Blogger Victor Solano reports on a news article in French found in Radio Suisse Romande [fr]and one in Spanish on Spain's elpais.com [es] saying that the US army gave 20 million dollars to the FARC for the liberation of the 15 hostages .

In micro blogging website Twitter, Jerome Sutter [es] suggests that this economic exchange might be the cause of the few official reactions Sarkozy has had.

Also from Twitter, Gerente [es] quotes a famous radio anchor, Julito, from a popular radio show in W radio station, who reported that polemic Colombian writer Fernando Vallejo had said that “the liberation of the hostages was manipulative, roguish and horrible.”… turns out to be that what Vallejo really said [es] was that Ingrid Betancourt herself is those things,and the way that the media is concentrating only on her and not on all the other hundreds of hostages is scandalous.

Marsares from equinoXio [es] online magazine writes that the operation has been so perfect, people are now doubting it. He doesn't share this perception so then he proceeds to establish counterpoint arguments for their criticisms. However, he does make an allowance, admitting that the fact that the “Trojan horse” [en] strategy was used, by pretending to be a humanitarian mission and could make it harder for other hostages to receive any kind of humanitarian aid in the future.

Journalist and blogger Anastasia Moloney writes that some families fear that guerrillas will strike back at remaining hostages, killing them or hurting their families, and that now that Ingrid is freed along with the three North American citizens, that international pressure to free the remaining hostages will disappear.

Thumbnail photo by Redking

The victim, whose name has not been revealed at his family's request, was in his early 30s and had been a border guard for eight years after his release from the Israel Defense Forces. He was a member of the Druze community.

The incident followed a three-day visit of President Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, to Israel. While in-country, Sarkozy spoke before the Knesset, Israel's house of parliament, where he rallied against the building of settlements, advocated an undivided Jerusalem as a capital for both Israel and Palestine, and reasserted France's commitment to protecting Israel's security.

Photo sourced from the Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons License)

During his visit, Sarkozy also met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and toured the West Bank, after having met with Arab leaders in Syria and Lebanon earlier this week.

Words from the Blogosphere–

Daniel Levy of the Prospects for Peace blog and Director of the Prospects for Peace Initiative at The Century Foundation compares the Knesset speeches of French President Sarkozy and US President George W. Bush, during his visit last month.

“Two Presidents, two speeches, one leader:
- President Bush on the borders for a 2 state solution: ___________.
- President Sarkozy: “It is not possible to have peace without a negotiated border based on the 1967 lines with an exchange of territories.”
- President Bush on settlements: ___________.
- President Sarkozy: “Peace cannot be achieved without a total and immediate cessation of the settlements.”
- President Bush on Jerusalem's future status: ___________.
- President Sarkozy: “Peace cannot be achieved without the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of two states and guaranteeing freedom of access to holy sites for all religions.”
- President Bush on the Palestinian refugee issue: ___________.
- President Sarkozy: “Peace cannot be achieved without solving the problem of the Palestinian refugees, while respecting the identity and purpose of Israel.”
- President Bush on Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Syrian, or Israeli-Lebanese peace talks: _________.
- President Sarkozy: “(France) is ready to organize on its soil all the talks that could lead to (peace), whether in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Syrian-Israeli dialogue, or the talks that will have to resume, one day soon I hope, between Israel and Lebanon.”

Other bloggers were less concerned with the political content of Sarkozy's visit and focused more on the visuals that it presented. Carla Bruni, the President's third wife who works professionally as a singer and model, drew significant attention from the ever appreciative citizen journalists of Israel.

Simply Jews observes:

“Carla Bruni appears to be accompanied by a French president, one Nicolas Sarkozy… The immediate effects of this singular event:
1. The quantities of drool emanating from the paparazzi, journalists, assorted officials and Israeli male population in general postponed the expected government announcement of drought and drastic water economy measures.
2. The attack on Iranian nuclear sites, invasion of Gaza, decapitation of Hezbollah and other miscellaneous acts of usual Zionist aggression are delayed indefinitely or until further notice.
3. Shimon Peres was seen doing 90 push-ups in the VIP lounge of Ben-Gurion airport, with Carla and their aids counting, Dom Perignon being uncorked in the background.”

Dion Nissenbaum of the Checkpoint Jerusalem blog joins Simply Jews in welcoming Ms. Bruni's arrival.

“Carla Mania has come to Israel. After charming the Brits in March and winning fawning praise from President Bush earlier this month, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the accomplished singer and successful model who is sometimes referred to as France's first lady, has brought her allure to Jerusalem. One French magazine has dubbed her “La Presidente.”

