What will the rich have to cope with next?
Fuel prices have grounded an unexpected frequent-flyer: US hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Combs complained about the “too high” price of fuel and pleaded for free oil from his “Saudi Arabia brothers and sisters” in a YouTube video posted on Wednesday.
Beijing, you have a nation of addicts:
Around four million Chinese youngsters are addicted to the Internet, mainly attracted by “unhealthy” online games, state media reported Friday, citing a top legislator.
“Internet-addicted teenagers” account for around 10 percent of China’s Web users under the age of 18, the Beijing Times said, quoting Li Jianguo, a vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, or parliament.
The Independent’s Robert Fisk recalls a telling story:
As one of the Arab world’s most prominent commentators put it to me this week, “[Joseph] Biden’s being set up to protect Israel while [Barack] Obama looks after the transportation system in Chicago.” It was a cruel remark with just enough bitter reality to make it bite.
Whatever it takes to protect Israel’s supposed sanctity in the American political arena.
This week marks the 42nd anniversary of the execution of Sayyed Qutb, one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Islamism.
What is his legacy today, by an young Egyptian member of the Muslim Brotherhood (who features in my new book, The Blogging Revolution.)
Human rights for women in Saudi Arabia – and no, that’s not a contradiction – through blogger’s eyes.
The United States says Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank threaten any peace between Israel and the Palestinians – yet it also encourages Americans to help support settlers by offering tax breaks on donations.
Is the internet ignoring the important details in life?
Internet mapping is wiping the rich geography and history of Britain off the map, Britain’s most senior cartographer warned yesterday.
Churches, cathedrals, stately homes, battlefields, ancient woodlands, rivers, eccentric landmarks and many more features which make up the tapestry of the British landscape are not being represented in online maps, which focus on merely providing driving directions, said Mary Spence, President of the British Cartographical Society.
The following book review of The Blogging Revolution, in Adelaide’s Independent Weekly, was published by Kate Lockett on August 29:
Did you know that Iran has around one million bloggers, that Farsi is in the top five languages used on the internet or that 20 per cent of Saudi Arabians are now online? Australian journalist and blogger Antony Loewenstein explains that blogging is not the sole domain of pornographers or Hollywood gossips and that a previously voiceless Saudi Arabian female can now, by blogging, explain the realities of her life and culture with readers in Sydney. He argues that bloggers are being referred to increasingly by journalists and the curious alike to find out what is really happening in hot spots around the globe because it is a legitimate form of “stand alone journalism, almost completely self-sufficient and able to reach readers directly without any unnecessary filters”.
Loewenstein travels to Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Cuba and China to meet bloggers who are often risking their lives in order to share their views on their country’s rulers and their opinions on Western democracy, the US in particular. He is at pains to point out that he’s not calling for regime change in the countries he visited, nor an increase in US involvement, but for the right of all citizens to access, distribute and discuss information without persecution. He notes with interest that in homes where men and women go to great lengths to socialise away from the eyes of the authorities, the last thing they wanted to discuss was politics: “It was time to escape the daily need to assume a public role, to be what society, and especially families, expected.”
He meets a variety of journalists, writers, bloggers and partygoers and allows the reader to learn more about life in what we tend to view as repressed or backward countries. As one Iranian journo puts it, “Western media agencies only want to know about nuclear problems and al-Qaeda”. Loewenstein’s intelligence and humanity shine through and have made this reader, at least, keen to investigate blogs that discuss things other than Lindsay Lohan’s new girlfriend.
Who was responsible for dropping cluster bombs during the recent war between Russia and Georgia?
I discuss in my new book, The Blogging Revolution, about the political and social realities in Cuba, and gradual liberalisation of the country under new President Raul Castro. And then this:
Cuba has ordered jailed punk rocker Gorki Aguila, an outspoken critic of Fidel Castro and the communist government, to stand trial on Friday for “social dangerousness,” a charge that could carry up to four years in prison.
Authorities arrested the 39-year-old lead singer of Porno para Ricardo at his Havana home on Monday, shortly after the band had completed work on a new album. Cuban law defines “social dangerousness” as behaviour contrary to “communist morality,” and police use it to detain offenders before they have a chance to commit a crime.
Performing songs with angry lyrics that poke fun at or openly insult Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who became Cuba’s president in February, Porno para Ricardo is banned from official Cuban airwaves.
This is the sign of a weak and insecure regime.
What, all Muslims aren’t terrorists who hate the West?
Contrary to the common assumption that Muslims view globalization as a threat to their society, a new poll of Muslim countries finds that globalization is generally viewed positively. The poll was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org in six nations with predominantly Muslim populations in different regions of the world including Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Indonesia, and the Palestinian Territories, plus the Muslim population of Nigeria.
Sadegh Zibakalam, Bitterlemons International, August 28:
Iranian support for the newly established Iraqi regime was quite reasonable and to be expected. The Iranians fought eight long years to witness a Shi’ite-dominated government in Iraq. Iran lost a million of its people in that war, its economy was shattered and the Islamic republic lost nearly all the international support it had achieved during the early days of its revolution. Yet by the end of that bitter and tragic war, Iran had failed to achieve any of its objectives.
“Allah helps Islam in mysterious ways,” explained a highly respected senior clergyman to a group of Iranian mothers and wives who had lost their loved ones in the war with Iraq due to Saddam’s use of chemical weapons. “Who would have thought that the man who poisoned your sons, fathers and husbands while the so-called civilized world stood by and did nothing would fall from power so disgracefully.” The view that the fall of Saddam was a “provident action” was indeed shared by many pious Iranians, particularly those who had lost their loved ones in the war.
