Archive for
February 3rd, 2008
Stories
Russia: Vasily Alexanyan
On Jan. 30, Robert Amsterdam, legal defense counsel for jailed ex-head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, announced on his blog that his client had gone on a hunger strike in protest against the treatment of Vasily Alexanyan, another jailed Yukos executive, who is said to be dying of AIDS and lymphoma cancer, but is being denied life-saving treatment.
On Feb. 2, Amsterdam blogged on why most international NGOs and human rights groups remained silent about “the murder-in-progress of Vasily Alexanyan”:
[…] Why on earth won't anybody say anything about this poor, unfortunate victim of Kremlin injustice? This is the question often put to me in recent emails and comments. Of course I have my theories which I shall outline below, but I certainly do share their outrage and disbelief.
Consider the facts: He's been unlawfully held in pre-trial detention for two years without conviction, denied urgent medical care to treat his condition (which the prosecutor illegally disclosed to the media as HIV), and he has been offered relief and medical care only in exchange for invented false testimony against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other Yukos prisoners. Not to mention that the Russian Federation has ignored three separate orders from the European Court of Human Rights regarding his medical care.
The man is on the brink of death, yet apart from a barely publicized Amnesty International note back on Jan. 18, almost no one in Europe or North America has said any thing in his defense. […]
In the Russian blogosphere, however, a campaign has been launched by LJ user rikusha to name government and law enforcement officials who are believed to be “killing” Alexanyan, in one way or another. The blogger writes (RUS):
One day, this list will definitely prove useful.
And in Moscow, some 200 people showed up at Novopushkinsky Square on Feb. 1 to support Alexanyan.
LJ user nl posted eight photos and this brief report (RUS) from the rally:
[…] Flags of the [United Civil Front], [Oborona youth movement], [National Bolshevik Party] and [Stop Chechen War anti-war movement] soared over the crowd. Slogans ranged widely from “Freedom to political prisoners!” and “FSB [Federal Security Service] is Russia's disgrace!” to “Moscow without [mayor Yuri Luzhkov]!” and “We'll teach you how to love the Constitution!”
After rallying for exactly an hour and a half, the crowd dispersed.
[8 photos]
Here is one of the conversations about Alexanyan and Khodorkovsky that took place in the comments section of nl's photo report:
sergracha:
And who is he?
annuak2005:
[a link to a selection of Russian-language news stories about Alexanyan]
But I still don't understand what he was being tried for.
dao_b:
He hasn't been tried. There hasn't been a trial yet. He's spent two years in pretrial detention center. They keep failing to beat a testimony against Khodorkovsky out of him.
annuak2005:
Do they need more testimony against Khodorkovsky? He's in jail already, isn't he?
herald:
Not much is left of his sentence. That's why the regime is preoccupied with securing another jail term for him.
LJ user drugoi also attended the Feb. 1 rally, and his blog entry (RUS, eight photos and a video) has received 543 comments so far. While many bloggers expressed hostility towards Alexanyan, as many seemed to be shocked by such an attitude.
Below is a rather typical exchange:
lucysd:
Out of six comments, five are hateful. The extent to which you've been brainwashed by Putin's propaganda. People laughing at the terminally ill are subhuman.
butch_ara:
People who are making their fortunes by looting natural resources are also subhuman. But if you steal, you should be prepared that sooner or later they'll bust you.
Jordan: Snowmen, Women and Babes
The contest is heating up among Jordanian bloggers who are vying for the top place in making a snowman, erm, woman - prompting one blogger to call a truce. With the Internet slowing down across the Middle East, it was only natural for Jordan's bloggers to pour their creative juices elsewhere.
And since pictures speak volumes, I will leave you with with just that in this post.
Our first stop is with Naseem Al Tarawnah, whose friend Tina kept herself busy giving us a step-by-step guide on how to make a snowbabe. And what is a snowbabe on her own? She built a snowman to keep her company - just for good measure. Here's a snapshot of the happy couple:
Tololy from Jordan was also busy building her own snowbabe. She explains:
Why waste my time and risk catching pneumonia making a huge, beer-belly snowman?
