Archive for
October 27th, 2006
Stories
Dispatch from Uganda
The tenuous peace talks in Juba, Sudan, between the Government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) continue for a third month, with each side accusing the other of non-compliance with the cessation of hostilities agreement. However, complete breakdown of the talks was averted when the Government of Southern Sudan said it was not the LRA, but rather Arabic speaking northern Sudanese militants, who killed 38 civilians in a village near Juba.
Also, the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni briefly traveled to Juba to take part in the peace talks. Ugandan blogger Ngorom remains skeptical of the President's involvement:
Considering the international interest in Sudan as a whole, Museveni is on a mission that has nothing to do with peace talks going on in Juba. The fact that he has been reported to have met the LRA delegation and berated and merely abused them is indicative that his main aim is not peace negotiations. Museveni is searching for some “buttons” to push in order to torpedo the talks and achieve his aims in southern Sudan.
Meanwhile, In An African Minute reports on discussions in Kampala on long term peace and reconciliation. He notes that the Government and civil society have left these crucial questions unanswered:
(i) Is there political will to make national truth and reconciliation a reality? The answer lies only with Museveni. There is reason to be hopeful. He is increasingly interested in his legacy, especially relating to East African unity. He must know that this cannot happen unless his own house is in order. There are also economic reasons. Stability of Southern Sudan, with Juba as its capital, makes for enormous economic opportunity. Anything material going to Juba will surely come from the Mombasa Port via Kampala and Gulu. Uganda loses much needed income if the north is unstable. Even political adversaries like Gulu LC V Chairman Norbert Mao have acknowledged that Museveni has become significantly more open-minded about resolving the northern question. However, it will take a heroic effort for him to transcend the political culture of neo-patrimonialism that has pervaded Uganda.
Ethiopian blogger scoops mainstream media
The story broke at 12.42 pm. An Ethiopian human rights activist, another unnamed Ethiopian and two senior officials from the European Commission had been arrested that morning close to Ethiopia's border with Kenya.
The report from Ethiopian blogger Ethio-Zagol named the activist as Yalemzewd Bekele and the two European officials as:
Bjorn Jonsson, Head of Finance and Contract department of the delegation in Ethiopia, and Enrico Sborgi, who works at the good governance department.
The post, A prominent human rights campaigner arrested, on Ethio-Zagol's blog Seminawork said that police had been trying to arrest Yalemzewd Bekele for a week, in connection with anti-government activities. The two EC officials, it added, were arrested: “for trying to help Yalemzewd escape”.
It was a whole day before the mainstream media woke up to the story at the end of last week. (Here's the BBC version from Friday October 20.) It was another six hours after that journalists managed to confirm the names of the people involved. When the names and other details of the case finally did come out through official channels over the next couple of days, it emerged that almost everything in the original blog post had been accurate.
Ethio-Zagol, one of the most mysterious and well-connected writers in the Ethiopian blogosphere, had scored an old-fashioned scoop over the rest of the mainstream press.
Philippines: Reflections on blogging
Solar power teaches journalism in the premier state university of the country. While he appreciates the potential of blogging in the democratization process, he underscores the need to filter information from the internet:
“These developments can be seen as empowering for people who want to use the Internet to get their message across to global online users. On the other hand, this situation implies that just about anybody can upload Internet content…The deluge of information on the Internet is not necessarily welcome news, as online users are exposed not only to false and misleading data, hoaxes and even fluff.”
His views on the relationship between blogger and journalist:
“It must be stressed that not all blogs can be considered journalistic outputs, in the same way that not all bloggers are journalists….It is imperative therefore for a blogger to know the principles and standards of journalism before calling himself or herself a journalist.”
Torn and Frayed in Manila on why blogging has little impact on Philippine politics:
“I think it will be a long time before blogs manage to muscle their way into the trapo (traditional politics)-dominated world of Philippine politics (or British politics for that matter). The leading Philippine political blogs reach a tiny part of an English-speaking elite (itself a minute fraction of the electorate) and I doubt whether they can even claim to have much of an impact on the political agenda. The many excellent Philippine blogs have made a huge and ever increasing contribution to Philippine intellectual life, but I can’t see blogging winning a Philippine election any time soon.”
China: How blogging has changed my life
The Chinese Blogger Conference will take place in Hanzhou this weekend. To prepare for the conference, the organizers announced a submission of posts on “How blogging has changed my life?”
Keso has reviewed the posts and yesterday announced the best two. The two bloggers, Zola and Xiao Mei, were awarded with two free tickets to the conference.
So how blogging has changed their lives?
Zola: Transformed by Blog: A story of blogger nicknamed Zola
没写Blog之前，认识我的人不会超过1000人。写了几年BLOG后，我估计知道我的名字的人超过了1000人，我也因BLOG认识了许多同龄人和前辈，阅读量大了许多，社交范围也大了许多，Gtalk上的联系人名单都有927人，这927人里有些是向我要过GMAIL邀请的，有些是我在BLOG上公布GTALK联系方式后加上我的，虽然没有多少人找我说话，但我相信，他们中间至少有一半是知道我的名字的人。
Links for Fri, 2006-10
Reflecting on the upcoming presidential election, Blog Politique du Senegal writes (Fr): “In 2000 it was everything but Diouf, in 2007 it's everything except Wade.”
Reminiscing Martiniquan/Guadeloupean group Kassav's song “Zouk la se sel medikaman nou ni” [” Zouk is our only medicine”], France-based Oliviermr2 posts a graphic depicting a couple dancing zouk and writes (Fr): “With how cold it is right now, that would be very welcome.”
Following the murder of five businessmen within two days, Ana Maria Salazar asks why the world has seem to have forgotten about Tijuana. Meanwhile, on YouTube, a disturbing video of young prostitutes in Tijuana's Coahuila district has already attracted over 32,000 views. The comments following the video, predictably, are even more disturbing.
samphors sambo in Cambodia just landed a job as a lecturer. She posts a self-portrait and asks “My sis said: You look cool.My teacher said: You look like gangster lecturer.My Friend asked : Is that how you dress to teach?Another say: Doesn't look like a teacher.And what do you say?”
The latest installment in Geoffrey Philp's “Five Questions” series is an interview with Jamaican novelist Marlon James.
Jeremy Taylor's dislike of the new BBC dramatisation of Dominican novelist Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea leads him to consider, among other things, Rhys's struggle to reconcile “her creole and European selves” and the British reception of her work.
Registan.net notes an apparent coming thaw in relations between the EU and Uzbekistan.
Members of the United States Congress held a hearing yesterday on Tajikistan's upcoming presidential election. James of neweurasia was on hand and reports on the proceedings.
This site is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Please read our attribution policy.
Julius Rocas1 posts 
Georgia Popplewell1521 posts 
Ismail Dhorat7 posts 
Marwa Rakha134 posts 
Filip Stojanovski17 posts 
Richard Wanjohi1 posts 
Michael Hartsell25 posts 
Mohamed ElGohary3 posts 
Steve Sharra21 posts 
Marina Noordin1 posts 
Yazan Badran77 posts 
Rodrigo Peñalba13 posts