Archive for
November 8th, 2006
Stories
Cuba and the Internet
There has been a lot of talk lately in the Cuban blogosphere about Cuba's attitude towards the Internet. The reactions appear to be as diverse as the myriad persons concerned with this rather heated issue. Some of this discussion was provoked by a recent report by Reporters without Borders about restrictions and censorship for Cubans accessing the World Wide Web.
Connection to the Internet in Cuba is slow, and Cuban nationals cannot normally ask for the service to be installed at home, with some rare exceptions given usually for work reasons, in which case the employer pays for the service for its employee. Only companies and foreign visitors or residents can hire the service and pay for it, as prices are awfully high, and the quality of the connection is still not good. Yet many average people get access to the World Wide Web at work, mostly IT staff of connected companies, or people subscribed (also for work reasons) to the health network and ISP Infomed, which gives access mainly to many specific web sites such as Wikipedia, free software resources and health-related pages.
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Russia: Covering the “Russian March”
The “Russian March” rally by the Leo Tolstoy monument at Devichye Polye in Moscow. (Photo by LJ user hegtor, taken from the staircase of a 16-storied apartment building nearby. More of hegtor's Nov. 4 photos are here, here, and here.)
A few thousand ultranationalists rallied at Devichye Polye in Moscow Saturday morning. About 1,000 anti-fascist demonstrators counter-rallied at Bolotnaya Square later that day. Both events were heavily guarded by riot police.
Due to the worldwide LJ outage, live blog coverage of the controversial “Russian March” (which took place not just in Moscow but in other Russian cities as well) was scarce. The mainstream media, however, seem to have done even worse. Below is part of a discussion on Russian journalism that took place on the blog of LJ user plushev, a Radio Ekho Moskvy host (RUS):
plushev:
Freedom of Speech
Information blockade of the “Russian March” has been declared on federal TV channels. At least, until the evening news, when they'll tell us how a “provocation by a few nationalists” has failed.
I was watching Vesti-24 channel (at which I'd been lucky [to work]) at 6 pm. The whole newscast - not a word about the marches, only the celebrations all around, and Putin. There was an excellent intro to the video about [the president]: “After laying flowers, Putin answered questions of the cadets.” But on the video, it's the cadets who are answering Putin's questions. This isn't the funnest part, though. As they talk about celebrations, they are using a quote from [Moscow mayor Yuri] Luzhkov, who is speaking about possible disturbances, “all those instigators” and “provocations” - and it totally looks like Luzhkov has gone nuts: everyone's celebrating, and he is talking some nonsense.
China: Best of the blocked
Nominations for this year's Best of the Blogs have been set and votes can be cast now. Here's part of 23 year-old nominee Zeng Jinyan's—her MSN Spaces blog has been blocked in China since late summer—thank you post [zh] from earlier this week:
在旅行中，10月28日我看见德国之声工作人员发给我关于BOBs的电子邮件，才得知自己被提名为记者无疆界特别奖。时间匆忙，当时并没有多注意，觉得中国比我有勇气、有良知又有文笔的人多的是，被提名者肯定不少。甚至怀疑德国之声搞错了，呵呵。
Ethiopian bloggers take on female genital mutilation
The highly sensitive subject of female genital mutilation dominated much of the Ethiopian blogosphere over the past week.
The sudden interest was sparked by news that an Ethiopian man had been jailed for 10 years in the US for aggravated battery and cruelty to children after prosecutors claimed he had used a pair of scissors to cut off his daughter’s clitoris.
The central accusation was that he had been engaging in the traditional practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) that is common in some African cultures including Ethiopia.
It is a subject that rarely appears in the mainstream media – and is seen as too taboo for general discussion.
But Ethiopia's bloggers rose above the embarrassment and squeamishness that often surrounds FGM and came up with a series of passionately thought-out posts and arguments. Their readers also did their bit. The comment-count under each substantial entry was well into double figures.
The Moroccan blogosphere barely acknowledges Saddam Hussein's sentence
Two major events marked the beginning of the week, for the Moroccan bloggers: The Green March and Saddam Hussein's death penalty. But only one event got the most attention. It's the first blog meeting held in Agadir last week end.
The Green March
Moroccan bloggers(Fr) discussed the Green March, and remembered the euphoria that went along with the spectacular event, 31 years ago.
Samir explains why is November the 6th a holiday in Morocco. (more…)
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Links for Wed, 2006-11
Harinjaka is happy that a local French NGO is flying Francia, a local girl in need of specialized surgery, to France for the operation but thinks (Fr): “the best way to help Madagascar is to give Malagasies the means to develop their own thinking and methods, rather than offering them the key to projects that will rarely address real needs … Let's hope that in coming years the country will manage to obtain adequate surgical equipment.”
La Reunion is an overseas department of France situated in the Indian Ocean. Of the department's President, Nassimah Dindar, blogger Pierrot Dupuy writes that (Fr): “she is capable of cynicism and has a propensity for sitting on rules and laws.” He then relates anecdotes that illustrate his point.
Karel McIntosh provides an overview of corporate social responsibility in the Trinidad and Tobago context. And Francomenz asserts that “It’s sad that we may have to actually legislate magnanimity in order for businesses to understand the weight of their corporate responsibility, but in a climate where industry makes no apologies for having narrow interests and wide profit margins, perhaps it’s time to remind them that those margins are made possible primarily because of stakeholders rather than shareholders.“
With a general election coming up in his native St. Lucia, Matthew Hunte muses on Sting's departure from The Police and politicians who overstay their welcome in office.
In ArubaGirl's neck of the woods, the rumour that Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is going to pay a visit to their church fills the pews on Sunday.
Ria Bacon comments on the clash of cultures taking place in the discussions surrounding the ultra-popular “dutty wine” dance since moves associated with the latter allegedly caused the death of a young woman. She also links to a YouTube video and reports that there are 2000+ similar examples to be found on the video-sharing site.
The subject of Geoffrey Philp's latest installment in his “In My Own Words” series is Jamaica-born poet Shara McCallum.
Blogrel notes the passing of Aram Asatryan, a famous Armenian musician.
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