Archive for
March 27th, 2007
Stories
Bolivia: Bolivian Television's Watchdog
Blogs in Bolivia have yet to achieve the level of being a primary source of information to compete with other forms of communication. Television continues to dominate the manner in which citizens get their news and where they follow current events. A blog called La TeVelisión [ES], written by Rodrigo Serrate aims, as his tagline states, “for a better television that we all deserve.” His criticisms and observations about the state of Bolivian television leaves neither side of the political spectrum off the hook.
Serrate wrote a follow-up post regarding an issue that caused great concern among many bloggers. In an earlier Global Voices Online article, bloggers were not pleased with a decision made by the state-run television channel to change is traditional tri-color logo that represented the Bolivian flag. In its place was a logo that closely resembled the whipala flag that, which many complained, did not represent the entire country. Serrate soon discovered that the channel had backpedaled and introduced a new logo that went back to the three colors of the Bolivian flag. He applauded this decision, although laments the fact that all of the sets, microphones and other items with the old logo had to be replaced yet again.
In his most recent post, Serrate took some screenshots from the news broadcast of the television channel Sitel. In a story about some of President Morales’ recent controversies of corruption within his party, the news channel accompanied the story with caricature drawings of an angry Morales. He wrote that the host would say, “this is how our President Evo Morales Ayma looks after these cases of corruption…” His article titled “This is News?” emphasizes that this is no way for a serious news channel to operate.
Tanta gente que egresa como periodista y se muere de hambre por no conseguir trabajo en un medio de comunicación, especialmente en television, ya es hora que a los ineficientes se los bote y se de oportunidad a nueva gente llena de ideas y mejor preparación.
En caso de Sitel, a todo el mediocre equipo de prensa le hace falta una limpieza y por supuesto, al propietario algo mas de conciencia.
There are too many graduates with degrees in journalism that are struggling to find jobs in the media, especially in television. It’s time to get rid of the inefficient people and make way for new people with a lot of ideas and better training. In the case of Sitel, the entire mediocre news team should be wiped clean, and the owner should become more conscientious of the work.
Russia: Variations of Dissent
After reading LJ user rudin's report (RUS) from the Dissenters' March that took place in Nizhniy Novgorod this past Saturday, LJ user an_drevv made this ironic remark (RUS):
Judging by the ratio between the participants [police outnumbered the protesters], it looks like the majority of the dissenters were cops, and the locals were just preventing them from expressing their dissent. […]
According to rudin, the following slogans were featured at the short-lived march: “Russia Without Putin!”, “Give People Freedom!”, “Fascism Won't Get Through!” There were also two men in the crowd who chanted “Glory to the Russian Nation!” - which rudin found inappropriate, but the police didn't seem to mind.
According to LJ user iriele, who attended the march, too, and even got detained and taken to the police station, there was one more slogan (RUS) out there - and one more reason to join the Dissenters' ranks:
[…] First of all, why did I go there? The main reason - besides a gulp of freedom - is, damn it, solidarity with the slogan “Let's Reclaim Nizhniy [Novgorod].” (Partly borrowed from London's “Reclaim the Streets.” Though I've been using these words in some press releases a lot, so it's all in the air.) Everyone can see what the government is doing to the city. Parks are being destroyed and instead shopping malls and elite blocks (ugly, as a rule) are being built […], last trees are being eliminated from the old center. […]
The Israeli Blogs-Looking for an Advocate
Hello Everyone! Today I am guest authoring for the Israeli blogs…a section of the Middle East that doesn't get covered very much here at Global Voices. It isn't because we aren't interested…we are, and it isn't because the Israeli blogs aren't fun and fascinating…because they are (and I will show you shortly). It is because we lack an author who wants to share this wonderful section of the blogosphere with us. In fact there are lots of areas of the world that we aren't able to cover on Global Voices because we need volunteer authors to step in and help tell the stories that are out there. Would you like to join our team? Would you like to find more ways to join the conversation? Contact us!
But for now, let's return to the Israeli Blogs. I intend to give you a small smattering of content, ranging from fun to politics, from everyday life to special occasions. Starting with some fun…did you know that pot is “not kosher” for Passover?
(more…)
France: Line Crossed in the Hunt for Immigrants
(photo via broyez)
Here is a sombering follow-up to the post regarding the hunt for illegal immigrants and their following arrests in France. It seems that things have gotten worst in a hurry with the French presidential elections fast-approaching. Series of sudden arrests prompted many French people to take action and protest against what they perceive as being unjust treatments. Here are some of those stories as reported by the French Association RESF (Reseau Sans Forntieres Education, which combat the expelling of children schooled in France ) in an official press release:
“Paris, le 20 mars 2007
Répression et chasse aux étrangers : un pas a été franchi.
