Archive for
December 30th, 2006
Stories
Russia, Belarus: “Gazilla”
There's a distinct sense of deja vu this New Year's Eve: Gazprom, Russia's largest (and state-controlled) company and the world's biggest extractor of natural gas, is in the spotlight again, both locally (due to an ambitious and controversial construction project in St. Petersburg) and internationally (due to a dispute over prices and control of a pipeline in Belarus, very similar to the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute exactly a year ago).
Quite a few Russian bloggers have posted this banner on their blogs, linking to a flash game that was created by St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko Party:
The monster hulking over St. Petersburg's Smolny Cathedral isn't Godzilla. It is Gazilla, and it represents Gazprom, and its name, allegedly, was coined by LJ user alexvert a year ago (according to LJ user aneta_spb (RUS)).
The Iranian Blogestan on Saddam Hussein's death
Several Iranian bloggers talked about Saddam Hussein's death and remembered the Iran-Iraq war.
Alpar says this year can be considered one of the worst for dictators, adding that Monday's newspapers could carry the following headline: “Four less dictators for 2007″. Alpar writes that Iranian people will celebrate this event, even though the Iranian government will forget it soon, and reminds readers about the victims of the Iran-Iraq war, the war refugees and so on [Fa]. He also asks the following questions: Will Saddam’s death be a lesson for our dictators? What do people in Iraq think about today's events? Did Saddam himself think that one day he would die in these humilating conditions?
Haji Washington titles his post “Death of a Monster”. The blogger observes that on USA TV channels, we're shown Saddam with Arab leaders, but never with Donald Rumsfeld, former US Defense Secretary, when he visited Iraq during Iran-Iraq war [Fa]. (more…)
Saddam at the Iraqi Blogodrome…
… for the last time.
Today I post without comment on blogger reactions to Saddam's execution. I'll be posting more updates as the blogs develops.
From my honorary Iraqi of the week. A cartoon by Latuff that sums up the mood of many:
Like a gathering storm, realization that the execution was imminent became apparent hours before the event. Neurotic Wife an Iraqi woman who works inside Baghdad's Green Zone gets a tip-off: (more…)
Links for Sat, 2006-12
Reacting to a Christmas speech by Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis announcing a tougher stance on gang-driven kidnappings, Deky Lakyel from Collectif Haiti de Provence writes (Fr): “Not so long ago the stance was still to negotiate with the bandits. Today the approach and the discourse are more a-propos to the nation's expectations. The thugs must be tracked down on their turf.“
The Trinidad and Tobago government's decision to re-locate a controversial aluminium smelter project prompts Jeremy Taylor to raise numerous questions about some key development decisions taken by the current administration: “Would we really need a rapid-rail system costing TT$15 billion if a bit more common sense was applied to the roads? Should we really be throwing up skyscrapers when we have hardly begun to solve the problems of crime and poverty, drugs, crumbling infrastructure, health and education systems that are not delivering what the country needs? How come so many people are getting so stinking rich during this oil/gas bonanza, while so many others are finding it harder and harder to stay afloat at all?”
Opposition Malaysian politician Lim Kit Siang asks “why the authorities were caught off-guard despite the availability of sophisticated early-warning systems about the massive floods in the south of the country”. Southern states of Malaysia have seen record levels of rainfall and massive flooding in the last couple of weeks.
Ktemoc comments on the execution of Saddam Hussein and calls the execution as “unnecessary” and is concerned about more violence. “The Iraqis would be better off locking up Saddam and throwing the key away.”
This site is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Please read our attribution policy.
Judith Townend4 posts 
Paula Góes581 posts 
Marina Noordin1 posts 
Michael Kan2 posts 
Richard Wanjohi1 posts 
Anas Qtiesh18 posts 
Tarek Amr64 posts 
David Sasaki2549 posts 
Samuel Maina18 posts 
Joshua Foust31 posts 
Adil Nurmakov1320 posts 
Vadim Isakov4 posts