I made the smallest, cutest snow babe instead
And here's her snowbabe and it is up to you to judge:
An American in Jordan joins the fray, with his Snowman in Repose sculpture. Here's one of the many images he has loaded showing his masterpiece:
Janmania gets her comeback with a sculpture of Snow White, who is pictured here:
And last but not least, Jad decides that the best snowman he has seen so far is this one:
Despite the frenzy and obvious fun, 7aki Fadi calls for a truce. He even begs:
For whatever is holy to you pleaaaaaaaaaaase STOP with THE SNOW POSTS.
Seriously, stop, it all looks the same, all the pictures.
EVEN the snow men look the same.
Related GV posts:
Iraq: Snow in Baghdad
Videos of Snow in Baghdad
MENA: Brrrrrr …It's Freezing
Middle East: Let it Snow ..
Kuwait: Crazy Month Rolls By
It was a crazy month all around - from crazy weather to nutty Internet connections and price hikes.
Insane is how Marzouq, over Zdistrict, describes the weather. He further explains:
What has been going on for the past couple of days has been nothing short of insane, it has gone from cold to warm back to cold. I look forward to the weekend just so I can go riding but that is shot because of the 25- 37 Km/h winds. It has made it difficult for people to be outside so most of everyone is staying in or going to the malls.
From the weather, we move to a crazy price hike in cinema tickets. 3baid writes about the price hike on cinema tickets from the the country's only operator.
From the official Cinescape website:
Effective 7th February, ticket prices will be KD 3.000 except on Mondays.
Way to go Cinescape! It’s now even less attractive to watch movies there.
Pearl too has another price hike to report on and writes about a Kuwaiti juice company increasing the price of juice.
raising their prices but for selling a pack of 40 mini juices (125ml) for the insane price of KD 3.400, while a pack of 24 regular juices (250ml) is sold for the price of KD 3.600. Silly silly silly!!!
Bureaucracy too is having its toll on blogger Yousef at somecontrast who is hating himself for:
Yesterday I went to Shuwaikh’s port near Kuwait University. I wanted to tell everything in details, but that proved to be impossible… so many little annoying details.. most of which were intangible.. you’d have to go there once and know what i’m talking about
The recent Internet outage is not helping either and Forzaq8 is pointing fingers at who is to blame for it and proclaims:
yes Blame Egypt for it
In other non-crazy posts, Qais over at Io81 writes about how a local business works:
Many have heard or used 6alabat.com, its a simple website where you log in, browse for a restaurant and order. Then 6alabat.com takes the rest, i wont talk about the miss hap that 6alabat has like making incorrect orders etc etc…but i will explain how he makes a profit for other to understand
Meanwhile, Fonzation writes about a decision to close seven private schools in residential areas that has finally been implemented in Kuwait and thinks it may reduce traffic. He explains:
This will definitely minimize the extreme traffic we are witnessing on the 4th ring road everyday! Just like there are residential area, industrial areas, office areas, and so on, there should be areas designated for schools.
China: Lunar new year approaches with tragedy growing
Crisis looms large across the south part of the country with the 2008 China Snowstorm showing no signs of letting up. Trains are trapped [zh] on tracks, cars stuck on highways, flights have been delayed and canceled up and down the east coast and at least one woman has been trampled to death [zh] beneath the hundreds of thousands of stranded travelers at Guangzhou's train station in the south, scrambling in misery to make it home for the Olympic Chinese New Year of the Rat, which begins on Thursday.
The impact has been worse in other parts of the south, not accustomed to dealing with snow in any amounts, leaving large parts of Hunan and Hubei provinces freezing but without electricity and in some cases, water. Nearly all of normally subtropical Guizhou province, one of China's poorest, is in crisis mode now, with large areas urban and rural encased entirely in ice.
For the areas that still have electricity, the shared experience is being shown online. Here one Youku user somewhere in Guizhou writes that with both water and electricity off, over ten thousand people have gathered at what appears to be a natural hot water source (**please be warned that in the fifth video down, closeups of dead bodies are portrayed):
Another user from Guizhou writes in shock at all the ice, in a province which very seldom sees snow:
More shocking images of the response efforts, also from Guizhou:
Dozens of similar citizen reporter-style videos can be found on Chinese video sharing websites; this one comes from Hunan:
Several days ago a bus traveling from Chongqing to Guizhou overturned on the highway, resulting in 25 deaths. Someone took the time to film the salvage effort at the extremely grisly scene:
TangFlyBra at hoopChina asks in a post on Friday, “Guizhou, are you still alive?”
