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Ukraine, Russia: Dreams of a Biased Person

Veronica Khokhlova · 17:57 · Eastern & Central Europe

Ukrainian LJ user parasolya may admit to her anti-Russian bias a bit too eagerly, but all she wants is for Ukraine to be on friendly - and neutral - terms with Russia, a democratic variation of the USSR, sort of (UKR):

I've borrowed a Russia [photo] album at work, they were being distributed at one of the seminars. Published by [Russian state-owned news agency] RIA Novisti.

You are aware of my attitude toward Russia - to say that I don't like this country is to not say all of it. I am very biased against the country and its citizens.

But this album was so beautifully done that it practically made me want to go to Russia on vacation.

I know that there's nothing except these album pictures that I find attractive about Russia.

And yet, as I was looking through the album, I kept dreaming: there's no more tension between Russia and its neighbors. Russians come to Ukraine, Ukrainians go to Russia on holidays. All very polite, as in European countries. Democracy has won in our countries, everyone has decent incomes, no one is placing the blame on the neighbors. Russia sells gas to Ukraine at world prices, and it doesn't affect the Ukrainian economy because it can stand the competition. We've joined NATO all together :). No, I'm not dreaming this far.

But I do dream of being able to come to Russia and, first, not to be asked to show regstration stamp; second, not to be bothered about Crimea, teased about salo, Ukrainian girls selling their bodies on Russian roads, or gastarbeiters (Ukrainian or other), not to be told that Ukraine is a small piece of Russia and that soon “you'll crawl back to us on your knees” […].

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Indonesia: World Cup Fever & Minister Blog

A. Fatih Syuhud · 15:42 · East Asia

Despite Indonesia never reaches final round of Football/Soccer World Cup post-1945 of its independence, soccer has always been the most favorite sports ever in the country. So, no wonder then if majority of Indonesian bloggers give one or two postings dedicated to the biggest event on earth now being held in Germany.

Iwan who gives a tip for those who have been busy with their works on how to keep update with the event without television. While Agus Setiawan who happens to be doing research in Germany right now gives a “live” coverage from Germany for his faithful blog readers. He concludes his posting by saying:

One thing that I feel a bit at odd is about the climate. Before the World Cup, it's a bit cloudy, rainy and cold. Strangely, a day before the event was started, the climate in Germany totally changed toward the better up till now. As though the nature loves the big event also. Cloud, rain and cold seem to love soccer game just like most of German population and do not want to disturb what the Germans and the world enjoy watching.

Some Indonesian IT-geeks who used to post only IT-related issued dont want to be left behind either. Hianoto, for example, make a long posting (in Bahasa Indonesia) about how to enjoy watching the World Cup without friends.

Minister of Defence Blog
Last but the least, out of topic, I'd like to introduce a new blog owned by Indonesia Defence Minister, Juwono Sudarsono here (via Priyadi and Enda). It's a good news for Indonesian blogger and he's the first minister to have a blog. A commenter named Anis in Priyadi's blog jokingly said that Juwono could be the strongest candidate to be the Defence Minister of Indonesia Blog.

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Arabisc: The Arabic Bloggers Ken, Media, Anti-Blogging and the World Cup

Haitham Sabbah · 15:37 · Middle East & North Africa

Blogging nightmare…

Starting with hot news this week, it looks that the Egyptian blogsphere is going to have more hard time in the near future.

Following Aljazeera's one hour TV documentary (Arabic) about blogging and its role in the political scene in the Egyptian street, one of the oldest, biggest and most read newspapers in Egypt, published a long report about the bloggers. The article was published at besara7a blog and is titled “The Bloggers Declares Revolution on the Internet: A sociological Study on Bloggers and their Blogs” (Arabic).

The alarming news comes from 43arb and Jarelkamar. Tadwen blog sums up the story as following:

تتناقل بعض المدونات المصرية مؤخرا خبر إنشاء مكتب خاص بما عبروا عنه بـ”مكافحة التدوين”، ضمن مكاتب أمن الدولة في مصر..
ويؤكد بعضها أن تهما مثل “تحريض الرأي العام”، أو “سب رئيس الجمهورية”، أو “الدعاية للتظاهر بدون تصريح” قد توجه إلى المدونين ضمن هذه المكافحة..

Some Egyptian blogs are circulating recent news about the establishment of a special office called “anti-blogging”, within the State Security Offices in Egypt.
The blogs confirmed that charges such as “inciting public opinion”, “insulting the President” or “propaganda for demonstration without a permit”, may be directed to bloggers.

Now, that is scary! We can understand the need for “anti-terrorism force”, but “anti-blogging” security office?! Wow!
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The Discussion Around the “Argentinean Country Brand”

Jorge Gobbi · 11:53 · Americas

A few days ago, Argentinean authorities presented the logo that will identify the “Argentina country brand”. The news created debate in many blogs. The most extensive of them took place at Blog de Viajes, a blog I've keeping for almost three years, in this entry (in spanish). In order to make it accessible to the Global Voices public, I will revise some of the most common positions in the debate. Let's see some of them:

1) The logo is horrible and doesn't represent anything.
2) The logo is too general and doesn't draw attention.
3) The logo is a good example of synthesis that some people can't appreciate.
4) The debate is not well established; we're not talking about a logo, but about a whole system of visual identity.