Hier et ce soir, des incidents graves se sont produits lors de rafles
effectuées dans nos quartiers à Paris. (more…)
Nepal: Gaur Massacre
The unthinkable happened on March 21 in Gaur in the central Terai plains. Two political groups clashed, and violence followed. 29 were dead, more than 40 injured. This incident has shaken Nepal.
Democracy For Nepal condemns the violence but it also takes the Maoists to task for disrupting the MPRF mass meetings earlier in Bhairahawa and Nepalgunj. They have issued a a press statement alongside ANTA, Association of Nepali Teraian in America. DFN concludes by saying Best Option For All: Elections In June.
The Terai now has half of all elected seats, after the Gaur incident the Home Minister's resignation issue has switched to becoming a Maoist issue and is no longer a MPRF issue, and Om Gurung's recent hostile interview to Kantipur shows there really is no Madhesi Janajati alliance, so sticking to the completely proportional elections to the constituent assembly for the sake of the Janajatis is no longer valid for the Madhesi Movement.
United We Blog has published an interview with a human rights activists that claims professional criminals were involved in the killings. A Bihar nexus is suggested. The post has photographs of shrouded bodies and links to youtube videos.
Maoists say they didn’t start the Gaur fighting (and a team of human rights activists have concluded that the massacre was perpetrated by the professional criminals), they didn’t fire bullets. Instead, Maoists are demanding that the government should take action against the attackers. Expressing the commitment to the peace process Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, the second in command in the Maoist party, said that such incident would not obstruct the peace process.
INSN has a news update. Madhesi - United We Stand has (more…)
Peru: Plagiarism at Every Level
There is no doubt about what has captured the attention of many Peruvian bloggers these past two weeks: the plagiarism of a local blog's content by the daily newspaper, La República [ES]. Though this isn't the first time such a thing has happened, this time we find much more repercussion. We covered the topic immediately in the Global Links, but now that it has reached an almost satisfactory conclusion, it's worth the trouble to take another look.
The case has two parts: first is the plagiarism found in the column El Ofidio, which reviews denouncements and news in the sphere of local politics, of a post from the blog Desde el Tercer Piso [ES] (”From the Third Floor”), a blog that took it upon itself to, this time, denounce the paper:
Agradezco mucho que La República haya recogido parte de los datos que presenté en el informe Elección Constitucional, pero, la próxima vez, please, muchachos de Camaná, citen la fuente.
Links for Tue, 2007-03
In less than 500 days, Beijing Olympic will begin. Wang Xiaofeng has some wild thoughts (zh) about the Beijing city: 1. half of the population will leave the city to give space to foreigners; 2. the city will become very clean with a mixture of real and plastic flowers; 3. no more traffic jam; 4. people will become polite… 7. the sky of Beijing will turn blue; 8. audiences will cheer for both teams; 9. crime rate drops to zero; 10. all sport news, no more social news.
Says Blog de Moi[Fr]: “I am not sure that young women of today are fully aware of what they owe an author such as Simone de Beauvoir and to feminism in general given how hard some of them work to distance themselves from it.”
“March 22, 2007 was World Water Day. And guess what? Sunday we had no water! How ironic. Or how prescient.” So begins La Gringa's reflections on water resources in rural Honduras.
Did or didn't Abe apologize for Japan’s wartime use of sex slaves? Oftenover from Japundit comments on the news about Prime Minister Abe's recent apology on sex slaves issue.
Lee from Tokyo Times blogs about Japan fashion and fetishism by refering to the recent “Mask Idol”.
The CRIDEM blog points to a press release by Ould Maouloud stating [Fr}: “The March 25, 2007 election happened in good conditions marked by transparency, civic duty, responsibility and serenity. The Mauritanian people and its democracy are only better for it… In this occasion, I want to pay homage to the 48% if Mauritanians who have … voted for really change.”
Robert Koehler from Marmot's Hole reports that: There are currently an estimated 40,000-60,000 Koreans illegally residing in Japan. Of these, 30,000 are believed to be working in the sex trade. And the number of Korean men in Japanese host-bar is increasing rapidly.
Jamie from Two Koreas has an update about the FTA negotiation and anti FTA protest in South Korea: The march was also able to march into Gwanghwamun unobstructed, which was even more of a surprise.
Matt from Gusts of popular feeling blogs about the recent government policy in filtering out foreign porn sites in South Korea: We're also told that the government “will block around 180 such foreign sites by the end of May”. Wow. All 180 of them. They really aren't kidding around this time, are they? I guess that's the end of porn in Korea.
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