Archive for
March 26th, 2007
Stories
Russia: User Guide
This has been an eventful weekend, rally-wise.
In Minsk, Belarus, water cannons had to be used against several thousand citizens opposed to Aleksandr Lukashenko's regime. In Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, it took some 20,000 police and military personnel to prevent yet another “Dissenters' March” from happening. In Moscow, however, 3,000 riot police were called to guard 15,000 pro-Kremlin Nashi members during their celebration of Vladimir Putin's seventh year as Russia's president.
Gallery owner Marat Guelman (LJ user galerist) got hold of Nashi booklet - and here's what he thinks of it (RUS):
[…] I felt somewhat jealous of [Eduard Limonov]. To have such determined propagandists [as Nashi are] costs a lot.
In general, Nashi can be considered the founders of a new genre. The booklet resembles a brief user guide. For an extremely simple device (something like a hammer). Just a few words, but repeated on every page:
fascists: hitler and limonov
traitors: [Andrei Vlasov, a Soviet Army General who cooperated with Nazi Germany during WWII] and [Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia's PM from 2000 to 2004, who is currently Garry Kasparov's close ally]
enemies: america and the liberals
victims: saddam hussein and the russian people
friends: Putin and Putin tomorrow
Egypt: Arrested Activists and Bloggers Released in the Desert
Bloggers Roam the Desert
Egypt today released bloggers and other activists arrested in an anti-Mubarak rally in Cairo held the previous day in the desert, according to bloggers.
Blogger and journalist Hossam El Hamalawy, who has been closely following the developments, writes:
Police released the remaining Kefaya activists in custody today in the afternoon, after they spent their night in the Qattamiya desert, locked up in two prison trucks.
There were two prison trucks; one containing eight detainees: Ahmad Droubi, Adham el-Safti, Omar Mustafa, Ahmad Samir, Khaled Mustafa, Sherif Ragab, Mohamed Abdel Qader, Kareem el-Sha’er.
The other car, it turned out, had two activists only: Mohamed Gamal and Omar el-Hadi.
The detainees, according to a phone interview with Droubi, were not allowed to leave the car, and were given food only once at 4am. They even had to urinate inside the prison truck in empty Koshari boxes and bottles, courtsey of Mubarak’s police.
The prison trucks started cruising in the afternoon again, and dropped each detainee off in a different location out in the desert, starting from 2:40pm, according to lawyer Rajia Omran.
Tunisphere: March 20, Mayans and Arabs.
March 20 is normally the day when my fellow citizens celebrate our independence day (3/20/1956).
But it also happens to be the celebration of the fourth year of Iraq invasion by the US and its allies and that was reflected on some Tunisian blogs like Temeraire in his post “March 20th, colonization and independence” where he reminds us that our independence day is to be remembered forever also as the horrible date of Iraq colonization by the “American empire”.
Aujourd’hui aucun espoir à ce qu’une paisible vie revienne au pays du Tigre et de l’Euphrate.
“Tank-borne democracy” has resulted in horrific figures in terms of the number of bombs, deaths and the mistreatment and torture so carelessly meted out. Today there is no hope whatsoever that peace will return to the land of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Egypt: Free Kareem Rallies and What Kareem Wrote
A call has gone out for a second round of worldwide rallies to pressure the Egyptian government to free detained blogger Abdulkareem Nabeel Sulaiman, a 22-year-old former Al Azhar University student, who has been sentenced to four years in prison for articles he wrote on the Internet.
On February 22, an Alexandria court found him guilty of insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The ruling was upheld on March 12, sending shockwaves around the international blogosphere as well as calls by human rights activists for the immediate release of the jailed blogger. There were also calls for a more severe sentence to ensure that other bloggers don't follow in Kareem's footsteps. For instance, a civil claim filed by the eleven lawyers who want to fine Kareem for ‘insulting Islam' is still pending. (more…)
Lebanon: Spring, Art and Dilemmas
In Lebanon spring officially begins on March 21. This is why March 21st is celebrated as Mother’s Day here. Bloggers tend to post more about love, nature and sunshine, reflecting the general upbeat mood. Even the political post tend to be plans, strategies or analysis about how to make things better. I have collected a sample of both in this round up and as usual, this is just a sample. There is a lot more out there, but space and time do not permit to list them all.