Her husband, President What's-His-Name, is doing his best to make some news of his own.”

Israelity Bites comments darkly on Ms. Bruni's role in the shooting.

“Some jested that the security guard lost his footing while straining to see Madame Carla, the French first lady, who has had a Jackie Kennedy dazzle on the populace at large. Israel Radio said the soldier who was shot was stationed 100 meters to 200 meters away. Two women soldiers who witnessed the shooting were treated for shock, the radio said.

Israel's volunteer medical service Zaka said the soldier apparently committed suicide. But other media reports said he may have fainted from the heat, discharging his gun accidentally.”

Read More About Recent Visits to Israel by Heads of State–

• Going Green with Gore (May 2008)
• Bush's Final Presidential Visit (May 2008)
• What's Carter Doing in the Middle East? (April 2008)
• President Bush Visits Israel (January 2008)

And:

• Lebanon: Condoleeza Rice's Surprise Visit (June 2008)

Ahmed Al Omran, or Saudi Jeans, discusses his reactions to a newspaper article which interviews a student objecting to the French ruling.

He notes:

When the French government decided to ban all religious symbols in schools few years ago the decision hardly went unnoticed, especially by Muslims as many of them found the rule directly targeting the hijab. While I find this French rule idiotic, I find it equally if not more idiotic what some Saudi female students who got scholarships to France have to say about the implications of this rule on their education.

One of the girls interviewed by the papers calls on Saudi officials to “sort out” the issue with French authorities, to allow Saudi women to have their veil. Saudi Jeans hits back saying:

The only way I see for our “officials” to “sort it out” is this: one of them gets the French citizenship, he wins the presidential elections there, and then he makes the parliament change the law. Pretty straight forward, huh? No offense to Ms. Abdulhadi, but don’t you think you could have spent a few hours learning some general information about France and its laws before you apply for a scholarship there?

Another student went as far as asking the government to stop scholarships to France altogether. Sorry Missy, just because you think French laws contradict what you believe in doesn’t give you the right to deny others the chance to go and pursue a better education in that place as long as it suits their beliefs.

One of the readers, Hala in the USA, isn't happy with Al Omran's tone. She says:

Saudi Jeans, I didn’t like your sarcastic tone, after all, those girls were grown in here, it’s part of a sacred belief to cover up, how did you catch this tone? people can express what they think about laws, laws and policies are changing every now and then with any new and worthy viewpoints, and democracy oblige people to take all opinions into consideration even from foreigners…People can voice their requests in a free world like France as you know!!!

Crossroads Arabia links to the newspaper article and offers the following explanation:

This Arab News story reports that female Saudi students are running into problems with their hijabs in French medical schools. The article—and apparently some of the students—confuses the French law that prohibits wearing of religious symbols in elementary and secondary schools (which ban also includes kippeh or yarmulke and large crosses), with separate rules of medical schools which ban head coverings as unhygienic.

Wearing hijab in French universities is not, as a rule, forbidden. Medical schools, however, have other issues than laïcité in mind. I realize that Saudi medical schools don’t see this as a problem, but the French see it otherwise.

How did you get involved with GVO?

I first got involved with citizen media through Ohmynews, the South Korean veteran citizen reporting website, where I covered French news (in English) as an experiment in global citizen reporting. As a professional journalist, I wanted to explore new forms of media. During the 2006 Ohmynews international conference in Seoul, I first heard about Global Voices from its co-founder, Ethan Zuckerman, who attended the conference. This led to a profile written for the weekend supplement of Le Monde (sorry, no website). While checking information, I met (via email) Alice Backer, who was in charge of the then new Lingua project. Global Voices in French was about to be launched and needed a volunteer to help out with translations. It was supposed to be temporary. I am still around.

How did you become interested in new forms of media?

I have advocated citizen media since 2004 as much needed new blood in the realm of news. After 20 years in traditional media, I felt tired and disillusioned by the elitism and short sightedness of news. The Web and citizen media was a wonderful and refreshing discovery.

Why Lingua, then, which is “only” translating posts ?

I write professionally, so I don't feel the urge to contribute as an author. Translation is a personal pleasure, since I pick up posts that I find interesting, or important for our local readers. Within the last couple of years, the issue of localizing websites has gained a lot of momentum in the industry (corporate, news) and the experience accumulated by Lingua sites is, according to me, extremely valuable. The multilingual web is just around the corner. In that light, the Lingua project is a fascinating experimenting ground, and a very sophisticated one. I am also amazed at the vitality of Lingua. GVO is probably the only news outlet in the world to boast a Macedonian and Albanian edition!