首先，贵州是最早开始凝冻天气的城市，也是受灾最严重的城市，这场漫天的大雪对贵州的伤害远远大于其他地区，因为贵州是喀斯特地形山脉，大部分公路都是环山而建，因此一旦路面无法出行，就意味着那些山里的城市和乡村将与世隔绝，没有任何能出去的可能！现在贵州很多县都已经断水断电并且与外界失去联系无数天了，加上当地本来就比较贫穷，当地人民完全是被抛弃在了大山里。
发飙：湖南是全国的交通枢纽、广州是返乡农民工的聚集地，于是漫天的报道都是这些省，而受灾最严重的贵州呢？是否已经被人遗忘了？昨晚看到公布的灾害各地的更新列表，首页居然没有贵州省！去他大爷的！其次，贵州的电塔由于厚厚的结冰已经倒塌了无数了，电塔上的结冰有接近1公分厚，这就意味着一座电塔上面现在被数吨的东西压着，这能不倒吗？贵阳前几天已经大面积停电停水了，贵州省委开会都是点蜡烛了，省会尚且如此，更何况其他城市。
发飙：当全省人民都在无限的痛苦之中，中央电视台连线贵州贵阳记者进行最新一轮灾情采访，首先问的第一句话是：“这次最新的降雪对你们那里有影响吗？”我操！当贵州的雪不是雪是吗？然后我期待着贵阳的记者把严重的问题说出来（我爸妈现在已经没办法出门了，昨晚的冻雪又造成了地面厚厚的一层冰，贵州所有的道路都是高低起伏的，可以想象一下现在贵州基本已经是一个巨大的溜冰场了）。你们知道记者花了十分钟在说什么吗？在说他妈的移动、联通和电信的基站如何如何被影响，然后如何如何去有人每隔七小时用柴油发电机去保证大家能顺利打手机。。。那些山区里的老乡们都他妈快冻死饿死了，就算贵阳也都停水停电又没法出门了，你他妈的居然在这里说保证手机信号的事情，我FXXK！！！
Hunan is a national traffic hub, and Guangzhou is where migrant workers gather to return home, so reports have all been on these two provinces. And Guizhou, which has seen the most devastation? Have people forgotten it already? Last night I saw the latest list of disaster areas, but I didn't even see Guizhou province on the front page! God dammit!
What's more, countless electricity towers in Guizhou, covered in ice nearly a centimeter thick, have toppled over. With a ton of ice pressing down on it, what electricity tower wouldn't fall down? For several days already, [the provincial capital] Guiyang has been without electricity or water. Even the provincial government is lighting candles now just to convene, and if that's where they're at, other cities must be worse.
As the entire province is stuck in endless misery, CCTV reporters from Guiyang did interviews for an update on the latest of the disaster. Their first question was, “have you been affected there by the latest snowfall?” Fuck! It's not snow if it's Guizhou snow, is that it? Then when I expected the Guiyang reporter to start asking the serious questions (my mom and dad, btw, can't even get out door now, the frozen snow from last night's fall has turned the ground into a thick layer of ice. All the roads in Guizhou are on rolling land, so you can imagine that the whole province is pretty much one big skating rink now), do you know what the reporter spent ten minute talking about? That fucking China Mobile and China Unicom relay stations have been affected, and how every seven hours someone is going and using a diesel generator to make sure everyone's cellphones work smoothly…the people in the mountain villages are about to fucking freeze and starve to death, and all of Guiyang is without power or water and can't even go out, and you're still fucking here talking about ensuring cellphone usage? Fuck!!!
