Archive for
January 30th, 2006
Stories
Afghan Whispers: Censorship & London Conference
Afghan Lord informs us that there are more and more private TV channels in Afghanistan but he warns about the danger of censorship:
Beside of four private channels like Ariana tv, Tolo tv, Ayna tv, Afghan tv and including one government TV these two is launched outside of the capital. According to the ministry of information and culture more than 25 other private channels are registered to started the gradually the transmission. Last week Afghan TV was accused and punished to 50000 Afghanis equal to 1000 U.S dollar for broadcasting a un-islamic pictures which showed a half naked body of woman in TV. Now the entire channel started censorship.
Another blogger, Nikobad (”good and evil” in Persian) says it is time to say no to censorship. The blogger believes freedom does not create immorality but gives respect to people to take their own decisions. (Link in Persian) He says the commission responsible for censorship operates under direct supervision of Ministry of Culture & Information.
Dialogue 3 says the London conference decision will be useless for Afghan people. He says NGOs are misusing all the money which comes to the country and people's lives have become worse in past two years. (Link in Persian)
Nikobad has a different opinion about conference. This blogger says 70 countries will come together to help Afghanistan's development in next 10 years. This conference shows that startegic decision to collaborate with US and Western countries pays off. He says independence in our age means negotiation with the world not being isolated. (Link in Persian)
Tet in Viet Nam
“Fanning the Lions” by iamblueone (taken at a Tet celebration in San Diego)
Tet - Lunar New Year in Viet Nam - is the most important festival tradition, observed by all Vietnamese, even those abroad. Every family in Viet Nam, whether they have money or not still tries to buy traditional goods such as flowers, sweets and square ricecakes for this special occasion.
A few bloggers around the country are posting their perceptions on the lead up to the Year of the Dog. Royby, a blogger from Ho Chi Minh city mentions that Tet should bring good luck and prosperity for the following year if…your house is overflowing with food, drink
In my blog, I write that the western New Year festival is not the most important for the Vietnamese; the lunar New Year is the one that every Vietnamese celebrates. The preparation for Tet is chaotic, with shopping being the number one priority. Some Hanoians travel as far as Lang Son, on the Viet nam-China border for supplies where goods are dirt cheap and , of course, made in China. Virtual-Doug, an American blogger currently living in Hue, watches as walls are painted and houses are cleaned in preparation for Tet. There is always a race on for builders to finish all construction work before the end of the year to ensure good luck for the occupants.
For a Vietnamese like me, currently living away from home, seeing everyone preparing their houses, shopping for their children and themselves makes me happy with anticipation. The Vietnamese goverment has banned the use of fire crackers, which is sensible as the injury and death associated with them no longer occurs. However, the local authorities in the big cities do organise official fireworks displays which are attended by thousands of families who want to see in the New Year with a bang!
‘Tet' by Vietnamese God
Bahrain: Cartoons and other stuff
Dr. Abdulhadi Khalaf, the Bahraini dissident and member of the first parliament that was dissolved in 1975, now lives in Sweden and lectures at Lund University, posts a report about his Christmas visit to the island. He's not very impressed by how companies and individuals “show their love” and respect to the higher echelons of the political structure in Bahrain, concluding that:
I cannot help wondering who is the PR genius who convinced the three royals that billboards will make them loved? He/she must be a secret agent of the opposition who planted him to mislead the royal troika. And, apparently, he (or she?) has done a good job. For who would in his right mind would believe that he needs billboards to gain love or respect? The royal trio were really taken for an expensive ride. And counter-productive to boot.
Manama Republic has another excellent and insightful piece. This time he sheds a light of an insider on the unfortunate fatal accident that claimed one of the king's sons recently, and raises a very important point: Bahrain seems to specialise on squandering opportunities; opportunities which if used judiciously, could very much endear the Royals to their Bahraini subjects and puts the blame on the kingdom's dysfunctional PR machine. He contrasts Bahrain's missed opportunities with those that Kuwait makes a habit of winning.