In all the time you have been collaborating with GVO, what is your most memorable experience?

My defining moment was the Burma (Myanmar) uprising, in both good and bad. Good because it was urgent and important to translate the trickle of citizen news in French as fast as they were published on the GVO main site. They were the only news coming out of this country. And bad because the risks and consequences on Burmese citizen reporters in the following repression were terrible. Can we congratulate ourselves on breaking news to audiences all over the world if citizens with no official accreditation and protection, and their family, suffer from it ?

How do you see the future of citizen reporters?

As a collaboration with “traditional” journalists when bridges between the two universes will finally be established. I believe in teams mixing professionals and bloggers.

You discussed your relationship with Lingua. How is the French site of GVO doing?

It maintains a presence for GVO in the vast Francophile web (Africa, Canada, Europe) but it's slow burning. There is, as always with localization, an image problem. GVO tends to be categorized as a human rights advocacy site by French audiences and not as a news site because it is extremely Anglo-Saxon in its “philosophical” positioning and feels “foreign” to a French eye. Above all, French readers have difficulties understanding the concept, sorting out who is the original post author, the GVO author role, who is translating what from which languages, for whom and why. Let's admit it ! It's difficult to grasp a work flow where a Palestinian blogger reviews blogs in Arabic about something happening in London or New York, writes about them in English, and then someone else pick ups his post to translate it in, say, Malagasy or Bangla. People can get dizzy!

What are you doing, in GVO French, to change this?

Bridging cultural gaps is an issue every website in the world has to face when facing local audiences. Right now, I listen/read to conversations between GVO authors, translators, Lingua sites in preparation for the Global Voice Summit in Budapest, next June. How GV-Lingua sites could evolve has to be a collective decision because it is important, and tricky.

Tell us a little bit about your experiences as a journalist apart from GVO?

I worked as a staff writer for French news weeklies for 10 years, then as a TV reporter for eight years (yes, I am old). I now work for off line and on line publications as a freelancer and I localize English websites for the French market. There is still a lot of defiance from French journalists towards bloggers. I try to be the go-between and introduce them to each others.

Are there many people doing what you do among the French media?

Very few… Newspapers now all have websites and Web 2.0 widgets but the mentality is still very far from the web 2.0 spirit.

There aren't many French journalists in the local French blogging community. What do the main French bloggers think about this?

French journalists now have blogs on their newspaper websites, as part of a general Web 2.0 effort. But they do not consider bloggers as colleagues or comrades. French bloggers, on the other side, spend quite a lot of time criticizing “regular” journalists. We are still in the midst of “What is journalism?” and “Is blogging a form of journalism?” debate.

What can you tell us about your personal experience as a blogger here?

For professional reasons, I do not blog about news or my personal opinions. I have opinions, but I feel that blogging about them under my name (I don't want to use a false name) would create a conflict of interest with my professional writting. I have fun blogs : a photo blog and a tech blog.

How do you prefer to spend your free time? Any hobbies?

The Web is my favorite sandbox. With my cat sitting beside the desktop screen.

So.. what are your favourite blogs?

I like nothing more than surfing and discovering by chance personal blogs about anything and everything, cattle raising or children litterature. I remember spending hours browsing Indian matrimonial websites that I stumbled upon by chance. It was absolutely fascinating, and a lesson in contemporary India.

Last but not least, tell us about your cat?

Her name is Pioum. White cat. Green eyes. Lovely soul. I've a met of lot of cat lovers in the GVO community (we exchange photos of our cats !). Which made me wonder why cats are the totem pets of bloggers around the world. Probably because bloggers spend a lot of time at their desktop. Only cats can stay silent, focused and beautiful for hours on end around a computer ! I discovered that Pioum loves YouTube. Select a few YouTube videos featuring lab mices, rabbits, birds, play them for your cat, and you'll see what I mean !

Cos-maux-polis has several posts about the trip criticizing certain statements made by Sarkozy as racist:

Décidément les déclarations de Nicolas Sarkozy sur le sol africain ont de quoi interroger. Voici qu'à l'occasion de son voyage officiel en Tunisie, le Président de la République a laissé percevoir sa conception du partenariat Nord-Sud : « Vous avez une main d'œuvre qui ne demande qu'à être formée, nous avons beaucoup d'intelligence et beaucoup de formation (…) ».

Clearly the statements of Nicolas Sarkozy on African soil are worth questioning. On the occasion of his official visit to Tunisia, the President of the Republic revealed his concept of a North-South partnership: “You have a workforce who do waiting to be trained, we have a lot intelligence and a lot of training (…).”