Zhao Mu, director of main news portal Sohu.com's blogging services, posted on his blog today a thread of netizen comments that has been making the rounds:
Aqua and green are little to no hazard areas
贵州已经是零下5，6度，已经几乎是湿冷的极限，能很快带走人体热量，贵州人民短水短电，粮食及其危机，能源无法保证，生活艰辛无法想像。
希望天气早日结束，在成都关注和同情你们！
谁来拯救雪困中的贵州人？
现在到处都是关于雪灾的消息，贵州属于重灾区。我是一名在京的贵州人，所以尤其关注贵州的灾情，但是却发现从网络以及电视、报刊杂志上能了解贵州灾情的消息不多，不断和家人、亲友短信电话，得知的也是交通情况恶劣，都匀福泉等地无电供应等很片面的了解，直到刚才才从一友人处了解到一些比较全面且真实的情况，在此发表，希望版主能让此贴迅速通过并置顶以引起大家的关注，以此来为我家乡人民谋求一丝希望！否则再这样下去，我们这些身在异乡的贵州人将无颜面对家乡父老。
。。。
“仁怀现在就是一个死城~好惨，停水、停电、没有物资没有油，道路全封闭都两个星期了，连中枢街上都是一层冰，房顶上的冰有7cm厚，已经有人冻死了，火葬场没有油烧尸体好残忍。我们全员上路都快顶不住了（他们是交通警察），这是我从来没有经历过的残酷，有时我都在想象这是不是电影，感慨和平安定多好呀！今天终于来了3个小时的电又停，我正回来开服务器UPS（这是一种电源设备）马上用完。好累。寒灾起初中央没有引起重视，没有任何准备。要是中央再不采取紧急措施空投物资的话，我们这里真的要大规模的死人了。
（我问仁怀市现在状况如何，政府有何反应，他回答：）什么都运不进来，运油的车都翻在了路上，连行政中心都没有电，街上的炭买12元一斤、蜡烛5元一支、冻熟的白菜5元一斤还是限量。政府也没有办法
（（我问他还能坚持多久？）顶多还能坚持2天，还没有救援的话，将是尸体成山。
I hope the weather ends soon. With care and sympathy from Chengdu.
Who's going to rescue the Guizhouers trapped in the snow?
News is everywhere now of the snow catastrophe, and Guizhou has been one of the hardest-hit regions. I'm from Guizhou, living now in Beijing, and that's why I'm paying particular attention to the Guizhou disaster. I've noticed that there's not much to be found out about what's happening there now from the internet, television, newspapers or magazines, so I've been keeping in regular touch with family members and relatives, over the phone and through SMS, and I've learned that the traffic situation is horrible, but even less about places like Duyun and Fuquan with no power supply. Right until just now when I got from one friend a pretty comprehensive picture, which I'll post here, and I hope the webmaster hikes this up so more people see it, and to give the people back where I'm from a shred of hope! If things keep on the way they are, us Guizhoers around the country won't have enough face left to go back and face the folks at home.
[…]
“Renhuai is already a dead city, it's so tragic. No water, no electricity, no supplies and no oil. All roads have been closed for two weeks already, and even the main streets are layered with ice. The ice on the roofs of houses is seven centimeters thick, and people have already frozen to death. The crematory has no fuel to burn the bodies with, it's tragic. Our whole squad can barely stay on the road (they're traffic police), this is more merciless than anything I've seen before. Sometimes I even wonder if this isn't a movie, it makes things a lot easier to handle! Today we finally got three hours of electricity and then it stopped again. I'm going back now to turn on the server UPS (this is a kind of power source) as I'm almost out of power. So tired.
The central government wasn't led to pay that much attention when the cold first struck, so there wasn't any preparation. Now if the central government doesn't keep up the emergency goods air drops, we're going to have large-scale deaths here.”
I ask what the situation is now in Renhuai, if the government has taken action, and he answers: “they can't move anything in, the fuel transport truck flipped on the road, and even the administrative center has no power; coal on the street is selling for 12 RMB a jin, candles 5 RMB a piece, and frozen cooked cabbage at 5 RMB a jin is still limited. There's nothing the government can do.”
I ask him how long they can last. “Two days at most, and if we haven't been saved by then, there are going to be mountains of corpses.”
News we could hear sooner than not; at least in Guangdong province, local transportation authorities didn't hesitate to repeat the true situation of tracks restored and numbers heading home in the face of Ministry (and The Minister) of Railways' fabrications to that effect during Wen Jiabao's visit to the provincial capital's train station earlier this week. Southern Group reporters are being recalled, presumably so Xinhua can take over.
Making the most of the situation, a group of boys in hard-hit Bijie, Guizhou, filmed themselves hiking up to a local television transmission tower where locals are passing the time playing on an sloped ice patch:
Juliana Rincón: A multi-tasking blogger
Juliana Rincón Parra was born in Peru, lived in Costa Rica and has now settled in Colombia. She has collected a BA in Drama, experience working as a bilingual copywriter, as translator, has played around with SEO, html coding, Web 2.0 and is now studying dental lab, which makes her very excited about doing teeth metal work and learning how to do metal-porcelain dental crowns and caps. She blogs in Spanish at Medeamaterial, a blog about anything Jules related.
