Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2007 August 04

4 August 2007

Daily archive · 4 posts

Stories from 4 August 2007

Hundreds of bloggers support jailed students in Iran

Written by Fred Petrossian · Middle East & North Africa

A group of Iranian bloggers have started a movement to remember and create awareness about several university students that have been arrested in recent months, including three who are still...

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Russia: Notes From Irkutsk and Poronaysk

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · Eastern & Central Europe

Two more sketches from Oleg Klimov, Siberia-born photographer and blogger who has been traveling across Russia since June 23: the first excerpt is about Siberia and its people; the second one is about the fish-smelling town of Poronaysk, located on the island of Sakhalin.

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Bahrain: Meet the Bloggers!

Written by Ayesha Saldanha · Middle East & North Africa

Thursday 2 August saw the 31st gathering of Bahrain's bloggers, and instead of giving you a summary of blog posts this week, Ayesha Saldanha is going to introduce you to the bloggers who attended the gathering this month.

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Barbados: Crop Over Marred by Crashes

Written by Janine Mendes-Franco · Caribbean

Crop Over is one of Barbados' most beloved festivals. But the event that grabbed headlines this year was not the opening gala or the Pic-O-De-Crop calypso competition. It was the terrible bus crash that claimed the lives of six Barbadians as they made their way to the Party Monarch Finals. The nation was suddenly thrust into mourning and Barbadian bloggers have been extremely vocal about it...

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Updates from 4 August 2007

Iran

Homeyra introduces us to Farshid Mesghali's creations. He has recently won the Icograda - International council of graphic design associations - Achievement Award in Tehran.

• Fred Petrossian

Senegal

Blog politique au Senegal questions the wisdom of the government's plan to increase the airport tax (Fr) when most tourists come to Senegal, not in search of the country's unique culture, but for a cheaply-priced tropical getaway.

• Jennifer Brea

Martinique

le blog de moi, a self-described Harry Potter addict (Fr), paid 43 euros to get her hands on the Deathly Hallows in Martinique; and finished the 607-page book in less than 24 hours.

• Jennifer Brea

Madagascar

For all you francophones out there, Harijaka (Fr) is posting French summaries of the recently released videos from the June 2007 TED Global Conference in Arusha, Tanzania. He's summarized Euvin Naidoo's opening address and George Ayittey on Africans taking responsibility for, and finding solutions to, African problems.

• Jennifer Brea

Development

Szavanna joins the discussions about the cheetah and the hippo generation in Africa: “It is many times shocking what is going on in these non-profit organizations, there is a real “hippo behaviour” present amongst all of those people running the show and I feel many times I see no difference between government and non-profit politics - they make a big noise about issues - just like the Live Earth event - but no real change - as Femi Kuti says.”

• Ndesanjo Macha

Development

Ishtar asks, “Will technology solve Africa's problems?“: On May 17th however, I stopped by a blog written by Erik Hersman (aka Hash aka White African), a Western TCK who was blogging about technology in Africa. He proudly presented his favorite post The Dark Continent: It’s Still Dark which was about Africa not being developed enough.

• Ndesanjo Macha

Malawi

Ndagha wonders who is responsible for cleaning up streets in Lilongwe, Malawi: “I went to Lilongwe Old Town where there are generally lots of banks. The site is not as impressive as the inside of the beautiful buildings. I am not sure who is responsible for cleaning up.”

• Ndesanjo Macha

Kenya

Emily discusses party politics in Kenya, “The question to ask is whether Kenya’s politics has truly ever had any roots in political parties. This has not been the case for a number of reasons. One, illiteracy and widespread poverty is a great curse that has prevented true democratic Party practices from taking root.”

• Ndesanjo Macha

Nigeria

Pokenosing defends the Nigerian Super Blog: “As a new comer, I personally think Naija Super Blog is a good thing and the administrators of Naija Live deserves some credit for their initiative, the Naija Super Blog displaying the whole content of a person’s blog page does not reduce the amount of visitors/clicks you get on your site but on the contrary, it motivates a person to visit the full page of the authors’ blog ………. but anyway I still stay don’t be offended to the likes of David and Akin (though they are not asking me for it), as this issue has made me an addict of their blog pages.”
Follow the summary of the whole debate here.

• Ndesanjo Macha

Development

Nubian Cheetah discusses the flaws in the current micro-financing initiatives in Africa: “However, there is a flaw is micro-finance. Micro-finance as the name suggest, is about utilizing small amounts of financing usually $50 to $500 or start a small business. But what if your a farmer in rural Mali, Sudan, Zambia, or Kenya who has hundreds of plots of land and you need heavy machinery to till, or sow your land? Where do you get financing to purchase a Kubato, John Deere, or Caterpillar equipment? Micro-financing is simply not the solution in this case, farming equipment on average costs about $30,000 to $500,000.”

• Ndesanjo Macha