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Travels in the Kurdish Blogosphere

Deborah Ann Dilley · 23:04

Roj Bash! As finals are fast approaching, today's post is going to be a little shorter than normal, here's the weekly run-down:

Kurdo from Kurdo's World addresses the credibility of some Kurdish news websites.

Kardox reports that former Israeli special forces are training Kurds in Iraq.

Reports about unrest in Duhok, Southern Kurdistan/Northern Iraq are discussed on the Kurdistan Bloggers Union.

Bleak Blogorrhea has an interesting post about a public art project called the Children Cheering Carpet, which has a Kurdish conponent to it called the Virtual Kurdish Garden. Sometimes things are better explained with pictures so I highly recommend that you check the link out.

Roj Bash has an interesting insight on some of the new postage stamps coming out of Iraqi Kurdistan, including specific information on the types of dress on the stamps and how you can tell what region they come from. There is also a post on a recent conference about the Kurdish Question in Syria, a seldom touched upon topic in reference to the Kurds. And the group celebrates the one year anniversary of their google bomb.

Save Roj TV, a fairly new blog has a petition that you can sign in support of the Denmark-based Kurdish television station. It is currently being threatened with closure for its Kurdish content.

A gem out of many illuminating postings from Vladimir at From Holland to Kurdistan is this about Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code which the Republic of Turkey regularly uses to restrict the freedom of speech within its borders.

Last (but never least) is Hiwa from Hiwa Hopes who has been posting a plethora of infomation about the upcoming December 15th elections in Iraq. As the election is next week, I plan on giving you, our dear readers, a more indepth view of the upcoming elections from the Kurdish persceptive. Till then, I remain humbly yours.

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The Week That Was - Bolivian Blogs

Eduardo Avila · 21:18

Does the term “retroactive blogging” actually exist? Upon closer inspection and a little help from Google, the concept of retroactive blogging has been around awhile. One of the more interesting blogs about Bolivia retells events that took place then years ago. Mary’s Bolivia takes place in the heart of the Tropics of Cochabamba, during a time when her partner, Robert, worked for a UN development project. With dogs in tow, they spent time between Cochabamba and the Chapare region, which is an area of focus of coca eradication.

Stories from that time could have taken place yesterday, as little has changed during the ten years that have passed. Among the interesting anecdotes is running across wild animals for sale.

Here everyone comes bringing wild animals to see if we will buy them - monkeys, tortoises, the other day they even wanted to sell us a baby deer for US$50 ….. Apparently the Swedish missionaries who ran the dairy before used to buy animals and they sent them to Sweden or something, I don´t know. Some missionaries! Anyway, we have made a point of refusing to buy any animals pointing out to the people that the animals should be left where they were and that they are not a piece of merchandise. One of our first experiences was on a Saturday morning when a man arrived on a bicycle with a bag tied to the crossbar. We were going out for a walk with the dogs at the time and he stopped us saying that he had something that might interest us. That was when we found out about the trading activities of the Swedes. When he opened up the bag, out came a a baby ant-eater. Beautiful. Brown with a long pointed snout and paws with long curved nails. It was sleepy and just lay curled up in your arms sleeping away.

Mary also witnessed firsthand some of the run-ins with the security forces in the area.

For the past few weeks there have been more incidents at the security blocks on the road and more military movements everywhere. Last week the UMOPAR started doing checks on the road to see who didn't have their ID card on them. Anyone who didn't was detained immediately, and if they happened to be peasant leaders they were badly mistreated. Several people had their faces smashed in when they were beaten with rifle butts. They also broke into people's homes at night forcing the whole family to leave - men, women and children. One pregnant women was knocked over on her stomach and miscarried afterwards. Edgar tried to be of help while maintaining a low profile, by distributing medicine from our First Aid kit and giving people some money so they could see a doctor.

These are only two of the stories that continue to appear on her blog. Even though the events were hidden in her journal for over a decade, they make for fascinating reading. One wonders what other stories and experiences are trapped in a long lost diary waiting to be released.

On a current note, congratulations are in order for longtime blogger Miguel Buitrago of MABB, who was recently named as a finalist of the 2005 Weblog Awards. He was nominated in the category of Best Latino, Caribbean or South American blog. Finally, the ever-creative team of M.A.R. (Mundo Al Revés) recently launched a Bolivian Presidential Elections blog/website which in addition to being beautifully designed, will continue to add content over the final 11 days until election day on December 18.

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Nigeria Blogosphere this week

Sokari Ekine · 09:30

Jeremy of Naijablog has two posts on Gay and Lesbians in Nigeria, a subject guaranteed to send huge numbers of people into a rage with bible quotes being hurled left right and center….In “More on Gay Life in Nigeria” he writes

The Victorian hypocrisy of attitudes towards homosexuality in Nigeria is epic in its tragicomic proportions. From what I have seen and heard, the categories of straight/bi/gay just dont fit the fluidities of Nigerian sexual experience - just as they dont fit many other cultures and times in history (such as pre-Victorian England). Of course, evangelical christianity and stern interpretations of Islam clamp down on this experience being verbalised or part of everyday discourse. It's good with events such as the link below, the lid is being lifted on superabundant reality, and the yawning Nigerian reality-illusion gap is one inch nearer towards being closed.

