel Square reports on a 13,287-word letter to the state-owned Ethiopian Herald newspaper from the Ethiopia's prime minister, wondering if this is the longest ever letter-to-the-editor ever.

Mama Africa Film Fest

  1 September 2005

Black Looks misses London, as she casts a wistful eye over the line-up for the British Film Institute's Mama Africa Film Fest, which aims to “champion the growing strength of African female actors and film-makers”.

Freedom of Speech News

  1 September 2005

The latest developments on threats to Freedom of Speech over the past week. With Reporters sans frontières China: Two cyber-dissidents put under surveillance during UN human rights visit The Chinese authorities put Liu Di, a young Internet user who was imprisoned for a year in 2002-2003, and Liu Xiaobo, a...

Sept 2, 2005: International Blogging for Disaster Relief Day

  1 September 2005

Tomorrow, Friday September 2, is . Why? Because it needs to be done. If you have a blog, here's what you can do. Sometime tomorrow, take a break from whatever it is you usually blog about, and post something constructive related to disaster relief. You can keep it topical to your blog; or, you can just dedicate blog space to listing websites where people can donate money (maybe even challenge people to match your donation). Or, share a story of a hurricane survivor. This goes for photo bloggers, podcasters and video bloggers as well - there's no reason why this should be text-only. Though this is inspired by Hurricane Katrina, the goal is to deal with disaster relief efforts worldwide, posting about a disaster relevant to your community. Post lists of supplies needed for victims of yesterday's stampede in Baghdad. Post an update on how your family is recovering from the tsunami. Post multi-lingual resources for African families in Paris displaced by the recent apartment fires. Blog about whatever you choose, as long as it supports some kind of disaster assistance in a constructive way. When you've posted to your blog, be sure to include a link to this Technorati tag: . That way, when people follow that link, they'll be able to find a collection of all relevant postings published throughout the blogosphere. There will also be an RSS feed on that page, which can be used to aggregate all of the postings and display them on a single webpage. I plan to aggregate them on my Katrina Aftermath blog; you can do the same. (Later, I'll post a javascript on my Katrina blog to make it easy for anyone to do this - more soon.) One collection of disaster relief resources, countless bloggers. That's the power of the blogosphere. So please join me tomorrow and participate in . Take a break from whatever it is you normally blog about - even if it's just for one post - and give back to the Net. -andy