Archive for
May 24th, 2006

   

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The Week That Was - Bolivian Blogs

A small portrait of the translator Eduardo Avila · 22:27 · Americas

Este artículo también está disponible en español en el sitio Blogs de Bolivia.

Much of Bolivia’s most fertile land lies in the eastern part or Orient of the country. Without a doubt, most of the economic growth has centered around this part of the country, especially in the agricultural sector of Santa Cruz. As is the case in many Latin American countries, the majority of land is often controlled by a minority of people, families and companies. In order to allow more people to become small landowners, President Evo Morales’ government announced a decree that would distribute up to 4.5 million hectares of land, with the majority of this land located in the Orient. Such a move would require a modficiation to the existing National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA for its initials in Spanish) law No. 1715. Even though this new move would look to redistribute land that is not fulfilling a social or economic function, or in other words, land that is not being productive, there are a lot of questions regarding who will exactly benefit and what consequences such an act would bring.

Alvaro Ruiz Navajas wonders in his blog Off Topic, whether the specification that the indigenous populations will have preference and priority to these new lands will leave other non-indigenous, but otherwise poor Bolivians on the outside looking in. President Morales is also looking to add social movements to the list of recipients, which would bring about a new group of landowners, union leaders. There is also a concern regarding the state that will begin to set the price for the land, as it has with interdepartmental transport. In his renamed blog, Business and Politics in Bolivia, Jonathan Olguin provides two aerial images taken 15 years apart, which clearly shows the population expansion in the lowlands of Santa Cruz. This land redistribution will spur even more internal migration and could lead to greater deforestation and possible food shortages.

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Kurdistance: What's Montenegro Got to Do With It?

A small portrait of the translator Deborah Ann Dilley · 18:36 · Middle East & North Africa

And yes, there was the Tina Turner song “What's love got to do with it?” floating in my head in the background when I wrote that title. While the world watched the vote creating an independent Montenegro, the Kurds were watching the same events with mixed feelings.
Hiwa from Hiwa Hopes writes with hope for the new country but in shame as the Kurds have not been able to do the same for themselves:

Montenegro, the lovely coast with 700000 polulation which is less than the population of Slemani is now independent from Serbia, they together were about 10 Million only! Well you could argue its not quantity but quality which makes up a nation and I will definitely agree with you!
Its our fault, its our mistake, its our problem, its our duty, its our need, its our fate, its our laziness, its our cowardness, its our love of mony, love of posts, love of the illusion created by the brits to be called Iraq, its our fear of losing palaces in Slemani, Qala chwalan and Sari Rash, our people are followers like cows the first one to be ME and ancestors.
I feel disgraced and ashamed of myself!

From Holland to Kurdistan, spoke a little more hopefully about the subject:

This case is very important for would-be states like the Kurds. It shows the ambivalent position of the international community towards the formation of new stations.

In 2005 the Kurds voted with 98.8% for independence in South-Kurdistan (Iraqi). The results of this vote were presented to the UN. But they didn’t recognize the importance of this referendum organized by the Kurdish Referendum Movement.

One Kurd said angrily:” I support them too [Montenegro]. To hell with the UN, why doesn't the right of self-determination apply to our 40 million Kurds in our nation?”

The results of this referendum vote weren’t used by the Kurdish parties, who prefer to stay in Iraq. The Kurdish parties say that a Kurdish dream for independence is unrealistic. The current president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani repeatedly called an independent Kurdistan a dream. “No Kurdish officials in Iraq are working for an independent Kurdistan. We are only trying to do something that is possible and reachable,” he said before.

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“Twas an action-packed week for Indian bloggers: financial meltdown, reservation quota and the Da Vinci Code controversy etc. etc.

A small portrait of the translator Kamla Bhatt · 14:44 · South Asia

It has been an interesting and exhausting week for bloggers, and news hounds in India and elsewhere. We had a whole range of subject vying for our attention: the stock market meltdown, the reservation quota issue, and the Da Vinci Code controversy. To relieve the stress, many bloggers penned their thoughts on other subjects like food, books and travel and these posts provide the much needed welcome relief.

