I was interviewed on ABC Radio National’s Media Report today on The Blogging Revolution and the ways in which the internet is far more complex than simply being a supposedly democratising force: Antony Funnell: What do Iran, Cuba and Egypt all have in common? Well, they all have governments which suppress dissent and they all…
Showing all posts tagged Saudi Arabia
Blogging, in my own words
My new book,… The Blogging Revolution, is released this week. Here I am talking about its themes and challenges:
Pity the wealthy
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.
The other side of the gender divide
Human rights for women in Saudi Arabia – and no, that’s not a contradiction – through blogger’s eyes.
The Independent Weekly examines Blogging book
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…
How web rights are coming
My new book, The Blogging Revolution, is officially released on September 1. Over the coming weeks and months there will be extensive coverage and discussion both here in Australia and internationally (all of it covered on this site and the book’s website). As a great start, here’s a post from Harvard University’s Berkman Centre for…
The Blogging Revolution lands
My following essay appears in today’s Weekend Australian newspaper: The young online tribe is more interested in discussing sex, drugs and rock’n’roll than political revolution, writes Antony Loewenstein Early last month, some Iranian members of parliament voted to debate a draft bill that aimed to “toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society” by adding…
Kill the pets
Just another religiously fundamentalist decision by a reliable US ally: Saudi Arabia’s religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday.
Zionists (mainly) to blame
US Jewish blogger Phil Weiss hears leading Palestinian speaker Rami Khouri talk about the (welcome) shifts in the Middle East since 9/11: I wondered how long it would take him to get to the Arab-Israeli issue. It was about 30 minutes. From then on it was all that anyone could talk about. He did not…
Women stay home
So much for the Olympic dream: 10,000 athletes from 200 countries are about to gather in Beijing under the banner “One World, One Dream.” But for sportswomen from countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran, that dream remains unfulfilled. While the International Olympic Committee bans any gender discrimination, these Gulf countries invoke “cultural and…