Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2008 July 21

21 July 2008

Daily archive · 10 posts

Stories from 21 July 2008

Israel, Lebanon: Russophone Bloggers Discuss Prisoner Exchange Deal

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · Middle East & North Africa, Eastern & Central Europe

While some bloggers from the former Soviet Union take interest in the Middle Eastern affairs out of idle (or not so idle) curiosity, for others Israel is home, and so it's not surprising that the July 16 exchange of prisoners between Israel and Lebanon did not go unnoticed in the Russian-language blogosphere.

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Syria: Nudity and Moral Decay

Written by Amira Al Hussaini · Middle East & North Africa

How much nudity on television can be considered as art, and how much of it contributes to moral decay? Syrian blogger Emad [Ar] tries to answer this question in the following post.

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Saudi Arabia: Segregation on the blogroll?

Written by Ayesha Saldanha · Middle East & North Africa

It is well known that segregation of the sexes in Saudi Arabia exists in everyday life - but what about online? Can the names of male and female bloggers exist together on a blogroll? One Saudi blogger is amused at the thought.

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Japan: Communist Party gets boost from Nico Nico Douga

Written by Chris Salzberg · East Asia

It is a long time since the Japanese Communist Party had any luck in Japanese politics, but with help from no other than Japan's popular video sharing site, Nico Nico Douga, this may be changing. A 51-minute video of a February 8th speech by Chairman Kazuo Shii of the JCP registered over ten thousand comments on the video sharing site, and there are now reports that interest in the party among people in their 20s and 30s is way up.

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Kazakhstan: Astana Anniversary

Written by Adil Nurmakov · Central Asia & Caucasus

Bloggers discuss how the celebrations of the anniversary of Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan, went. They were so widely advertised and loads of public finance was spent on the tenth anniversary of the capital, that most of the citizens - and bloggers - sighed with relieve when the whole fuss was over.

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India: All about the Theatre!

Written by Javits Rajendran · South Asia

A bunch of IT professionals, with a hectic weekday schedule, are keeping themselves busy even during the weekends. They have been smitten by the theatre bug. ‘Rebelz’ as they are otherwise known, formed this group with just one purpose in mind.

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Updates from 21 July 2008

Brazil

Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva has ratified the agreement to standardise the Portuguese language and its spelling in a move to make the language, spoken in 8 countries, more uniform globally. O Hermenauta [pt] has written a round up of reactions from both sides of the ocean and concludes the agreement is still a disagreement.

• Paula Góes

Malawi

Stories on Malawi reports the introduction of female condoms in the Malawian market.

• Elia Varela Serra

Angola

Pitigrili [pt] retorts to an article about Africa's oilfields on a newspaper which stated that few will benefit from Africa's oil boom: “Of course, the Western multinationals don't like the reconstruction deals between Angola and China, where oil is the currency exchange. But the Angolan people finally see asphalt and basic education and health infrastructure making a coming back since the beginning of the 1975 civil war. If we look at the African reality, it's a unique case of reconstruction benefiting the entire population.”

• Paula Góes

D.R. of Congo

Accross the divide: Analysis and anecdote from Africa comments on the ceasfire violations of the Goma Peace Agreement, according to a Human Right Watch communique. He says: “civilians continue to die in far greater numbers than before the Goma Agreement was reached six months ago. A serious lack of political will on all sides is undermining the agreement”.

• Elia Varela Serra

Development

Théophile Kouamouo [Fr] reviews in his blog the book La Chinafrique: Pékin à la conquête du continent noir by Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, about the Chinese presence in Africa. He says: “The Chinese aren't angels sent by the God of South-South cooperation and they are as racist, if not more than the Westerners living in Africa […] but they aren't demons either”.

• Elia Varela Serra

Kenya

In Ritch's World is alarmed by the recent “spate of mysterious fires” in Kenyan schools. He says: “Most of these schools do not have warning systems that would help to deal with fires before the worst comes to the worst. Neither do they have fire fighting equipment”.

• Elia Varela Serra