Talking about cars, Mahmood posts another couple of vlogs (videoblogs); one about a recent visit with his son to the wildly popular Drag Races at the Bahrain International Circuit, the home of F1 in the Middle East, and in the second he takes you on a tour of his newly re-landscaped garden, in between he discusses the complete ineffectiveness of the Minster of Information who is rumoured to be on the way to be fired in a forthcoming cabinet reshuffle, and just like everyone else in the Arab and Muslim worlds this week, he puts forth his two cents regarding the blaspheming Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet.
(more…)
Malaysia: Happy Chinese New Year
Yesterday was the start of the Year of the Dog based on the Chinese lunar calendar and it's also one of the major celebration in Malaysia.
During the Chinese New Year eve, reunion dinner is a must, such as blogger Passion Flower, who is very excited to celebrate Chinese New Year once again, with the usual reunion dinner on eve and confess that "we Chinese, can eat till our hearts content". After the reunion dinner, blogger May was pondering whether she should try her luck on cards games, as part of the Chinese tradition.
Blogger Slickdrums commended the Chinese New Year celebration as a truly Malaysian festival, not so much a Chinese festival as our culture is a great big harmonised tune of all races. He called upon everyone to celebrate this festival and holidays ala Malaysian.
As for blogger Simon, feeling tired after hours of driving on the Malaysia North-South Expressway, reached destionation safely and relieve that there weren't any major accidents throughout the journey.
While most of us celebrate new year in conventional way through house visiting, The World of Fat 4 managed to post 22 entries on his blog, not reaching his initial target of 40 entries, in his very own way of welcoming the Chinese New Year. Same to minishorts.net as she is on a long break, so she thought it would be a good idea to spruce up her blog, with the help of blogger Edrei. Raymond.CC Blog provides some Feng Shui tips from a Malaysia master Lilian Too while blogger Hock Lai is ready to up the challenge of going-to-be a working adult, as told from the horoscope's perspective.
East-Malaysia Kuching blogger cynical-idealist is back to the hometown again for CNY celebration, her first in two years period while Bubble Bath was feeling homesick at foreign land, however she is equally enjoying there, especially the hype of firecracker celebration which is banned back here in Malaysia.
Sending greeting to friends and relatives is one of the must-do item on CNY too. Together with her family, blogger Jolene set out a different way of wishing Happy Chinese New Years to friends and family, by recording her family Chinese New Year message, albeit in a pirated way while blogger Edison posted a few fireworks photos, as a way of wishing Malaysians a Happy Chinese New Year!
Blogger Justin Wong preferred to celebrate his new year at home watching Astro (a subscription-based multi-channel satellite TV service) and having oranges, rather than following his parents to do house visiting. Un-chinese, that's how he labelled himself.
So, what is your resolution for the Year of Dog if blogger Zyban vows to quit smoking on the Chinese New Year?
We're thankful that the tapestry of Malaysia is interlaced by threads of understanding, sensitivity and love for one another. The cords that bind us together have stood the test of time. In years to come, let us be rich in the many virtues that cut across race and religion, including the virtues of patience, peace, love and goodwill.
Gong Xi Fa Cai to everyone!
Indonesia is discussing about blog
Discussion about Indonesian Blogs
It's always a good thing when bloggers meet and got to discuss what we love: blogging. :)
Photos by Hericz
This time the discussion was quite a formal one. Invited and sponsored by Detikinet.com a part of Detik.com the oldest Indonesian Online News Media that specialized itself on technology, IT and Internet news.
Attended by about 20 bloggers, only a fraction of the total estimated 10,000 Indonesian bloggers, the discussion take placed at Detikinet's office [reminding me of the last GVO summit that take place at Reuters's Headquarter].
The attendees represents almost all Indonesian blogging communities such as Blogfam, Blogbugs, Loenpia, ID-Gmail, Merdeka and Blog Indosiar and after short introduction the discussion lead to two main topics that related to one another.
- How to get more people to blog; which lead to…
- How we can see more blogs with higher standard of posting and whether blog can compete with mainstream media.
Many ideas thrown to the table regarding the above topics. Each community has plan how to introduce blogs to untouched public segments that has big potential to become bloggers.
Priyadi one of the attended was the one who come up with the ideas of providing a definitive source for blogging information in a wiki based site (in Indonesian). The name ‘WikiBlogia” come up for this Indonesian Blog information center. This wiki will be a place where people can go if they wants to know more about what is blog or how to start blogging.
