Archive for
March 21st, 2007
Stories
China: Book banned prior to printing
Prior to a recent reprinting, ‘A Narrow Escape From Death: My ‘Right-wing' Life', a book from retired Xinhua journalist Dai Huang was banned from being published by order of China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), in which Dai recounts the years during which he was cast as a rightist and forced to undergo reform labor.
Civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, one of the biggest names in his field, has agreed to take up Dai's case. Pu's Sohu blog has recently been deleted, but a statement from the lawyer appeared on ‘edgy' bbs forum WHXF late on the evening of March 21st. Dear friends, Pu begins:
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German “Open Music” Band Dedicates a Concert for Peru
[Editors Note: The following post originally appeared on the weblog of Creative Commons Peru and was translated into english by Juliana Rincón Parra. We've already seen a rural Ecuadorean “techno-folklorist” become an international celebrity by using YouTube and a weblog. Now a small German band is reaching out to bloggers around the world in their efforts to gain fame and make friends.]
Röntgenschall is on a virtual tour in Lima, Perú. With it´s motto, “your blog is my stage”, this small band from a small German city seeks to accomplish their great dream: Play gigs throughout the world. With this in mind and defying the paradigm that some people have that - the internet and the online diffusion of music goes against their interests - they designed a system that ranked their fans. The five blogs with most votes would host a virtual concert especially dedicated and edited for them, their country, and community of users. So that´s how the peruvian blog Txitua.org was chosen as their next “concert stop.”
This band has used different social networking mechanisms to spread their music: Del.icio.us, biTTorrent, Jamendo, Myspace, Youtube, Hi5. They have even freed up their music under a Creative Commons atribution, noncommercial, share-alike license. These are Web 2.0 tools every Peruvian artist should know.
Kurdistance: Newroz
The vernal equinox marks the beginning of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of the “New Year” or Newroz for the Kurdish people. The holiday is not limited to just the Kurds as cultures from Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Albania, India, Turkey, Zanzibar, and from various countries of Central Asia also celebrate this event.
While the event is technically a cultural holiday, for the Kurds there is a political aspect to it as well. To the Kurds in Iraq the holiday comes after a period of mourning for the 1988 Anfal campaign where thousands of Kurds died in gas attacks. To the Kurds in Turkey, the event marks a opportunity to press for their rights as people. In any event, celebrations include large crowds of people, dancing, singing, and the occasional bonfire to jump over. Jumping over fire symbolizes passing the jumpers' bad health and bad luck from the past year to the fire in exchange for the good. For a description of some of the various Newroz traditions, see here.
The dual cultural and political celebrations that Newroz evokes in the Kurds can be traced back to the legend of the beginnings of holiday.
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Arabisc: A Mysterious Bug Gnawing at Middle Eastern Bloggers
Something is amiss on the Middle Eastern blogging scene .. and computers and modern technology are to blame.
In addition to trouble with the law in their countries, which are closing in on freedom of speech and expression as I write this, bloggers have another demon to confront.
Egypt's outspoken Sandmonkey is not tolerating the monkey business going on in his comments section and promises to get down to the heart of matter.
“My comments section seems to be greatly messed up!
“For weeks now I have been getting e-mails from people whose comments get eaten, or disappear, or mysteriously re-appear after a day or two. And now I am seeing it myself, with almost 10 new comments on the post below that are showing in the comments section in my dashboard but not in the comment section of the post. It's all messed up.
“So, dear commentators, I am really sorry. I am working on it, but I have no idea why it's acting this crazy. Once I find out I will let you know!” he promises.
India: New Year Celebrations
New Year in March you ask? Well, yes in certain parts of India it the start of a new year since they follow a different calendar and not the Gregorian calendar that the western countries follow.
Ugadi, Gudi Padwa are some of the names for the New Year celebrations in India. The festival is not celebrated throughout India, but is celebrated in many southern and a couple of northern states of India. Typically, people heralded the new year by wearing new clothes, puja (prayer) and of course food, which is the standard staple of any Indian festival.