As if it all wasn't enough, for the past two years Juliana has always found some free time to collaborate to Global Voices Online as an author and has just accepted the challenge to be the new GVO Video Editor, on the top of the regular roundup of the Colombian blogosphere. Better than trying to describe this multi-tasking author, it is only fair that we explore her new expertise and have a video of her introducing herself:
When did you start blogging and what has motivated you to blog?
I started an online journal on opendiary.com back in 1999. Then I stopped and started several times on different platforms, including online forums until 2005, when I opened my blog Medeamaterial in blogspot. For me writing has been a lifelong way to vent, express myself and share random thoughts I have. Later on I found that it also comes with a sense of community and I've met wonderful friends through it and discovered that there's empowerment that comes with the whole experience of writing and getting feedback on what you write.
What is Mediamaterial about? How would you introduce it to someone who can't read Spanish?
Medeamaterial is a blog about whatever is going on in my life. That's where I can post interesting links I stumble upon, pictures of my crafting endeavours, complain about my day, write about topics that matter to me or just write up my experiences when travelling. It started as a place to vent, and as something I could do at work whenever I was supposed to be “looking busy” but there wasn't anything to do. It used to be a lot more personal and anonymous, but as more people know who I am and started reading it… including my parents, boyfriend and people interested in HiperBarrio project, I had to quit on the whining, complaining and any other juicy personal tidbits and tone it down for PR reasons :)
You haven't told us about it, but we have also found out there is another blog of yours, the gastronomic Manos en La Masa. Please tell us about your hidden cooking skills and let us know your recommended Latin American dishes.
I used to blog at Manos en la Masa… but I haven't really been cooking lately, so I haven't been able to write in there. I like cooking, but I hate cooking for survival or regular meals. So if I HAVE to cook to eat… most of the time I'll just fix a sandwich or have an arepa with queso (cheese). The food I really love is Peruvian food. They have this dish, it's made out of cow's hearts on a stick and over the grill called Anticucho. Sounds disturbing, but it is the BEST thing ever. They serve it with a spicy ají sauce, and a slice of boiled potato and a piece of corn on the cob. Hmmm. love it. I haven't had it in such a looong time.
So when in Perú, definitely try it. Try everything. Peruvian food is the best I've ever had. Colombian food is a bit bland for my taste, but there's this soup called Ajiaco made of chicken and 5 different types of potato that rocks. And for the ones going to Costa Rica, I'd recommend jumping over to the Caribbean side and having “rice and beans”, which has coconut rice and spicy chicken (or fish) on the side, with a great tasting sauce.
Would you have a most memorable blogging experience?
Can I have two instead of one? I have a professional one, which was blogging live from Pop!Tech. The whole idea that I could have the chance to travel thanks to blogging was too unreal to grasp, and then there I was, writing online, publishing, and few minutes later, getting feedback from people who don't speak English, who had been following pop!tech in Spanish through my blog.
The other one is based on many different moments and experiences, and has to do with the personal connections. I've met many good friends through blogging, blogs have seen me through falling in and out of love and blogging has also helped me keep up with friends and family who are far away.
What are the main issues affecting your blogosphere?
I guess that most bloggers still don't feel that what they write matters. That their blogs are powerful tools. In Costa Rica, the main issue was that bloggers were afraid that people would be offended by what they wrote, so they avoided any strong topics. That has changed since thanks to a few bloggers who aren't afraid of making their opinions known.
Here in Colombia I'm still trying to figure out what the deal is. There are many blogs I've never heard of, and I'm sure there are plenty I should be reading, but I've never known about them because people aren't that good about linking to other blogs or expanding conversations on theirs. Also, most people discuss national issues, but not the local ones, so sometimes great things are going on in a certain region, but bloggers don't write about them.
When did you start reporting these and other issues on Global Voices Online?
I started on February 2006. David Sasaki, then editor of Latin America, asked if he could post one of my articles, and then he wondered if I would be willing to help out writing about the Costa Rican blogosphere. I didn't need much convincing, and I've been writing ever since.