If you missed it, you can catch up here about the great Indian stock market meltdown. The markets tanked "big time," and police was put on suicide alert…there was real fear that some stock brokers and investors might harm themselves (commit suicide) after this brutal blood bath. First, here is an analysis from Anand, who sits away far away from India…in UK. Perhaps distance provides some objectivity. Read and discover for yourself. And, Dead Presidents wonders if there is a foreign angle to this stock market crash. Animesh offers his take on the crash, and also offers an interesting piece of advice - preserve a copy of the Times of India for it could end up being a collector's edition. That is how big and nasty this stock market crash was and people are still reeling from the shock.

There has been no dearth of posts about the thorny reservation quota issue. The Indian government will implement a 27% quota reservation from 2007. Here is a sample of what bloggers had say. Hari the Hadron says that the word reservation is a misused one. Read his short post to find out why he subscribes to that view. Arun is not happy with the government's decision and says he has to learn to take it with a pinch of salt. Soumyadip of Cutting the Chai has an interesting take (more…)

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The Global Voices Show #1Podcasts post

Georgia Popplewell · 04:00 · East Asia , Americas

GV podcast badge

Global Voices is pleased to announce the first of our new magazine-style podcasts, which aim to do for online audio what the Global Voices web site does for text blogs — introduce listeners to some of the exciting offerings from podcasters around the world.

In this episode we feature the following podcasts:

Toast Fantastic Podcast (South Africa)
Dixo - Eduardo Arcos (Mexico) - See also Global Voices Regional Editor David Sasaki’s article, “9 Questions for Eduardo Arcos”.
Geoffrey Philp’s Blog Spot (Jamaica) - See also Global Voices author Nicholas Laughlin’s article , “West Indian literature online”
Rabble Podcast Network (Israel/Palestine)
Kazahkstan Stories (Kazakhstan)
Oon Yeoh (Malaysia) - See also Global Voices Regional Editor Preetam Rai’s article , “Malaysian Bloggers Protest Banning of Documentary”.
Radio Free Harvard Cubao (Philippines) - See also Preetam Rai’s article “The Movie ‘Da Vinci Code' in South East Asia”
Mr. Brown (Singapore)

Also featured on this show are two music tracks from Magnatune - “Kubrick’s Tube” by Michael Masley, and “Too Tight” by Falik. Both can be purchased through the Magantune web site.

You can listen to this podcast by clicking here on the “Audio MP3″ icon at the end of this post.

Subscription links for this podcast:
RSS | iTunes | Odeo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Pakistan: Blog-o-Aggregator

A small portrait of the translator Omer Alvie · 01:02 · South Asia

As the readers of some of my posts are well aware, I have complained often about the tedious process of sourcing interesting blog posts to highlight here on GV. One has to spend days, weeks and even months (slight exaggeration) to search for new bloggers to bring into the mix of experienced Pakistani bloggers. I've been choking on the fumes of my trusted rickshaw because I have been riding around so much on the net highways and byways looking for uniquely relevant posts.

In the words of Eddie Izzard, “I am not active researcher. I am a passive researcher, where you let the research come to you”. In order to address my passive research disposition, I had to come up with a solution and quick. It took me eight months to come up with the answer, mainly because my procrastinating nature is evidently much stronger than my passive research side. The solution was a Pakistani Blog Aggregator; a one-stop shop to exhibit all the disparate, active voices in the Pakistani blogosphere.

This concept and the resulting site was developed in partnership with a very dear (blogger) friend, Dr. Awab Alvi (of Teeth Maestro fame) who also recognized the need for such a web site, not because he is passive researcher but because he is an active blogging enthusiast and expert at adapting new blogging techniques, in addition to being a qualified dentist (absolutely true).

So without much further ado, I present to you BLOGGERS.PAKISTAN. It will now finally make it easier for me to peruse the wares of Pakistani Bloggers from around the globe, and highlight the best posts here on GV.

For this week, I bring you a short collection of interesting posts, sourced directly from Bloggers.Pakistan. Windmill warns not to help Amy Bruce; The Glasshouse highlights the rise of an ambitious banker; Fountainhead screams out loud; Tears comments on the members of Pakistan's national assembly; The World highlights Allam Iqbal's commentary on Neitzsche; and finally I break the Da Vinci Code.

Motivated by the launch of Bloggers.Pakistan, I am now ready to take on further challenges in life, like how to procrastinate for much longer periods without anyone noticing.

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