She also reported statements from Bakchich :

lors du voyage officiel en Tunisie, Nicolas Sarkozy aurait déclaré en off : « à chaque fois que je viens (en Tunisie), il y a une grève de la faim. Chaque fois que je pars, la grève s'arrête. Je le constate, c'est tout ». Il aurait ajouté: « bien sûr qu'il n'y a pas de démocratie en Tunisie. Mais on n'y a pas les mêmes critères qu'en France ».

during the official visit to Tunisia, Nicolas Sarkozy declared, off the record: “whenever I come (in Tunisia), there is a hunger strike. Whenever I go, the strike ends. I'm just saying, that's what I see.” He reportedly added: “Of course there is no democracy in Tunisia. But the criteria here are not the same as in France “.

Tunisian blogger Zizou from Djerba writes about the fall of the Tunisian opposition, which coincided with Sarkozy's visit, and insisted on the need for change while Sarkozy demonstrated his pragmatism:

Comme tout le monde l'a constate, le president francais a choisi son camps et l'a montre clairement. Sarkozy a choisi de jouer la carte du gouvernement alors que la partie visible de l'opposition , gonflee a bloc apres les evenements de Redeyef l'attendait comme un messie. Une enieme greve de la faim a ete organise et les contacts ont ete pris bien a l'avance avec des journalistes qui connaissent deja le pitch….Les propos du president Francais avaient le merite d'etre clairs et sa position est tout a fait comprehensible et limite previsible.

As everyone has noted, the French president chose his camp and showed it clearly. Sarkozy has chosen to play the government's card while the visible part of the opposition bloc, which has swelled since the [food protests] in Redeyef, received him like a messiah. For the umpteenth time, a hunger strike was organized and journalists, who already know the drill, were contacted well in advance…. The remarks of the French president had the merit of being clear and his position is entirely understandable and unsurprisingly limited.

Global Voices Advocacy Director Sami Ben Gharbia writes with irony about this visit in a post titled “Sarkozy has voted Ben Ali” (”Sarkozy a voté Ben Ali”), even embedding a video of famous French muppets ‘”les guignols de l'info”:

He writes:

Au deuxième jour de sa deuxième visite d'Etat en Tunisie, Nicolas Sarkozy est resté fidèle à la diplomatie des contrats, que certains veulent qualifier de “Realpolitik”, et nous apporte la bonne nouvelle : “l'espace des libertés progresse en Tunisie”. Enfin ! Ben Ali a eu droit aux louanges de la part de quelqu'un qui ne veut pas s'ériger “en donneur de leçons” sur les droits de l'Homme.

On the second day of his second state visit to Tunisia, Nicolas Sarkozy has remained faithful to the diplomacy of contracts, which some people want to characterize as “realpolitik”; he brings us some good news: “the space for freedoms progresses in Tunisia”. Finally! Ben Ali has been entitled to praise from someone who does not want to “lecture” others on human rights.

People can't wait [update: yeah, it's totally on now] to get out to those, it seems, just like Chinese hackers, having already gotten into Carrefour.com.cn, weren't willing to wait until the 19th for the planned CNN.com DDOS attack to begin, all this against the backdrop of millions of netizens finding ways to display their patriotism.

As if that weren't enough, Jack Cafferty's remarks even got the central government on the anti-CNN bandwagon.

So now Saturday is looking like Chinese anti-CNN day in a number of different places [zh] around the world [zh]

At least one related post at China.com has over 27,000 comments over nearly 500 pages. As Heike The Dark Visitor blogger points out, the April 19 protests will mostly be held in western Europe:

1. 1500-1800hrs, 19 April 2008, at the Bundestag, Platz der Republik, Berlin
2. 1300-1500hrs, 19 April 2008, two routes (from Talie – Hotel de Ville – Bastille) or (Republique – Bastille – Hotel de Ville –Bastille, Paris
3. 1100-1500hrs, 19 April 2008, Downing Street outside of Whitehall, England
4. (No time given) 19 April 2008, Amsterdam, Holland

The protests appear to be well organized, with the coordination of donations, banners, flags, T-shirts…etc. While it is of course impossible to tell how widespread the demonstrations will be, an online keyword search, using Chinese, did produce several hundred hits.