Any Indian celebration demands the use of flowers. The flowers used to adorn pictures of god, for prayers, and young girls and women adorn their braids with fragrant flowers. Rajesh Dangi of Bangalore writes that flower sales go up during the festival season. And he has a photo that goes with his posting. Notice the different kinds of flowers and garlands that includes jasmine, roses, and other fragrant flowers that bloom during this season.
Deepa Mohan has a wonderful picture (the photo appears pretty symbolic, complete with seeds, bud and flowers) of a traditional Indian tree and its blossom: gul mohar. Deepa writes, “…the flowers are symbolic of our past efforts blooming into success now, and the (more…)
Sudan: ICC on War Crimes in Darfur, USS Cole, Funky Hairstyle & More
There has been quite a lot of action in the Sudanese blogosphere during the past 3 weeks. We'll start with the International Criminal Court's announcement which named 2 suspects accused of committing war crimes in Darfur.
The Sudanese Thinker was surprised when he saw the picture of one of the suspects:
Ahmed Mohamed Haroun is one of the two named by the ICC as suspected war criminals involved in Darfur. Today for the first time I saw a picture of him.
Does he look Arab to you? He doesn’t to me. In fact he looks Darfurian. But is he really? If yes, it would mean he’s either an Afro-Arab or an Arabized African. “Darfur is a genocide perpetrated by Arabs against Africans” is an oversimplification of what’s really happening. I hope the picture above is more proof of this.
He's also confused with some aspects involving Sudan, China, America and the CIA:
My head really hurts! Something is fishy here and I’m trying hard to make sense of what’s happening with:
1) China’s move which contradicts Hu Jintao’s visit to Sudan.
2) America’s plan B (and its latest coercive efforts against Sudan) which contradict the news of the CIA building its largest center for east Africa in Sudan and also the cooperation between Sudanese intelligence and the CIA (a fact which gets little to no coverage in the US media).
Links for Wed, 2007-03
The blog of Convergence Républicaine pour l'Instauration de la Démocratie en Mauritanie (CRIDEM) points to a La Tribune d'Algérie article stating [Fr]: “Long considered a back-country, Mauritania just proved to its neighbors and to the world that when it comes to democracy, the country can now be an example. Never has an Arab country held a second round in a presidential election. Among the 19 candidates running, the two ahead are Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallah and Ahmed Ould Daddah. With respectively 26 and 25% of the vote, they will run again on March 25.”
Armenian Blog Review reports on various developments in the Armenian economy, including a natural gas pipeline linking Iran and Armenia and poor localization for Windows XP, as discussed on Armenian blogs.
Chadstoune is happy Moroccan band Darga and Spanish band El Bicho will be performing in Casablanca on April 1. Says the blogger: Says the blogger [Fr}: “El Bicho is one of the best bets of flamenco fusion based on daring mix of music! ” and “Darga is a group united by its love of music and conscious of the role that youth must play in the country's social dynamic”
Tolkun Umaraliev reports that Svetlana Nazarenko, a native of Bishkek who is the lead singer of the Russian band Gorod 312 (ru), has been awarded the honorary title “Honored Artist of the Kyrgyz Republic.”
Registan.net discusses how the government of Uzbekistan is using the state-sanctioned Islamic religious establishment to back its policies and ideology.
Safrang writes that spring has become associated with renewed fighting in Afghanistan in recent years and takes the liberty of changing an old folk song associated with Nowrouz (the holiday celebrated on the first day of spring) to urge a different mullah to come join the festivities.
Itching for Eestimaa writes about a day spent in Tallinn (11 comments) and the city of Narva (35 comments).
An upcoming football game between Estonia and Russia inspires Giustino of Itching for Eestimaa to write a lengthy post on all the complex political matters that stand between the two rival teams and their fans.
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