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Lebanon: Men, Women and Post-War Issues

Moussa Bashir · 17:07 · Middle East & North Africa

The Lebanese blogosphere keeps growing day after day. Rampurple, who is a member of the Lebanese Blogger Forum and who maintains the Lebanese Aggregator in addition to her own blog states that the total number of Lebanese blogs in the aggregator have reached 287 so far. This makes the task of a round up of blogs even harder; nevertheless the following is a sampling of some of these blogs starting with the non political posts.

Maya@NYC and Ana Min Beirut are back with the male-female debate. Maya@NYC started the deliberation like this:

In the morning, the reflection in my bathroom mirror is just a façade. It carries nothing in it. Just shapes, colors, forms. I am not there. I am in someone’s mind, on someone’s thoughts, in someone’s heart. In someone’s eyes. There are men that look you in the eyes. They look at you intensely and make every effort to hear your laugh.

To which Ana Min Beirut replies:

For us men, that experience is much much less philosophical or existential if you want. Of course we do look at the mirror to size up the shape of that ever growing gut and we pat it in and out trying to make it disappear or we can just turn half-way so that the angle is such that we see no gut. Of course we do stand and flex those muscles and say to ourselves: “Damn, those muscles put that Schwarzenegger dude to shame”.

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Iraq: Rare testimony of abuse by the Iraqi Security Forces

Sameer Padania · 16:00 · Middle East & North Africa

Torture in Iraq, says the UN, is “out of control”, and “worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein”. So it was especially timely for Brian Conley at Alive In Baghdad to e-mail us to say that he had an interview with a man who claims to have been beaten and abused by Iraqi security forces in Ramadi:

Click on the image to play video

The man in the video, referred to as “Majed”, talks of being arrested without charge by members of the Iraqi National Guard - now known as the New Iraqi Army - on 13 July 2006. The abuses he alleges include arbitrary detention, persistent beating and kicking, and whipping with an electric cable. He shows the camera the physical scars of his ordeal.

There are some questions about this case that the video interview doesn’t answer: did Majed make a complaint to any official authorities? If he did complain, did the Iraqi Security Forces deny the allegations or agree to investigate them? If the allegations are true, and the perpetrators are identified, is there any prospect that they will be punished? What about the US officer whom Majed refers to?

Nonetheless the alleged maltreatment described in the interview should be enough to make us all sit up and take notice.
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Interview with Paris Marashi, Iranian-American Vlogger

Farid Pouya · 11:24 · Middle East & North Africa

Thanks to Ethan Zuckerman, I discovered Paris Marashi's blog or vlog and her project in Iran. On Paris' vlog we can read and watch very interesting things about Iranian daily life and even tradition.

Farid Pouya: Please tell us about your project and its objectives in Iran?

Paris Marashi: People always ask me what Iran is like. I really wanted to be able to share with people my experiences of what life is like there, as I was tired of how much of the mainstream media was concerned with political/nuclear issues. I wanted to show a real and personal perspective of Iran.

FP: What is the importance of vlogging for you? What is its added value?

PM: Vlogging immediately opened up the things I wanted to share about my life in Iran to the rest of the world. Today I do something; tonight I post it online; tomorrow someone watches it. It is fascinating how it opens up what you are doing to a global audience. Once something is uploaded on the Internet, or on your videoblog, it is at the hands of the world and available for them to see. This is so meaningful and powerful — and I am so grateful that there are these kinds of opportunities in the world for people to learn about each other.
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Philippines: Dengue outbreak in some provinces

Mong Palatino · 10:52 · East Asia

Next to malaria, dengue is an important tropical infectious disease which has claimed many lives in the Philippines. The Department of Health identified the dengue hotspots in the country: Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Central Visayas.

The government also issued an advisory on the symptoms of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever:

“Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever is an acute infectious viral disease usually affecting infants and young children. It is characterized by fever during the initial phase and other symptoms like headache, pain in the eye, joint pain, muscle pain, and other pain, followed by signs of bleeding such as petechiae (red tiny spots on the skin), nosebleeding and gumbleeding.”

While dengue cases continue to rise, the government claims the figure is lower compared to the previous year.

Parallel Universes complains about the “confusing conflicting dengue numbers” provided by the government’s health agency. The doctor-blogger also has important questions about the dengue situation in the country today:
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The Kannada Context: “Gandhigiri”, nADahabba and Everything Else

Sanket Patil · 05:40 · South Asia

Gandhi Jayanti (Gandhi's Birth Anniversary) was observed yesterday in India and elsewhere. It was celebrated the most by the electronic media, of course. What was different this time, however, was that, a lot of them talked about “Gandhigiri”, the new phrase, and supposedly the newly revived way of life. Curiously, a mainstream Hindi movie, which proposes “Gandhigiri”, seems to have made a fairly big impact - Lage Raho Munnabhai. While, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the news channels juxtaposing the movie and Gandhi Jayanti, the narrow notions that the channels project is irritating. No doubt, sensationalism sells. But it does not last. It's a consummable and gets consumed very soon. So, what do you do to counter this? Simple. Wait for another sensational piece of news. Right?

Well, sarcasm aside, Sudarshan writes an outstanding review of the superhit Hindi movie, Lage Raho Munnabhai. The review puts light on the contemporary social and economical context in India and the world, and talks about how the movie raises some important questions and also hints at solutions in a healthy manner. In fact, much healthier a manner than its predecessor (Munnabhai MBBS). This review of the movie is much more intricate than a lot of other one-dimensional reviews that I have read about the same movie. There are many subtle hints in the movie, Sudarshan thinks, that do well. For example, some “Post Modernist” intellectuals always tend to draw a very simplistic and romanticised picture of Gandhi as a non-modern person who supported some superstitions. Here, “Gandhigiri” vehemently opposes kundalis (horoscopes) and such stuff.

He also talks about Ritvik Ghatak's movie Suvarna Rekha. It is a realistic movie that records the changes in the Gandhian values across different eras, without directly bringing in Gandhi anywhere in the screenplay.

Although Lage Raho Munnabhai is a good movie, Sudarshan warns, unless we are discerning enough about the subtle messages, we would fall prey to media driven sensationalism. As the media is already projecting, the Indian common (more…)

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