Aderemi's Notebook breaks his plans to tour the world in exchange for a visit to the homeland. He has even been practising his “pidgin” and reading local tabloids!

7years and finally returning to see what has changed in my beautiful country. I am very excited but a little nervous. Started practising my “broken english (pidgin)” again after years of misplaced Queen’s English speaking. As friends will testify, “This guy too dey blow fone”. I have been reading Lagos Live religiously.

Ante Thoughts, who is presently in Nigeria doing her Youth Service, has decided to give up on the bloggie - at least for the moment.

FOR quite sometime now I’ve been seriously thinking about severing the lifeline from this humble blog of mine. It has served me well through the years when I was desperately cathartic and helped me meet so many wonderful people from all around the world whom I would otherwise have never met (or perhaps not. God knows best!) It has, more importantly, helped me express my creativity. Should my writing career ever take off someday, I’ll certainly look back and be thankful for maintaining a blog.

Jangbalajugbu Homeland Stories writes on some of the new challenges now being faced by Nigerian banks as they move into a new recapitalisation process.

Just last year, 2004, the capital base of banks was raised to a whooping 25 billion Naira and the banks were given till december 2005 to meet up with this new capital base. Prior to this increment, only a few banks had capital bases up to N3 billion naira.

All of this is leading to the creation of some Mega Banks which has led to staff redundancies mainly amongst young university graduates.

However, in a bid to get the best workforce to work in the emerging Mega system, some banks have gone all out to do away with hands, whose services, they feel are “not needed anymore”. Those affected by this move are the young people who are carrying certificates of Nigeria’s polytechnics and state owned universities.

Timbukutu Chronicles (who is up for Best Mid East/African blog) writes about the Palm Wine industry.

Previously suppressed as an industry contemporary Palm Wine production is one of promise, “…Palm ‘wine’ is an important alcoholic beverage in West Africa where it is consumed by more than 10 million people.

Chippla of Chippla's Weblog comments on a piece published in the Christian Science Monitor titled “A visit to Nigeria teaches a lesson in abundance.” The article is written by May Akabogu-Collins who is a Nigerian/American living in the US. The article is taken from her experience of returning to Nigeria with her two children on their first visit to the homeland.

Probably from watching too much American TV, her kids expected to see a land of starving children, one which was AIDS-ridden and full of despondency. However, their preliminary view of Nigeria was anything but that. Flying into Abuja they saw flashy cars on the street and were received by her immediate family who happened to live in luxury and wealth. Mrs. Akabogu-Collins was forced to make one true conclusion:
“There are two breeds in Nigeria: the few have-a-lots and the many have-nots.”

Nigerian Times reports on the new revived “Biafran war”..”Three Dead as Nigeria battles Biafra across the Niger” and calls on the UN to intervene before it is too late.

The political situation in the South East of Nigeria needs to be addressed by the United Nations and the G-8, because the on-going separatist protests by the members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra(MASSOB), demanding for the release their leader Chief Ralph Uwazuruike have distrupted business activities as markets, shops, offices and banks have been shut since yesterday. And three protesters have been killed and several others have been wounded in the violent disturbances in Aba and Onitsha just across the Niger Bridge.

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Venezuela: Election Responses

David Sasaki · 01:20

Punditry everywhere following Sunday's parliamentary elections in Venezuela. A.M. Mora y Leon offers some brief excerpts of conversations had around the streets of upper-middle class Caracas. Boz looks at the U.S. reaction. Leftside is skeptical of the opposition parties' spin on voter abstention. Miguel of The Devil's Excrement says that not even Chavistas see Sunday's election as a real victory. Oil Wars makes the argument that the Venezuelan parliamentary elections were actually more legitimate than typical congressional elections in the U.S.

Daniel says the Organization of American States “trashed the Venezuelan elections,” while Oil Wars argues that, while several criticisms were made, “that the actual carrying out of the vote was very good, met the highest international standards and the final results accurately reflected the vote.”

Alex Beech is critical of Colombia-based New York Times reporter, Juan Forero's coverage of the election. Tomas Sancio, also critical of the New York Times' coverage of Venezuela, says that Chavez has lost his link to the people.

Louise Auerhahn says that, though the opposition has reason to distrust Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE), there were enough international observers to have guaranteed a fair election.

A new weblog, Caracas Connect is compiling commentary pieces on the election results from pundits around the world. The blog's mission statement describes itself as a “blog devoted to dialogue about Venezuela and U.S. foreign policy toward the southern hemisphere as a whole.”

Gustavo Coronel takes a critical look at Nicaraguan Chavez supporter, Roberto Rivas. Bicycle Mark explains his admiration for Chavez.

Finally, Open Source Radio is seeking input for tomorrow's show on The Politics of Venezuela.

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