Archive for
December 29th, 2006

   

Stories

Kazakhstan: where are we going to be in 15 years?

A small portrait of the translator Leila Tanayeva · 20:10 · Central Asia & Caucasus

15 years ago we came into existence. I mean - we existed before, but no one knew. 15 years ago after the 1991 August putsch in Moscow, and followed collapse of the Soviet Union, new Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, came into existence for the rest of the world (ok, for some it still exists only in Borat's film!).

15 years ago we were different: we had huge lines to the shops that had nothing to sell, we experienced electricity black-outs, lack of heating, state monopoly on everything and huge inflation.

15 years have changed us: we now have polite salespeople in Gucci stores, we go to corporate parties with our colleagues from multinationals, and we travel around the world (that is when we are asked about Borat's film!).

What are we going to become in 15 years? It is difficult to give a meaningful forecast even for the nearest future. Authoritarian government, oil-dependent economy, rising nationalism and factors as unexpected as the death of a Turkmen president over the border - complicate the forecast.

James of neweurasia had an idea of a cross-blog survey of what is the region going to look like in 15 years. He decided to compile the stories, analysis and surveys by English-language bloggers interested in the region, and by Russian-language local bloggers. Five different people from Kazakhstan wrote their essays about the country's future - fun, fantastic and serious, with or without them: Adam, Marat, Ksenia, Slavoraya, and Vitaly (RU). You can read the summary of the posts and the translation of the most interesting parts of them after the jump. (more…)

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China: Cops and bikers

A small portrait of the translator John Kennedy · 14:59 · East Asia

Guangzhou, China's third largest city just a few hours north of Hong Kong, is the last major city to do away with motorbikes, effective January 1, 2007, in a move aimed at tackling pollution, traffic congestion and, more seriously, the high levels of street crime for which Guangzhou and a small number of its estimated 100,000 motorbike drivers are nationally known.

Ask almost anyone in China and they'll tell you a story they've heard about someone who was robbed or worse near Guangzhou's central train station, where most of the criminal motorbike drivers tend to hang out. Uploaded to Sina.com's blog page today is a series of video clips shot across the street from and around that train station. Footage seems to have been shot by police themselves, was uploaded by a user calling herself Feever, and shows several drive-by robberies in action, a mid-freeway chase halfway through, renegade motorbikers resisting arrest and how municipal police work to catch them:

[Note to viewers outside China: this video may be unviewable (without a proxy server) until the underwater cables damaged in the recent earthquake near Taiwan are repaired.]


(more…)

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Indonesia: Internet Outage and Flood in Aceh

A. Fatih Syuhud · 07:58 · East Asia
lingua → zhs · zht

There is nothing worse for Indonesian bloggers in particular around the new year eve but to see the sudden temporary “demise” of internet connection.

The cause as reported by Budi Putra, , Sani Asy'ari and Enda Nasution is “the strong quake off Taiwan’s coast on December 26 damaged submarine cables and severely disrupted telecom links in the East, Southeast and South Asia.”

That makes almost 90 percent of Indonesia's internet connection disfunctional or very slow. According to Yulian Firdaus, quoting from a portal media, the recovery could take “as long as as one month” during which Indonesian online activities will witness the lowest traffic ever. Certainly one month, if it's true, a way too much for an internet addicts like Enda Nasution who wonders whether this is what end of days fell like.

Some Indonesian bloggers who are fortunate enough to still have internet connection like Willy Sudiarto Raharjo, still complains over how slow the connection is. Not to say how low the traffic to his blog could be.

Flood in Aceh

Exactly two years after the Tsunami, one of the biggest natural disaster ever happened, Aceh again has to face another natural calamity. Although it's not as big as Tsunami, the loss and severe it afflicts to the Acehnese is unbearable.

70,000 people has been evacuated or are fleeing home taking refuge in neighboring area. About 60 people dead.

So much to “celebrate” a New Year 2007 for Indonesian in general and Indonesian bloggers in particular.

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