You have just taken up now a new role as video editor for Global Voices. How is it going so far and what are your expectations on the job?
On working as the video editor… it's been great! I don't know how many bloggers are paid in Colombia, but I don't think they are all that many, much less who can make a living out of it. In my case, it's just amazing to get paid for doing something I was very happy to do as a volunteer. Besides, I get to watch incredible videos from all around the world all day long.
My goal is to find as many wonderful individuals who are doing Vlogs and citizen journalism from the different parts of the world as I can, and let them know that they are doing a great job in documenting their lives and their country. So far I've started a VideoGlobalVoices channel on YouTube where I've been linking and subscribing to the citizen media videos and channels I've found, I'm still test running it to find out what other ways we can maximize its use. I hope eventually, people will start writing in to suggest their videos or their work, and we'll be able to cover even more people and more areas.
You mentioned briefly you have been involved with Hiperbarrio. Could you tell us about it, and how this project has helped some people in Medellín to reflect on or change the perception of themselves and their community?
Hiperbarrio has been growing at the same time the rest of mainstream Medellin and Colombia has been discovering blogs. I don't know if we could be talking about a change throughout Medellín, since we started with just a couple of communities, but as of January, when the work done in La Loma was shown, it seems that government officials, community members and the public in general finally caught on in what we have been attempting to do: empowering communities to tell their stories.
I think people didn't really understand what we were doing, what “blogs”, citizen media and citizen journalism were all about, and what all these concepts had to do with them. But seeing the physical examples: videos, pictures and articles, and seeing the pride these young adults had in their products, knowing they were writing about their community from within their community, I think the message finally got across, and interest in HiperBarrio has grown, and now we have people in government organizations asking for our help in diminishing this particular type of digital gap.
Talking about gap and divided, there don't seem to be many women blogging from Latin American countries. Would you say that this is true for Colombia?
I hadn't heard that particular statistic about gender ratios regarding Colombian bloggers… What I'd venture is that perhaps female Colombian bloggers are more private about their blogging, and maybe don't pinpoint to geographic locations. I guess computers are still a luxury item here in Colombia: many people use the computers at work, and usually, if they are using computers it is because they studied something related to computer science, and that would support the gender gap idea. Now that I think about it: I do know plenty of girls who use the internet on a daily basis, but they are between 15- 21 years old and can be found on online forums, myspace and facebook.
Another concern would be that I've found that there's a perception here that someone who sits at a computer at home is considered to be “doing nothing all day”. Or they are “playing with internet”. So in an average Colombian household, boys and men are allowed more free time at home in general, watching TV, playing soccer, playing video games or using the computer, while girls and women get to do chores, laundry, prepare meals, take care of children or wash dishes. Thus, boys would get to spend more time fiddling with internet and discovering these new tools of technology, and women wouldn't.
What would say to get women in Colombia motivated to blog more?
How to motivate women to blog more? When we opened Hiperbarrio, we got more women interested in taking the courses than men, so my guess is that just having more opportunities to take part of these courses will get women into the blogosphere. It would also have to do with access to computers, and curbing machismo. If women have to share computers at home with family members, it is usually the men who have first dibs on who gets to use it.
Juliana Ricón, taking a break from the online world and enjoying a trip to different towns east of Medellín, in Antioquia, Colombia, in a trip which is known as the ‘orient tour'
Japan: Newspapers launch news portal “Aratanisu”, bloggers respond
Three of Japan's largest newspapers, Nikkei Inc., Asahi Shimbun Co. and Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, on Thursday together launched a new online news portal referred to as Aratanisu (”新s” in Japanese). The site aims to provide side-by-side coverage of news stories from each newspaper in order to allow readers to easily draw comparisons on front page news, general news and editorials. Links from article summaries on the main Aratanisu webpage lead to original articles posted at the newspapers in question.
Bloggers have reacted with skepticism at the new portal [ja], pointing to the absence of RSS feeds, to the lack of any long-term archiving function, and to the lack of interest on the part of users in comparing news coverage from major papers. Many have also questioned the need for another news site [ja] given the existence of news aggregators like Google News. Others have reflected on the lack of coverage of areas such as economics, international news, sports, and culture [ja].
