Archive for
July 10th, 2006
Stories
Afghan Whispers: Insecurity & Racism
A few Afghan bloggers talked about insecurity in country and recent bomb explosions. We look at a few of them.
Insecurity
Afghan Lord talks about daily violence in Afghanistan. The blogger gives us the details about three consecutive days of violenc. He writes,
On 3rd of July, a time bomb killed one student girl and wounding six other girls in Herat University in western Afghanistan. Lately extremists have attacked primary school in southern Afghanistan occasionally to prevent students, especially girl students. On 4th of July, six persons were injured while a mine exploded near the ministry of justice just 200 meter away from the presidential palace. On 5th of July, a suicide attack targeted a guest house in Kandahar province left one person dead and wounded six others.
Dialogue 3 says in these days everybody starts conversation by saying there is no security in Kabul and Taliban are present here. The blogger adds of course western part of Kabul is in much insecure situation (Persian).
For several bloggers violence and bombs are not the only reasons to make them feel insecure. These bloggers talk about racism and discrimination from France to Iran.
Racism
Guftego talks about racism in Europe and France. The blogger writes Afghanistan is suffering from many problems such as high rate of illiteracy but what is about France in Europe (Persian). Why because of racism many children of immigrant are jobless. The blogger says
Second generation afghan should understand racism in France is worse than ethnic problems in Afghanistan. The blogger adds every where we are we should think about our cultural growth. If one day we come back to Afghanistan we should come as an Afghan.
Habib Peyman says 90 percent of Afghans who live in Iran have been humiliated by Iranians. The blogger says Afghan became refugees in Iran because of common language and religion (Persian).
Children in crises and the role of reporters - tell the media what you think
Where is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child? This is the question asked in a poll by AlertNet, the early warning network for humanitarian organisations, to highlight some of the world's forgotten crises.
The results will be featured in a debate about the responsibility of the media to cover “forgotten crises” and how best to do it. Why do some emergencies receive more coverage than others? And do children in risky situations get fair representation in the mainstream media?
The role of bloggers
Global Voices readers and writers are all invited to take part too, as members of the new media landscape of citizen journalism as well as critical consumers of the mainstream media.
The speakers will be in London but anyone with an internet connection can take part too. The debate will be streamed on live audio here, and all those interested can contribute to the discussion via IRC (internet relay chat) using the instructions on the live event internet page.
Both our South Asia editor, Neha Viswanathan and I shall be at the debate putting questions and contributions from the Global Voices community to the panel. The debate is due to start at 1400 UCT/GMT.
This is the first event in a new AlertNet initiative, its Media Bridge which is aimed at improving media coverage of humanitarian crises.
So how would you answer the question “where is the most dangerous place to be a child?”
Russia: Shamil Basayev Dead
Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), announced Monday that Shamil Basayev had been killed shortly after midnight in a truck explosion outside a village in Ingushetia.
Timur Aliev (LJ user timur_aliev), editor-in-chief of the print/online weekly Chechen Society (Chechenskoye Obshchestvo), happened to be in Nazran (the capital of Ingushetia until 2000) last night, and below is the translation of his account (RUS) on how he learned about Basayev's death. Although FSB claims that Russia's most wanted man died as the result of a special operation, some people (and bloggers) doubt it.
Has Basayev Been Killed?
[…]
I was spending the night in Nazran tonight and heard a powerful explosion around midnight, and some 15 minutes later, a few shots - singular, automatic.
In the morning, it turns out there are blockposts on many roads in Nazran - traffic police and some others, unidentifiable, wearing masks - and IDs are being checked. I ask what's going on - they tell me a car with rebels and explosives blew up in Ekazhevo. And around the same time I start getting phone calls from various journalist acquaintances from Moscow - hasn't Basayev been killed? I call my friends from ITAR-TASS in Ingushetia - what have been heard in this regard? Not known yet, they say, two rebels of the four killed cannot be identified yet. All this I tell to my Moscow colleagues. But to myself I think: I'll stay in Ingushetia till the evening and see how the situation develops.
Then I get a call from our newsroom in Grozny - they say the FSB people stopped by, were checking us in relation to something (irrelevant to this post), and one of them said that Basayev had been killed in Ingushetia. He was identified by a missing leg (without a prosthesis, by the way), and it looks like a DNA analysis showed a match. Though it's not clear how is it possible to do such an analysis in a couple hours.
Lebanon: Thorny Internal Political, Social & Economic Issues and Gaza
Bloggers of the Lebanese blogosphere touched upon a wide range of topics this past week. Please bear patience and read on and I assure you that your journey will be rewarding. It is difficult to encompass all that was discussed. But among the posts are topics that dealt with:
- How the failures of the “March 14 Movement” (Cedar Revolution) are leading to advances in the opposing camps, especially in the camp of “the Free Patriotic Movement” of Gen. Aoun.
- Reflection and analysis on the verbal clashes within/between some of the sects in Lebanon.
- Love it-leave it relationship between Lebanon and Lebanese youth.
- The priorities that the politicians have which do not meet the basic needs of the people.
- A heavy attack on ATTAC which is a campaign against the WTO and on WTO too.
- Mistreatment of foreign maids working in Lebanon.
- Surprise predictions concerning the assassination of PM Rafic Hariri
- “Fair and balanced” reporting in the Arab media resulting in less reporting on the missiles that are actually killing the Palestinians everyday.
- An artist’s play on the Cedar, the Lebanese national symbol, to reflect the internal political and factional strife plus the Lebanese infatuation with the world cup.
Links for Mon, 2006-07
Ceci Connolly and Ana Maria Salazar both have thorough updates on Mexico's election that refuses to end. Meanwhile, Juan Luis Hortelano wonders (ES) how many regular readers of ALT1040 and Isopixel are tired of the recent political focus and would prefer a return to the weblogs' “normal content.” Mariano Amartino asks (ES), “has the moment arrived in which we “must” respond to an audience and their expectations?”
Uri Ridelman has launched Tico Food, a food blog with recipes and news on Costa Rican cuisine.
Creative Commons Chile has linked to the English-language presentation given by Claudio Ruiz at iSummit.
Tedfox has pictures from the latest Cosplay (or Costume Play) festival in Singapore.
An interesting conversation has sparked up between Boz, A.M. Mora y Leon, Boli-Nica, and Randy Paul on the extent to which Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales might politically damage Brazil's Lula da Silva as the presidential election approaches.
Melo Bichuetti describes the nexus of Brazil's indigenous population, legal system, and Ministry of Education.
Miguel Centallas writes that the official numbers from Bolivia's Sunday elections are now available. Morir antes que esclavos vivir says the narrow voting on the autonomy referendum reveals a divided country.
The blogger at When in Doubt, Blame the Traffic introduces the Indonesian Jimi Hendrix. “A lifelong disciple of Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Gugun's setlist consists primarily of note for note versions of Jimi and SRV tunes, together with a vocal performance that is on par with the originals. An SRV-style hat and sunglasses completes the image, but this Indonesian guitarist is not a soul-less copycat trundling out benign covers of the original artists. Gugun is the real deal - a virtuoso showman who plays his ass off and never misses a beat, aided by the rest of his trio, who are also very accomplished in their respective support roles.”
Unspun in Jakarta is talking about large US papers cutting back on foreign bureau. The blogger wonders if this would mean more opportunities for local freelancers. Unspun also posts the views of a foreign correspondent who thinks otherwise.
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