Note: I use “logo” to refer to what, up to now, is the development of the country brand that has been shown. If you want to refer to it as “isologo”, that's fine, but I'm not trying to simplify this issue.

Let's discuss point by point. The first point is more interesting than it seems. While it's true that you can't judge a logo from a “pretty/ugly” point of view, it's interesting, in social terms, to see that these kind of designs have many difficulties to sell outside the proffesional market. It grabs my attention, besides, that in the communicational planning of the country brand something rather basic is not taken into consideration: how will non-specialists see it? Since this development was paid for with everyone's taxes, to say “I use public funds, but I don't recognize the public's right to judge the work” sounds, at least, not too political.

The second point touches another topic. If the logo really represents what it claims to represent. That is, “dynamism, change, transformation, elegance, modernity, innovation and technology”. Besides, many people argued why do these atributes represent Argentina. Whether we like it or not, this isn't a country that stands out, at least not in the last two decades, for its technologic contributions. And better not talk about innovation. Should more realistic attributes have been chosen, or maybe is it more important to emphasize what we want to be?

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Tamil: Blog aggregators, education, middle east and manslaughter

Bharat · 00:58 · Middle East & North Africa , South Asia

Tamil blogs have risen in a big way since they started showing up some years back. Similar to other blog spheres, collaborative blogs were started, blog aggregators came into existence, tag teasings were done and podcasts were made( [link 1] [link 2] [link3]. Thamizmanam, an automated blog aggregator tracks approximately 1000 tamil blogs and its statistics say that there are approximately 100 - 150 posts made everyday which attract anywhere between 750 - 1000 comments. Though the number of posts is not very significant compared to the bigger picture, the average readership as reflected by the healthy post - comment ratio is very good. Another automated aggregator is Thenkoodu. Even mainstream aggregators like bloglines and technorati support tamil blogs. Gilli is an aggregator that features posts hand-picked by a group of very efficient bloggers who religiously keep track of tamil blogs from various parts of the world. Kasi, in a guest column for gilli, traces the evolution of tamil blogs till date. Tamilblogs has a directory of tamil blogs sorted alphabetically in tamil. With quite a significant presence of the language in the blog world, it's a wonder that google does not offer a tamil search option with blogsearch.

The recent elections in Tamil Nadu saw the political party DMK rise to power. One of their major political moves was a law that made tamil a mandatory language in schools that fall under the Tamil Nadu State board stream. Badri shares his thoughts on the issue. Things can get tricky when translations for scientific terms/processes are made. New words are born in tamil with brisk neologism, but it is indeed a challenge to first coin tamil equivalents for the existing terms and then to keep pace with the new ones. Penetration and web presence don't help much like the english language to spread new words. Selvaraj has a couple of posts on ““An Introduction to Chemical Engineering”” which primarily distinguishes chemistry from chemical engineering. He also discusses some chemical engineering processes and provides translations to some key words used in the field. It shows that technical studies entirely in tamil are difficult but not impossible.

Football is on and the tamil blog world is no exception. kaalpanthu2006 is a dedicated blog on the Football WorldCup 2006. Liveblogging of the matches, post-match analysis and predictions can be found here. All in tamil.

The Middle East too has a small poulation blogging in tamil. Narayanan shares his experiences in Dubai while on a business trip, Dubaivasi invites people to a blood donation drive , Azadak sheds some light on skyrocketing real estate prices in Dubai and Raja has a poem depicting his love for his motherland.

The Sri Lankan tamil blog world seems to be sober.
[Warning:Disturbing images]
Jeyaraj talks about the killing of a family in Vankalai by Sri Lankan Army soldiers ending the post with a couplet from Thirukkural. Moorthy Martin, his wife, son and daughter were killed by a group identified as Sri Lankan Army personnel by eye-witnesses. It is alleged that Mary, Martin's wife was raped and all the four were subject to brutal torture. koluvithaluvi mourns the death and Karthik has a poem in tribute. (The story in english and a follow up)

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Landing at the Iraqi Blogodrome

Salam Adil · 00:33 · Middle East & North Africa

Today I will concentrate on politics. And before you switch off, let me point out that when it comes to politics, Iraqi bloggers will both surprise and entertain and certainly not bore. So on with the show.

If you read no other post this week read these

Morbid Smile posts the heartrending story of how ignorance and alcohol brought tragedy to a nearby family.

The father, A. who was the driver who used to drive me and my sister to college everyday for the last year, made a terrible mistake … He was a drunkard man and we doubted if he had any education. He's got the most adorable the cutest two little daughters, his wife was very nice and lovely woman but he didn't know how to keep that treasure for good! …

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