Recommended Reading - Archive
- Middle East peace talks: Back to the table | The Economist
Yet another bout of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations was launched this week amid a splurge of pious public talk tempered by sceptical punditry. Not much new in that, it seems, though it is almost two years since the previous direct talks took place (and ran aground). Nothing new, either, in two ghastly shootings on the West Bank in the days before the talks. The first left four Israeli civilians dead, two of them the parents of six children and another a pregnant woman. Hamas proudly took the “credit” as a means of exposing, it said, the collusion between the Palestinian Authority and the occupying forces of Israel. The following day two more Israelis were wounded.
- Moldova's Presidency Referendum Appears To Fail
A referendum to end political deadlock in Europe's poorest country of Moldova seems to have failed. With nearly all votes in, election officials say turnout for the referendum on whether to elect the president by popular vote was just under 30 percent, about 3 percent short of the total needed to make the plebiscite valid. The referendum aims to end a political deadlock that has left Moldova without a president for a year.
- Jordan: Modified New Information Systems Crime Law Launched
Prior to this piece of legislation, no law or legal framework had existed to specifically deal with “cyber crime”, including issues relating to child pornography, exploitation of mentally or emotionally disabled persons, and spreading of information designed to harm Jordanian economic and political interests. The initial framework was intended to create a legal basis for dealing with all issues related to criminal activity specifically based on the web. However, civil watchdog groups reacted to the initial powers granted by the first draft (such as search of premises and computers without a warrant) and demanded clarifications so that the newly created powers would not be misconstrued and misused to target news sites and the free expression of ideas.
- Arab journalists can compete in best website competition
Journalists from across the Arab world are invited to submit their websites for the "Best Media Website" competition, part of a media festival to be held in Amman, Jordan from October 5 to 7. The Jordan Festival of Media in the Arab World, the first-of-its kind event to be held in Jordan, will be attended by representatives from Arab satellite TV networks, production companies and media professionals. The festival's program includes seminars which will discuss the current state of Arab media.
- Yaroslau Romanchuk: my vision of a post-Lukashenka Belarus
Next year's presidential elections offer a real opportunity of disposing a tired, weakened and unpopular Lukashenka, says Presidential hopeful Yaroslau Romanchuk. In this interview with David Marples, Romanchuk outlines a strategy for election and why his candidature offers the best prospect for the country's stalling economy.
- I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman
In this provocative book Joumana Haddad uses the format of the political pamphlet to describe the liberating impact of literature on her life. She tells of reading the Marquis de Sade at twelve, of her metamorphosis into an award-winning poet, and reflects upon how this has shaped her as an Arab woman, as a writer and as a magazine editor. Joumana challenges prevalent notions of identity and womanhood in the Middle East and speaks of how she came to create the Arab world's first erotic literary magazine, Jasad (Body), that has earned her both admiration and censure. Fiery and candid, I Killed Scheherazade is a provocative exploration of what it means to be an 'Arab woman' today.
- Global Voices in English » Russia: Online Cooperation as an Alternative for Government?
The role of social networks and the blogosphere is usually viewed through a context of transparency and accountability. Social media activists can help in exposing the state’s failures and holding the government accountable. During this summer's wildfires [ENG], however, the role of the Russian media was more than that. Bloggers not only exposed the government’s unaccountability but demonstrated a high degree of solidarity and self-organization in fighting the disaster. The activity of the Russian online community wasn't limited to helping wildfire victims. Bloggers created units of volunteer firefighters, went into the field and eventually provided immediate response.
- A tale of two Bakus
A century ago, amid its first oil boom, Baku was known as the Paris of the Caucasus, a nod to the elegant new buildings that sprang up along the city’s streets – homes, offices, and cultural facilities ornamented in the “eclectic” style mixing a range of eras and influences. Today, Baku is booming again. But the rapid pace of redevelopment, and the lack of a core plan guiding it, have prompted concerns among architects, preservationists, and many residents that the city’s architectural heritage is being left in the dust.
