Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2007 November 19

19 November 2007

Daily archive · 4 posts

Stories from 19 November 2007

Syria: Facebook Banned

Written by Amira Al Hussaini · Middle East & North Africa

Syria's netizens have been given another slap on the face with the banning of social networking site Facebook. With Blogger already blocked, the country's bloggers are fuming and have a lot to say about the latest development.

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Japan: Has Beaujolais Nouveau gone sour?

Written by Hanako Tokita · East Asia

As the date changes at midnight on the third Thursday of November, corks come out of bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau and the celebration begins — in Japan. This has been...

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Puerto Rico: Environmental Activist Turns Himself In

Written by Solana Larsen · Latin America

Puerto Rican environmental activist "Tito Kayak" turned himself in to police on November 14 after a spectacular televised escape, following a week-long protest atop a 200-foot construction crane in San Juan. He was protesting a disputed luxury development that environmentalists warn will cause serious damage to public beaches. Some Puerto Rican bloggers aren't impressed, while others look at the underlying causes that led to the protest.

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Iraq: Awakening

Written by Salam Adil · Middle East & North Africa

Can it really be true? Dare I say it? Iraq is actually getting safer? What with a new movement called 'Awakening' throwing Al-Qaeda out of Baghdad suburbs; Reports that violence is markedly down; Iraqis returning in droves; could George Bush's surge really be working? Iraqi bloggers investigate and give the real word from the street.

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Updates from 19 November 2007

Serbia

Balkan Anarchist writes about Kosovo and his own views on the situation: “In the interest of being respectful to both sides in this issue, how about, instead of claiming how Kosovo is just Serbian or only Albanian, we say Kosovo is both Serbian and Albanian! Why not? Not to mention how it's also Romany land because Roma people live there as well, Gorani land to the Southwest, Turkish land 'cause there is a Turkish minority there, Muslim/Bosniak land, Ashkali and Egyptian land, and believe it or not, Janjevo Croatian land! (There used to be an Adyghe community there until 1998.) Why don't we all just say that Kosovo belongs to all the people who live there?”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Bosnia Herzegovina

TOL's Balkanizer writes: “When Bosnia turns up on the NYT editorial page, things are not good.” And: “…Bosnians, regardless of ethnicity, do not see a clear way out of this crisis.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Bosnia Herzegovina

A Fistful of Euros explains Bosnia and Herzegovina's government crisis: “Short version: the representative of the Serb entity, the Republika Serbska (RS), has resigned from the Council of Ministers. The Presidency (which is really a council composed of three Presidents, one from each ethnicity) accepted his resignation today. Officially this means the government has fallen, and elections can ensue, but since this is Bosnia they’re going to slip first into a long period of “consultation” in an attempt to make this un-happen.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Albania

A Fistful of Euros writes about Serbia's Stability and Association Pact with the EU (SAA), to be signed in Jan. 2008: “It looks like Brussels is trying to strengthen the ‘liberal and Western' strain of Serbia’s politics before December, when problems are likely to arise with Kosovo.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

Robert Amsterdam posts an update on Mikhail Khodrkovsky's case: “The State’s conduct in this case is in clear violation of Russian and international law, and true rule of law courts from Switzerland to Strasbourg to Amsterdam are confirming what we have been arguing from the beginning – that the persecution is groundless and politically motivated.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

Moscow Through Brown Eyes offers an approach to writing about migrant workers in Moscow: “[…] it demands the excavation of Russia’s imperial pasts, a detailed examination of the labor question in the former Soviet Union and the contributions of migrant workers, a serious investigation of the nationalist rhetoric of Russia’s leaders with the failure of these leaders to effectively prosecute racist crimes, and an analysis of the appeal of racist extremism among everyday Russians.”

• Veronica Khokhlova