Global Voices Online

“The Candy Man” by Roba Assi

With Saddam Hussein's trial and the finding of the Melhis report, political sentiments are  running high in the Jordanian blogosphere. In regards to the uncovering of the Melhis report, Deeb Dweik thinks that there hasn't been enough evidence exposed to implicate the Syrian government, while Natasha Tynes describes the Lebanese as “admirable” because they never fell for the conspiracy theories of the Arab world and immediately  pin-pointing the culprits.

Talk about the Saddam trial has also accelerated due to a controversial cartoon by Jordanian cartoonist Emad Hajjaj that describes the trial as “humiliation to Arabs”. Natasha Tynes disagrees with him and says, “As an Arab, I was not humiliated; quite the contrary I am glad justice is being served”, while Jameed says, “Not only are many of his political cartoons unwitty, but are also shallow and mimic at their deepest level”. Ahmad Humeid wonders, “Where is the disconnect between the social Hajjaj and the Political Hajjaj?” Hareega says, in respect to recent news and American involvement in Arab politics, “It's better be us who change it because if we didn't, one day others will.”

On a local front, Khalaf comments on the National Agenda Committee's announcment that the National Agenda will be posted on the web for citizen's comments, and also describes the Ministry of Agriculture's notification to farmers that losses incurred as a result of bird flu will not be compensated as a “stupid and short sighted decision”. Naseem Tarawneh has an interesting post on “Jordan's mysterious money history”. Lina Ejeilat is asking Jordanians to “change the general façade of Jordanians on the street; the grumpy, cranky, frowning lot!” and asks, “Do you think you can do it?”

Zeid Nasser explains one of the new tech terms- “Web 2.0.”, and Ibrahim Owais will start is joining Advertising/Design Goodness to take care of the Middle Eastern ads section.

Roba Assi comes back from a visit to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and writes about meeting Saudi blogger Farooha of Farah's Sowaleef and her fascination with how different the Saudi culture is. Haitham Sabbah reports that the first cinema is opening in Saudi, but describes it as “funny news” as it is only for women and children and only shows cartoons, and he also writes about movie Paradise Now at the 43rd New York Film Festival.