- Unraveling the Caucasus: Two New Books Examine a Region’s Complicated History
A good rule of thumb for the Caucasus is: “If you think you know what’s going on, just wait a minute.” Then sit down and read recent releases by Thomas de Waal and Oliver Bullough: they provide welcome insights into this most fractious and unpredictable part of the world.
- Le pays est menacé d’une dislocation sociale
Le seul fait marquant de la vie politique nationale, depuis quelques mois, est incontestablement les scandales de corruption. Pour le professeur Mohamed Hennad, cette «gangrène» est «forcément consubstantielle au système de gouvernance que subit le pays depuis son indépendance». Avec ses analyses sans concession qu’on lui connaît, Hennad met en garde contre le danger d’une dislocation sociale qui menace l’Algérie, comme conséquence directe de ce fléau. Il fait sienne la célèbre phrase de feu Ferhat Abbas, extraite de sa longue lettre aux députés, justifiant sa démission de la présidence de la Constituante, en 1963 : «Le néocolonialisme ne menace notre pays que si la médiocrité, la paresse et la corruption s’y installent.» Cette lettre demeure d’actualité, estime le professeur Mohamed Hennad.
- Arab Satellite Broadcasting: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
We have a multiplicity of channels at the mercy of governments, political factions, commercial interests or religious sects. Many such channels serve narrow sectional interests and do not offer a general service to the public. We have many religious stations offering fatwas (religious edicts) willy-nilly, some are busy brain-washing the young and the naive. We have stations that analyse dreams, medical advice and the promotion of pornography with the sole aim of making money.
- Analysts: Putin’s destruction of forest service in 2007 behind Russia's current fire disaster
No one denies that the abnormal heat wave in Russia is responsible for the outbreak of nearly a thousand fires across that country, but Moscow scholars and analysts are now arguing that then-President Vladimir Putin’s dismantling of the country’s forest service in 2007 left the Russia vulnerable to exactly the kind of disaster unfolding now. In an essay posted online today, Sergey Robaten, Vadim Tatur, and Maksim Kalashnikov argue that the fires and the inability of the powers that be to contain and extinguish them is the result not of the drought and hot weather but “the inaction of bureaucrats” and the earlier destruction of the all-Russia fire service (forum-msk.org/material/economic/3803305.html). Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/77509/#ixzz0w6IEzypo
- Small Victory as Fires Put Out Near Nuclear Site
Firefighters scored a small victory in their battle against wildfires Sunday when they finally put out blazes that had threatened the Sarov nuclear research center. But wildfires continued to ravage other areas, and the opposition accused authorities of being in denial. Soldiers dug an eight-kilometer canal to keep fires away from Sarov, ringed by forest in the Nizhny Novgorod region, before the fires were finally extinguished Sunday, emergency officials said.
- OSCE warns of shrinking media freedoms
“Media freedom is threatened in most European countries”, headlines the EUobserver. The warning comes from the 56-member Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe (OSCE), which has published a report highlighting incidences in several member states including EU countries France, Italy and Greece. The Brussels based news website notes that, “The breaches, either existing or potential, to media freedom range from a draft law on electronic surveillance and electronic eavesdropping law in Italy which could "seriously hinder investigative journalism" to a draft law in Estonia that may allow too many exemptions to the right to protect the identity of sources, to the fact that French President Nicolas Sarkozy nominates the head of the public service broadcaster, France Televisions.”
- YouTube banned in Russia over racist video
A court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia has demanded a Russian ISP block access to YouTube because the site hosted “Russia for Russians,” which was judged to be an extremist video. The court’s decision also applies to the Internet Archive and three online libraries, Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru, all of which were found to host writings by Adolf Hitler. With this ruling, Russian authorities join a long list of governments that have blocked access to YouTube (YouTube) at some point or another, including China, Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. YouTube material has also been censored in the U.S. and U.K.
