Stories from 8 October 2009
Saudi Arabia: To coed or not to coed
Should coed universities be allowed in Saudi Arabia? Saudi Jeans comments on the latest developments on this issue.
Syria: Angelina Jolie visits Iraqi Refugees
Iraqi refugees in Syria had a surprise visitor. The News from Syria says that Angelina Jolie, along with Brad Pitt, visited the refugees, urging the world not to forget about them.
Jordan: The picture of a terrorist
Jordanian Naseem Tarawanah shares a picture of Hosam Smadi, a Jordanian national arrested in the US and charged with attempting to use weapons of mass destruction. Click on the link to tune into the debate.
Jordan: Arabic TV Shows for Children
Jordanian Ahmad Humeid discusses television programmes available for children in Arabic in this post.
Kuwait: Waiting for Transformers 3
ZDistrict from Kuwait can't wait for Transformers 3.
US diplomacy in Iran and Syria
Marc Lynch takes a look at US diplomacy work with Iran and Syria in this post.
USA: Native Americans’ long battle against racism
Racism and discrimination in the USA still affect Native Americans particularly hard, as it has in the past too. But now Native Americans are fighting back with online media.
Costa Rica: Streaming Video Discussions on Citizen Journalism
Last night 300 users tuned in to the video streaming from the Spanish Cultural center, where three journalists with extensive experience with citizen media from Spain, Costa Rica and Cuba: Rosa Jiménez Cano, Cristian Cambronero and Lazaro Rodriguez spoke about the transformation of journalism as it adapts to the new...
Kenya: Waiting for El Niño
Kenyans are waiting for the El Niño rains anticipated between now and December with mixed feelings. Although in it's ‘moderate' form El Niño is expected to displace at least 100,000 people, most Kenyans actually want this El Niño.
India: Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Ashutosh celebrates the Nobel Prize of Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, the first Indian to win it in chemistry. This year, Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, Ada Yonath and Tom Steitz have jointly won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for their pioneering studies on the structure of the ribosome.
Sri Lanka: FarmerNet
LIRNE Asia blog informs that “the ICT arm of Sri Lanka’s largest community-based organization, Sarvodaya, launched its FarmerNet initiative last month”. FarmerNet is an online trading platform where the buyers and sellers can efficiently exchange information about produce bypassing middlemen.
Haiti: Smoke & Mirrors?
Of the recent conference aimed at attracting investors to the island, Hervé Jean Michel, blogging at HaitiAnalysis.com, says: “Despite the fanfare surrounding the meeting, Haiti's masses remained completely indifferent to the gathering.”
Bahamas: Crime Questions
Jerome Pinder at Weblog Bahamas has a few pressing questions for the Minister of National Security.
Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Maarten, French Guiana: Autonomy?
Repeating Islands notes that the French Overseas Territories “are to vote on more autonomy in January 2010.”
Dominica: Speaking with a Superstar
Dominica Weekly interviews “one of Dominica’s International heroes, Roots Reggae superstar Nasio Fontaine.”
Barbados: Seizing Opportunity
Living in Barbados thinks that “one of the wrong turns that Caribbean countries made in recent decades was to put so many of their eggs into the tourism basket.”
Singapore: More Cash ≠ More Babies
Will a cash incentive make women want to have a child? Going by recent figures under Singapore’s recent Baby Bonus initiative, a government plan to raise declining birth rates in the country, the answer is “no”.
Pakistan: UK Visa Bureaucracy
Deadpan Thoughts describes the humiliations and complications faced by Pakistanis to obtain an UK visa and opines that the government of Pakistan should “link the renewal of all British diplomat’s Pakistani visas with the same process (we) ordinary Pakistanis have to go through.”
Tajikistan: Me No Speak the Tajik
Vlad reports that Tajikistan has adopted legislation to downgrade the official status of the Russian language in a move that has reportedly had the country’s minorities up in arms.
Afghanistan: Jordanian royals fighting in Afghanistan?
Nick Fielding tells about a curious news in the Pakistan newspapers, which say that six women, all members of the Jordanian royal family, are due to be handed over to the Jordanian Embassy in Islamabad tomorrow following the death of their husbands in a Coalition airstrike several months ago.
Kyrgyzstan: UNESCO against fountains in Osh
Arawanski writes that UNESCO is against building of two fountains on the foothills of the Sulaiman Mountain (the southern part of Kyrgyzstan), as it considers they pose a threat to the condition of the sacred mountain.