Let’s begin with bloggers who posted photos of their trips to South Lebanon:
McDara posts this photo article about his visit to South Lebanon. One of his photographs is seen above. Adiamondinsunlight also took a trip to the South and came back with some photos which she posted on her blog.
Reflecting the general mood of spring and its effect, Adiamondinsunlight brings up the topic of skirts when she states:
Spring is in the air in Lebanon, and my heart is filled with anticipation at the sartorial joys of the season. During the warm weather months, I dress almost exclusively in skirts. I love their clean lines and the way they hang - and, of course, the way they swish-swish-swish when I walk.
Here, I also love wearing skirts because they remind of yet another treasured date conversation.
And so did Mirvat in this post when she links spring and love:
As the golden rays tenderly reinvade our days. As the shy Spring springs the first promise of summer and heat and fun, everyone around me seems to be falling in love. I am falling in love too.
Armenia off balance: Government resigns over PM’s death
“Andranik Margaryan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, the chairman of Republican Party of Armenia died of heart stroke in his apartment on March 25, at 13:20.” (E-channel) Andranik Margaryan, the longest serving Prime-Minister of Armenia (in power since May 12, 2000), head of the ruling Republican party and one of the clear favorites in the upcoming Parliamentary elections (scheduled on May 12, 2007), dies at a time, when stability is crucial for the country, and when many see him as a balancing factor in the Armenia, a guarantor of state stability.
The reaction in the Armenian blogosphere is reserved. “It's not the most quiet time in the country for the Premier to die” Kornelij Glas (ru) notes. Life in Armenia, Blogrel and others limit themselves to speculation, as to how much PM's death will strengthen the role of Armenia's Defense Minister, next Presidential hopeful Serge Sargsyan, while according to the Armenia Breaking News blog “[Republican] party’s board convened a sitting yesterday evening with the participation of Serge Sargsyan, head of the board“. All the major developments are reported by the Oneworld Multimedia, Onnik Krikoryan there doing a most professional journalistic work of covering events as they happen:
Regardless, the coming week or two will be full of reminiscing about Armenia’s longest serving Prime Minister. Although unintended, his role in the ruling Republican Party will probably be the main topic for discussion through the media ahead of the May parliamentary election.
[…]
It is uncertain how this will affect the [Republican] party in the run up to the vote, although all eyes will probably be on who is now named the next Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia.
Links for Mon, 2007-03
ESWN put together various polls about Hong Kong people's evaluation of the two candidates and priority in concerned issues, and provided a detailed post-election analysis of Hong Kong politics.
Simon world has an update on the preservation plan of the Queen's Pier: a roadside Pier. Over the Rainbow explains the reason why Hong Kong architects insist to keep the Pier in Situ is because of the symbolism in its spatial relation with the city hall (zh).
Peoples' Republic of blogs three pictures that tell the differences between Google and Baidu.
Will blogs about the recent suggestion to turn Panda poop into wrapping paper, following Thailand's example in using elephant dropping. He drew some associations from the news.
Jonathan Dresner from Frog in a Well has written a history round up on issues such as comfort woman, Nanjing massarce, textbook, etc.
Darkness at Noon (Moscow-based) and Music and Life - Everywhere! (currently, in Tbilisi) reflect on street beggars and ways of dealing with them.
Two-Zero captures a typical early-spring scene in Moscow.
This site is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Please read our attribution policy.
Leonidas Mejia7 posts 
Helge Fahrnberger1 posts 
Sana Saleem14 posts 
John Kennedy740 posts 
Preetam Rai1627 posts 
Asteris Masouras5 posts 
John Liebhardt70 posts 
Mac-Jordan1 posts 
Marina Noordin1 posts 
Tarek Amr64 posts 
Hoa Quach8 posts 
Gayle Pescud6 posts