Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2007 August 30

30 August 2007

Daily archive · 7 posts

Stories from 30 August 2007

Arabeyes: Who is Using the Tunisian Presidential Airplane?

Written by Amira Al Hussaini · Middle East & North Africa

The Tunisian presidential airplane and the 'unofficial' trips it takes to Europe and the fashion capitals of the world has attracted the scrutiny of the country's most outspoken bloggers. Who is using the president's plane? Who approves the trips abroad and how much is it used for official business? These are some of the questions being raised in Arabic and French, which I am translating today into English.

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Ugandans and Expats Face Off in the Blogosphere

Written by Glenna Gordon · Sub-Saharan Africa

"I can also tell an American blogger when I read one—they are different in a way that neither makes me laugh or angered. See this entry, for example. Well, maybe some aren’t that American, but the Americans—most expats, anyway—tend to lean towards that. To them, Uganda is little more than an experiment in hard living." This quote comes from 27 Comrade’s blog....Read on.

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Mauritania : Ignorance and Tradition

Written by Mialy Andriamananjara · Sub-Saharan Africa

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Generously endowed women are favored in Mauritania. The fatter the woman, the more beautiful she is thought to be. Being big is...

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Ukraine: Animal Shelter

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · Eastern & Central Europe

On August 19, Ukrainian journalist Tanya Kremen paid a visit to an animal shelter located near a small town just outside Kyiv. Below are her impressions and thoughts, which she has posted on her blog at Korrespondent.net, as well as a couple of comments from her readers.

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Afghanistan: Errors of Judgment

Written by Joshua Foust · Central Asia & Caucasus

In his first roundup for Global Voices, Joshua Foust takes a tour of mostly Western experts on Afghanistan to see where and how things are changing. This week, he focuses on the newly unveiled American opium eradication campaign.

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Morocco: The Upcoming Elections

Written by Jillian C. York · Middle East & North Africa

With the Moroccan legislative elections looming on September 7, Moroccan bloggers share their concerns about the process and its progress.

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Japan: Life out of a Manga Kissa

Written by Chris Salzberg · East Asia

Results of a survey just released by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has found that thousands of people across Japan bordering on poverty live their lives out of Internet cafes or "manga kissa". Bloggers this week reflected on the significance of the results.

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Updates from 30 August 2007

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Jeans updates us on the demands being made by the supporters of Saudi reformists detained since February.

• Amira Al Hussaini

Russia

Sean's Russia Blog is posting updates on Anna Politkovskaya's murder investigation - here, here, here (46 comments), and here.

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

White Sun of the Desert writes about his recent Sakhalin travel: “The journey back entailed me having to do one of those things I’d always hoped I’d never have to do: enter a 4-berth Russian railway carriage which has 3 people sleeping in it already, and the spare bed is piled high with the others’ luggage, the space between the beds has a suitcase in it, and there is no sign of your own bedding.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

Languor Management writes about Tamara Katayeva's “600-page assault on the literary legacy Anna Akhmatova”: “This reminds me of Emma Gerstein's Moscow Memoirs, which was supposed to have debunked Nadehzda and Osip Mandelshtam's literary legacy, and really just portrayed them as particularly difficult people going through particularly hard times.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

Copydude writes about various ways of mistreating foreigners in Russia - and about “word of badmouth,” which certain Russian restaurant owners don't seem to know anything about: “According to customer service research, a dissatisfied customer complains to an average of eight other people about a bad experience. In the blogging era, you can probably put the figure nearer eighty.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Palestine

Fayyad from Palestinian blog Kabobfest writes about Abdulla Gul's election as Turkey's president. “Ironically, some secular extremists in Turkey, too (have) issue with the fact the Gul’s wife, Hayrunisa, wears a hijab, which is banned from all Turkish public institutions, and (for) some reason terrifies some, especially when Mrs. Gul wears into the presidential palace,” he writes.

• Amira Al Hussaini

Iraq

Abu Aardvark (Marc Lynch) updates us on the latest news about the insurgency in Iraq.

• Amira Al Hussaini

Czech Republic

“Dozens of Czech pornstars caught syphilis during the last three months,” Petr Bokuvka of The Czech Daily Word reports.

• Veronica Khokhlova

Czech Republic

My Czech Republic Blog writes about “a Czech national leisure activity”: mushroom picking.

• Veronica Khokhlova

Iran

Azarmehr says that during his visit to US last Novemeber :”we had a meeting at the US State Department. We were told that the US does not have a policy of regime change in Iran, instead the US policy is changing the behaviour of the Islamic regime! So I asked, “OK, how do you intend to change the regime's behaviour?” The reply was, “we have a website” :)) and what a load of bollocks that website was.”

• Fred Petrossian