Not all users were critical of the site, however. Twitter user youzaka, for example, explains the name “Aratanisu” itself and the URL allatanys.jp in a positive light:
やっぱプロが編み出しただけあって「あらたにす」のネーミングセンスはすごい。仮称のANYがAllataNYsの中にちゃんと入っているし、”新s”ということで新しいかんじプンプンだし、新はNEWなのでこれすなわちNEWｓサイトでもある。
Many bloggers did not find the name so appealing, however. Blogger atm2k2 writes:
「あらたにす」ですか。ネーミングが良くないね。あすてらす製薬の広告かと思ってしまった。朝日新聞と読売新聞、日本経済新聞が立ち上げたインターネット共同事業のことである。
いまどき、こんなもので新聞への回帰を図ろうなんて真剣に考えているのでしょうか。狙いは別のところにあると見た方がよさそうだ。「新聞勝ち組連合」で何かを始めようということか。
At Gato News, meanwhile, blogger and former journalist Fujishiro Hiroyuki, co-author of the book “Blog Journalism: Media for 3 million people” [ja], wrote of the news project:
プロジェクト名・ANYとして注目されていた日経・朝日・読売の合同サイト「あらたにす」がオープンしました。舌をかみそうなネーミングだけでなく、ネットユーザーからはサイトについても「新しさがない」「GoogleNewsのほうがいい」などとイマイチ評判が良くないようですが、個人的には３社の記事を比べるというコンセプトはなかなか面白いと思います。一般ユーザーがどれくらい使うか分かりませんが、ニュース好きにとっては使い勝手がありそうですし、情報・リテラシー教育などにも使えそうです。
[…]
あらたにすは、ニュースアグリゲーターとして3社のサイトにアクセスを流すという役割だけでなく、「売り」も明確です。「くらべる一面」というキャッチコピーの通り、一面の読み比べがトップページとなっていますが、社会面、社説、注目テーマなどに加えて書評も比べられ、各社の論調、視点の違いが良くわかります。くらべる一面の下のほうには日経・朝日・読売の編集局からその日のニュースをどのように捉えているのかコメントもあり、インターフェイスも分かりやすい。
[…]
新聞社はコンテンツを生み出していることもあり、いまだにニュースアグリゲーターを軽視（どころか敵視）している人もいるようですが、コンテンツだけでなく、そのコンテンツをいかに見せるか、ユーザーに届けるかと言う「編集（見せ方、新聞社で言う整理）」の価値が重要なことが明確になったと思います。ヤフーのトピックスがよく読まれているのも、この編集の力です。商品を単に陳列するだけでは売れないように、情報も同じで見せ方を工夫すれば、より読まれる可能性があります。
The most bookmarked blog article on the topic, however, is almost certainly that of blogger and former television director anti-monos, who compared the new site to another joint news portal, 47news (for background about 47news see this YouTube video in English). In the post, bookmarked by nearly 300 Hatena users, anti-monos writes:
はっきり言ってしまえば、「あらたにす」は間違いなく失敗する。かつて共同通信と地方紙連合が立ち上げた47NEWSと同じくらい、過疎状態になる。なぜダメかと言うと、RSSに対応していないのも驚いたが、構成自体が新聞といったマスコミの論理から1ミリも抜け出せていない。
コンテンツの中身を見ると、まずは朝日、日経、読売の一面記事を紹介して比べる。さらに社説、各紙の注目テーマが並ぶ。新聞紙面と違う目玉と言えば、「新聞案内人」なる有識者が、新聞の読み方を教えてくれる。さすが全国紙が集めてきただけあって、「新聞案内人」は伊藤元重東大教授、小林陽太郎元経済同友会代表幹事などそうそうたる面々になっている。
だが「一面記事」、「注目テーマ」、「社説」、「新聞案内人」と来て、気がついてしまった。やはりダメだと。既存の新聞そのものなのだ。つまり、すべてが「上から目線」で押し付けがましい。
例えば一面記事というのは、新聞社が「きょう日本国民が知っておくべき最も重要なニュースはこれです！」という意味を持つ。まあ、勝手な新聞社の独りよがりなのだが、新聞記者というのは自分の記事が一面になるかどうかがかなり気になる。読者に新聞社のニュース価値判断を押し付けている。「社説」はもはや説明の必要もないほどの「押し付け」。
[…]
既存のマスコミが絶対に理解できない、かつ生理的にも受け付けられないネットの特徴は「編集権を読者に委ねている」ということ。新聞、ラジオ、テレビと既存のマスコミはすべてニュース価値をマスコミの側で判断し、それを受け手に与えるという構造だった。何をどう扱うかは最初から最後まで、すべてマスコミ次第。つまり「編集権を完全にコントロールできる」状態。言い方を変えれば完全なる「押し付け」だ。だから、マスコミはブログやＳＮＳなど受け手の側が発信、編集するというのは生理的にも受け入れられない。
ところがネットだと、２ちゃんねる、ニコニコ動画でも、マスコミの作った「ニュース」はすべて盛り上がるための「ネタ」に過ぎない。ネットに放たれたとたん、マスコミのコンテンツは、マスコミ自身が与えたお仕着せの「ニュース価値」から開放されてしまう。良くも悪くもなのだが。そこがマスコミにはアイデンティティに関わるだけに、決定的に理解できない。平均年収千数百万をもらっていても、社会経験などほとんどない記者が経費で飲み食いしながら、政治、経済、天下国家を語り、経費のタクシーで深夜に帰宅、そして紙面では格差社会を嘆くなどという、マスコミにとっては能天気な時代はもはや終わろうとしているのに。
Links for Sun, 2008-02
There are more than 100 comments showing solidarity with lieutenant blogger Melquisedec Nascimento [pt]. According to him, Rio de Janeiro's Governor Sergio Cabral ordered yesterday that he was arrested immediately. The Police force in charge of the task paid visit to his home this Saturday, but he was nowhere to be found. “What greatly irritated Cabral was a photo composition and a video posted on the blog, in which the governor is depicted as Pinocchio”.
