October, 2010
Stories from October, 2010
8 October 2010
China: Where Wen Jiabao's political reforms should begin
Post-secondary education and an open Internet are where one academic suggests Wen Jiabao begin political reforms, the need for which the Chinese Premier emphasized in his recent interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
Can We Halve Global Hunger by 2015?
World leaders from some 140 countries gathered at a United Nations Summit in New York from September 20-22 to discuss the best approaches for achieving eight poverty-reducing goals by 2015. One goal: To halve global hunger between 1990 and 2015.
Chile: Most Mapuche Prisoners End Hunger Strike
Following intense negotiations with the Chilean government, 25 Mapuche prisoners being held at jails in the cities of Concepción, Angol, Temuco and Valdivia, ended a hunger strike that lasted 82 days. Nonetheless, 14 Mapuche prisoners held and hospitalized in several cities have not ended the strike.
Azerbaijan: Playing the Armenian card
As Azerbaijan prepares for parliamentary elections on 7 November, opposition bloggers are unhappy with the conduct of the vote so far. Now, they report, the local media is starting to publish what they consider to be black propaganda aimed at discrediting opposition candidates in the eyes of the electorate.
7 October 2010
Russia: Bloggers Meet With Iranian Ambassador, Avoid Sensitive Topics

The meeting of Russia's top-bloggers with the Iranian Ambassador in Moscow three days after Hossein Derakhshan had been sentenced to 19.5 years of imprisonment for "anti-government propaganda" highlighted the clumsy attempts of the Iranian online diplomacy in Russia. It also showed commercialization and excessive cynicism of some of the popular Russian bloggers.
Peru: Mario Vargas Llosa is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature
On Thursday October 7, Peruvians woke up to what has been called the "News of the Year": Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat." The Peruvian blogosphere quickly reacted to the news, and "Mario Vargas Llosa" has been a worldwide Twitter trending topic for almost 12 hours.
































I think the reason it stuck with me is that I was fired from my first real job--teaching at a...