28 December 2006

Stories from 28 December 2006

Trinidad, Guyana, South Africa: Book talk

  28 December 2006

85-year old Guyanese writer Wilson Harris has a new novel and Nobel prize-winning South African novelist Nadine Gordimer's estranged biographer is half-Trinidadian, reports Jeremy Taylor, who also reveals his favourite Caribbean novels of 2006.

Barbados: The other Eid

  28 December 2006

Titlayo discovers the “other” Eid — Eid al-Adha, when “Muslims who can afford to do so sacrifice domestic animals, usually sheep, as a symbol of Ibrahim’s sacrifice.”

Iran:Meeting with Hanieh

  28 December 2006

Mohammad Ali Abtahi,former Vice President and reformist politician,writes in his blog that he and some other political personalities had been invited to Embassy of Palestine in Tehran when Mr.Hanieh,Palestinian Prime Minister,was there. Abtahi says Hanieh praised financial help coming from Iran and Qatar but it seems Bahrain did not help...

Lusosphere: Who? Me? You!? Why not Hugo?

  28 December 2006

TIME Magazine's choice of ‘You’ as the ‘Person of the Year’ has created interesting reactions in Lusophone blogs. The coddling move from the editorial giant towards the new class of content creators among its audience initially seduced the web 2.0 crowds. Many commentators were quick to agree effusively with the...

Ethiopia: angry at Ethiopia-Somali war

  28 December 2006

Arefaynie Fantahun writes about reaction in Addis Ababa to Ethiopia's war against Somalia, “It is not hard to know how people in Addis are angry at the war with Somalia, which they most say is bizarre and senseless. Many say they haven’t the slightest clue what this war is all...

Africa: “local” is the keyword

  28 December 2006

“Why not build the next eBay in Africa, then be “partnered” with for $40 million? Why not build the next PayPal, Google, YouTube or MySpace, when the success of such a venture is sure to realize millions of dollars?,” asks White African.

Argentina: Private Clubs No Longer So Private

  28 December 2006

Ian Mount, who recently published an article in the New York Times about the rise of private clubs in Buenos Aires describes what he calls the “sausage factory” of how the article came about. Unsurprisingly, blogs played a big role.

Colombia: Lack of quorum sinks same-sex partnership bill

  28 December 2006

“So the bill was actually brought to the floor for a vote but some cowardly legislators jumped up and left their seats. Incredibly disappointing if not necessarily surprising.” So says Andres Duque who has been covering the proposed legislation to grant legal privileges to same-sex partnerships. The bill died last...

Argentina: Rare Rock MP3 Blog

  28 December 2006

Fernando Casale introduces the newish MP3 blog Incunables Posludios “whose objective is to rescue rare treasures of Argentine rock with the premise that they should be unattainable in record stores.”

Russia: Kalmyk Deportation

  28 December 2006

Yet another sad anniversary from J. Otto Pohl: “Sixty-three years ago the Stalin regime deported the vast majority of the Kalmyk population from their historic homeland to Siberia.”

Iran:Who is the best Iranian of the year

  28 December 2006

Thanks to Aroosak Kooki blog, I have discovered a link to Iranian.com where 860 people voted for “the best Iranian of the year.” There are very interesting people on the list such as students who protested President Ahmadinejad's visit to Amir Kabir Technical University or Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian...

Iran:Remember Bam

  28 December 2006

Several bloggers remember in their blogs about Bam earthquake,three years after disaster. Shamgahan has published a couple of photos of earthquake . The blogger asks what has been done for Bam population with all the foreign help that government received.The blogger adds, 72 hours after earthquake, government got 8 million...