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November 12th, 2006

   

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Venezuelan Oil is Red

Iria Puyosa · 17:11 · Americas

During the last week, Venezuelan’s main topic of political conversation has been the new, fully red, fully chavista, PDVSA. The President of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, Rafael Ramírez, called for absolute support from all workers—from top management to line of production laborers—to President Chávez’ campaign for reelection. Ramírez’ speech was delivered in a PDVSA top level meeting, and was presented to the public by the main opposition campaign team by means of a filtered video. (The video is available at YouTube, part 1 and part 2)

The most typical reaction among Venezuelan bloggers has been to criticize Ramírez for breaking the separation between state and government (and political party) by compelling state workers to behave as activists for the President’s party.

Periodismo de Paz fully articulates that type of position,

Y lamentablemente, parece que de verdad me merezco unos carajazos por creer que Estado y Gobierno son dos cosas distintas. Y que no hace falta que alguien diga “Venezuela es de todos” sino que debe hacerse de todos, porque de los pobres todavía no es.

Unfortunately, it seems that I deserve to be punished for believing that the State and the government are two different things. And, also, for believing that there is no need to say “Venezuela is for all” but for making it true, since it still is not for the poor.

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China: Where democracy lies

A small portrait of the translator John Kennedy · 13:25 · East Asia

With the election of Beijing Communists to the Party's National People's Congress (NPC) having taken place this past Wednesday, here's but a handful of the thousands of follow-up blog posts containing words such as democracy, election, revolution and more:

“If I had the right to elect the deputies to the National People's Congress,” says Bokee blogger Ren Binju fresh back from the polls, I sure wouldn't have chosen any of them:

假如我有选举全国人大代表的权利，我一定多选几位像梁漱溟这样的人，即使毛主席对他”多关心关心农民”的提案大发雷霆，说他不懂”大仁政和小仁政之关系”的时候，他毅然决定找毛主席”当面争辩”，大有”据理力争，死而无憾”的英雄气概，他是”否定文革第一人”，中国缺少的就是这样的人大代表。

If I had the right to elect the deputies to the National People's Congress, I'd definitely choose more people like Liang Shuming, despite Chairman Mao's disagreement with his ‘care more, much more, for the peasants'. When Mao said Liang didn't know the difference between a ‘big benevolent government' and a 'small benevolent government', without hesitation he decided to go find Chairman Mao for a face-to-face debate, to speak reason to him or die trying. So brave, he was the the first to disavow the revolution. What China lacks is this kind of NPC representative.

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The DW Best of Blogs Awards

Rezwan · 04:05 · Egypt , Russia

Had I not read Hoder's blog today I would have definitely missed the Deutsche Welle Best of the Blogs awards 2006 ceremony held in the Museum for Communication Berlin a few hours ago. I knew about the awards but I was unaware of the time and place and whether it was open to public.

Hossein Derakhshan speakingAnd there I was listening to 12 of the jurists (Manal from Egypt was absent) and a few more guests, who are blog legends in their parts of the world and also internationally known. It was really a learning experience hearing different views of the speakers who represented bloggers from different languages, nations and communities. The juries explained why they have chosen the particular blogs from each category. There was also a open to all question and answer session.

Internet users from around the world suggested over 5,500 blogs in 10 languages to the contest, more than twice as many last year. The international jury of bloggers, independent journalists and media experts created a shortlist of 10 nominees in each of the contest's 15 categories. The nominees were then opened to the public's critical eye for three weeks of voting.

The competition's Best Weblog awards went to an American blog, the Sunlight Foundation. PaidContent.org received the award for Best English Weblog.

Please click here for the complete list of (more…)

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