In the same spirit with Priyadi's wiki, Blogfam [a short for Blogger Family] also planned to launch online blog magazine next week.
From the discussion, he also wrote that Indosiar.com blog communities [a part of Indosiar a national TV station] trying for a more proactive roles to socialized blog where they will visit high schools to promote and introduce blog.
Blog Indosiar.com communities also preparing to launch a Blog Awards 2006 this year to popularized blogging to public.
Hericz another attendee represent ID-GMail and Merdeka, posted about a very interesting idea (in Indonesian) that come up at the discussion is a plan to set 2007 as “Indonesian Blog Year”, where one of the target is to get elementary school students to start asking their parents what is blog.
Detik itself, Hericz wrote, has promise to provide a free online banner slot and 5,000 sponsored free CD's about blogging to be distributed.
On it's own publication, Detikinet's Editors Donny BU who himself a blogger and known as activist in the Indonesian IT community addressed the power of blog as people power (in Indonesian) and cited that some of the Indonesian blogs has in-depth quality that can't be match by the mainstream media because the blogger is an expert on the topic.
He also wrote that the big question after public becomes familiar with blogs and its uniqueness would be how to get it to synergize with mainstream media to provide useful and timely information for the benefits of the public.
Photos by Hericz
About the quality of the blog, Benny Dewanto, Blog Indosiar.com Admin mentioned that blog quality closely related with the blogging process itself. The continuous feedback a blog receives and the support from blogging community will contribute to end result of a better blog.
Blog is the right tools for the younger generation. “It's a self actualization media and a place to practice to speak up so everybody can hear their opinions and thoughts.” he added.
Other bloggers that participate at the discussion and blog about it are #direktif (in Indonesian) and Budiyono.net (in Indonesian)
Other interesting thing in the Indonesian Blogosphere this week:
• Angelina Sondakh a member of Indonesian Parliament from Democratic Party and a former Miss Indonesia [2001] start taking on blogging. On her blog Angelina Sondakh's Diary she wrote (in Indonesian) about her love life and her relationship with a fellow parliament member/actors/models Adjie Massaid that receives huge responses.
• Benny Chandra, blogger who live in Surabaya, East Java wrote about his 7 things to celebrate Chinese New Year (in Indonesian) which is a national holiday in Indonesia. His 7 things is rain, parties, cleaning up, Shio [Chinese Zodiac], Ang Pao, oranges and “Gong Xi Fa Chai” that according to him means a wish to be successful and the complete way to say happy new year should be “Xin nian Kuaile” [Happy Chinese New Year].
Links for Mon, 2006-01
Week one of the Young Caucasus Women Project is underway with posts from Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Onnik Krikorian has more notes from the Armenian blogosphere–a roundup of posts on Armenian blogs over the past week.
T-Moor discusses the Kyrgyz president's response to criticism over his appointment of his brother to a government post.
Ben Wheeler says that Tbilisi is making due with energy shortages but that despite government claims to the contrary, the burdens are not evenly distributed between rich and poor.
Peter of neweurasia reports that Turkmenistan has sent more national paraphernalia into space.
the beatroot reports on the tragic collapse of a roof in Katowice, Poland in which over 60 people have died. Their reporting continues with a look at whether or not negligence is to blame for the disaster.
Both Tim's El Salvador Blog and Leftside comment on the outpouring of support at the funeral of former leftist political leader, Schafik Handal. The U.S. - El Salvador Sister Cities blog has an economic and socio-political review of El Salvador during 2005 along with some predictions for this year.
CaribPundit notes with delight that Trinidadian Carnival designer Peter Minshall is back after a two-year absence with a Carnival band called “The Sacred Heart”, reporting in the same post on an incident in southern Trinidad where police attempted to quell a demonstration over poor road conditions using tear gas, mace and rubber bullets. Caribbean Free Photo has images of Minshall from a talk he gave yesterday.
Congo Watch reports that the newly elected Chairman of the AU, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, began his role as “African peace mediator on Sunday, meeting with the prime minister of civil war-divided Ivory Coast.'
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