Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2008 September 11

11 September 2008

Daily archive · 5 posts

Stories from 11 September 2008

Lebanon: The Assassination's Echo

Written by Nash Suleiman · Middle East & North Africa

Mr Saleh Aridi was about to drive his car when a bomb planted under the driver-seat went off, killing him on the spot. Mr Aridi a well known top adviser to the government minister and pro-Syrian Druze leader Talal Arslan. With his death, the number of assassinated officials in Lebanon mounted to 11 since former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination on February 14, 2005. Lebanese bloggers react.

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UAE: Iran Quake's Tremors Felt in Dubai

Written by Amira Al Hussaini · Middle East & North Africa

Tremors from an earthquake in nearby Iran were felt in Dubai and other parts of the UAE, sending thousands of office workers and residents to the streets as high-rise buildings were evacuated, bloggers report. The quake, which measured 6.1 on the Richter scale, struck near Bandar Abbas, while tremors registered in the UAE measured 4.8, according to news reports.

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Japan: Street View's Missing Streets

Written by Chris Salzberg · East Asia

The launch early last month of Google's Street View service in major Japanese cities brought with it considerable controversy and debate among Internet users. While that debate has since quieted down, another discussion has emerged in its wake, centered on a curious property of the new service that, as of yet, remains unexplained by the company that created it.

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Kazakhstan: Almaty Today weblog

Written by Adil Nurmakov · Central Asia & Caucasus

Adam links to the newborn weblog, dedicated specifically to Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, its news, problems and architecture projects.

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China: 2008 Internet Buzz Words Video

Written by Oiwan Lam · East Asia

My mother doesn't know how to go online She looks very busy everyday She says the internet is no good Everything inside is very yellow and very violent Oh mama, who tells you so? Oh mama, what you say thunder-shocks me Oh mama, let your son tell you I go online to buy sauce (majority onlookers)

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Updates from 11 September 2008

Russia

The Ivanov Report dissects the Washington Post's recent coverage of Russia: “What was somewhat surprising, though, was the level of the Post's attention to the topic: between August 9 and September 2, the Post has published a whopping 37 editorials and op-eds (and I might have missed some) — not to mention regular reports from on-the-ground.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

Estonian blogger Flasher T of AnTyx writes this in response to a post about Russia by the Economist's Edward Lucas: “I am disappointed in Edward Lucas for perpetuating this intellectual farce. They would have us believe that all the evil and injustice of Russia is down to the Chekists, or the Bolsheviks, or the Jews. But the bastards are only in the Kremlin because the common Russian people put them there.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

White Sun of the Desert blogs - here and here - about life on an oil drilling platform 15 km off Sakhalin Island.

• Veronica Khokhlova

Iran

Window on Eurasia writes about Russia's “major victory on pipelines”: “[…] the Russian government will now have full and uncontested control over pipelines between the Caspian basin and the West which pass through Russian territory and will be able either directly or through its clients like the PKK to disrupt the only routes such as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan that bypass the Russian Federation.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Russia

Window on Eurasia discusses a recent piece on Magomed Yevloev's murder: “Moreover, the West […] is too focused on talking to Moscow ‘about the interpretation of the third paragraph of the fourth point of ht Medvedev-Sarkozy plan' to be concerned with such ‘details' as a political murder, ‘lest it put at risk important mutual strategic interests'.” North Ossetian blogger Valery Dzutsev thinks that the EU's demand for a “[proper investigation of] the killing” may be perceived by Russia “only as supporting evidence of the western involvement in the ongoing Ingush surge of violence”: “In one of his recent interviews Putin pensively said, that Russian government ‘knows what is going on in Ingushetia'. Knowing Putin, it is not difficult to figure out what he knows. He must be thinking, that the West have organised a plot in North Caucasus for Russia.”

• Veronica Khokhlova