A closer look at the peace agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo: “Average number of signatures per page: 40, Signatories using blue pens: 35, Signatories using black pens: 3 (Alan Doss, new UN SRSG; Dennis Kalume, Interior Minister; Didier Bitaki Wateshe, Kifuafua Mai Mai group), Signatories using green pens: 2 (the acting Governor of South Kivu + an unidentified witness), Most graphically distinctive signature: Didier Bitaki Wateshe, of the Kifuafua Mai Mai group (Ufamundu/Masisi axe), Most expansive signature by surface area: Kibiswa Kwabene Naupess, representing the national civil society delegation, Nicest fountain pen: Alan Doss, UN SRSG…”
Kinshasa based blogger, Fred, writes: “Rory MacLean has done me the honour of responding to my recent post, berating him for writing, in a review of Tim Butcher’s Blood River for The Guardian, that ‘there is little difference between the Congo seen by Stanley and by Butcher’, and suggesting that readers should weep for Congo but not go there.”
Going Home says that films such as Speed might seem believable in Hollywood, but the reality in Armenia is somewhat different. In particular, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the blogger cites traffic, law enforcement and corruption in the country as just some of the reasons why nobody would ever plant a bomb on a bus in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
The author of Tordesilhas [pt], a blog by a Brazilian living in Lima, is surprised to discover that there is a beautiful tradition of carnival in Peru. In this post, he explores the Cajamarca, Ayacucho and the Amazon areas carnival.
Bruce Tasker, an expat worker currently attempting to claim damages from the World Bank for blacklisting, continues to allege widespread high-level corruption in government and the international money-lending organization. His Blowing the World Bank Whistle now takes a look at the effects of that alleged corruption.
Archuk's blog saysthat the return of Levon Ter-Petrossian to the political scene in Armenia for the 19 February presidential election is part of some external plan to normalize and stabilize the South Caucasus . The blogger asks “Who woke up Levon Ter-Petrossian?”
Saturday saw the prime minister and still presidential favorite campaign on my doorstop. My Armenia Election Monitor 2008 has an account as well as photos from the free concert staged by Armenia's top pop stars, including this year's Eurovision Song Contest contestant, Sirusho in his support.
On January 22, blogger smashmedia asked readers of his blog to answer a questionnaire [ja] on the topic of: “How many blogs are there in Japan?” [ja] In another post [ja], smashmedia reports that respondents on average estimated the number of Japanese blogs at 2.44 million. Other results: 23% answered that they post blog entries every day, and 29% blog 2-3 times per week. The average age of respondents was 31. smashmedia notes that results are biased as 63% of respondents report that they come from Tokyo.
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