One link Heike provides emphasizes that the protesters are furious and promising demonstrations that will flood Europe in a sea of red flags:

On April 18, one of the earlier members of anti-CNN.com posted the address and fax number for CNN's office in Beijing, along with a sample letter for anyone to send:

致美国有线电视新闻网负责人：

美国东部时间4月9日晚6点，贵台主持人Jack Cafferty 在“时事观察室”节目中发表了侮辱全体中国人的种族歧视言论，令人甚感震惊。他说：“他们（中国人）基本上还是五十年来的那群恶棍和暴徒。”

全世界华人充分理解贵国一贯秉持的言论自由原则，并尊重Jack Cafferty的政治立场，但是作为一个公众人物，一个新闻从业者，Jack Cafferty所说的已经完全超越了言论自由的底线，相信任何一个有尊严的华人都不会接受这种对于华人整个族裔的谩骂。

贵台稍候在15日发表的简短声明中辩解称Jack Cafferty所说的恶棍暴徒指的是中国政府，这样避重就轻没有诚意的道歉声明更是令人难以接受。首先，在Jack Cafferty的言论中，他反复多次说到中国，中国人，丝毫没有提到中国政府的地方；再者，Jack Cafferty在说到“恶棍”与“暴徒”时，使用的是复数，其意思非常明确，他口中的“他们”指的就是整个华人族群；最后，贵台的声明把矛头转向中国政府，这样牵强的强辩实际上是对中华民族的二度伤害！难道攻击一个国家的政府就不会伤害该国人民的感情了吗？

为此我致函向CNN以及Jack Cafferty提出严正抗议和谴责！

中国向世界敞开大门只有短短20多年的时间，全世界华人都能够理解各国人民对中国这个遥远的东方国家尚存在许多的疑问及种种误解。但是这并不意味着某些人可以不负责任、口无遮拦地攻击中国以及中华民族。即使不了解中国，任何一个有良知的人也不应该对发生在自己身边的事实选择性失明。

以美国为例，华人移民多少年来都是社会中最遵纪守法和最友善的一群人。Cafferty先生是否记得， 9.11事件发生后 ，布什总统向劫机事件中表现英勇的华裔空姐邓月薇家属颁发奖状，称她是“美国的英雄”，事件中另一名中国学生曾喆在世贸大厦现场不停救人最终英勇牺牲，被追赠纽约市“社区贡献奖”的曾喆是美国历史上获此殊荣的第二人；Cafferty先生又是否知道，去年震惊美国震惊世界的弗吉尼亚理工大学枪击案中，有一名华裔女教师挺身而出带领学生顶住大门阻止了枪手进入，从而保护了全班学生。从何时起，善良、本分、为世界和平默默做出贡献的华人竟然成为了Jack Cafferty口中的恶棍和暴徒？

我相信，身为一名资深政治评论员，Jack Cafferty决非无知，他更没有失忆，促使他公开侮辱中国人的根本原因是他对我华人的种族歧视！他的言论无疑是对整个中华民族，尤其是在美华人最无耻的伤害，更造成了非常恶劣的影响，严重损伤了中美两国人民的友谊。

贵台多年来一直标榜CNN在全球树立了很强的公信度和良好的声誉，而现如今Jack Cafferty信口开河恶意攻击中国人的言论无疑是CNN甚至全美传媒界的耻辱！试问一个赤裸裸发表种族歧视言论的人有何资格站在道德高点批评他人为恶棍暴徒？

希望CNN及Jack Cafferty收起傲慢与偏见，立即向全世界华人进行公开、正式的道歉！

如果贵台及Jack Cafferty本人迟迟不愿就辱华言论事件向全世界华人做出诚恳回应，全球华人定将依法提起集体诉讼，追究CNN及Jack Cafferty的诽谤侮辱责任和相关赔偿。

期待你们的答复！

一名普通中国人：

2008年4月18日

They began calling these experiences “Sancocho de Video“: sancocho is a name that refers to many different soups from all around Latin America. The latest video by the Vlog International group is about a walk around the block. Vloggers in Colombia, Israel, Canada, Germany and the USA all shared their surroundings. You can see it by clicking here or by pressing play on the following video.

Vlog International already has 31 collaborative videos up on their blip.tv page and they are always hoping to add more video bloggers to their site. All that is needed is for the person interested to make a 1 minute video: 30 seconds explaining where they are and who they are, and 30 seconds recording the following “mission” video, then uploading the video and emailing them the link. Instructions in Spanish can be found here.

These videos have all been released under a Creative Commons license, and you can share in on the process by reading their wiki. Browsing through their different episodes is a great way to get a global perspective on the same issue. On the following video[es], the Vloggers take us on a tour away from the supermarkets and into the different traditional marketplaces of France, England, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, the USA, Chile, Spain and Colombia.