Venezuela: Chávez will write a blog

Chávez has announced he will write a blog from his official residence in Miraflores Palace. He says he wants not only Venezuelans but also foreigners to read what he has to write. He wants everyone to comment, so he says they have to be prepared for all the comments he is going to receive. He wants also to answer “the enemy, a battle is a battle, an assault is an assault”.

(via).

It’s pretty interesting that someone who has called for Internet controls (Mashable titles Venezuelan President makes threat against the Open Web), wants to open a blog. Chávez has also several TV program, among others, the famous “Aló Presidente” and a radio program, “Suddenly Chávez“. Never was this cartoon truer than now:

One last question: is it my imagination or this guy now has dentures?

technorati tags: Chávez, Hugo_Chávez, blogosphere, Internet_control, Aló_Presidente, De_repente_Chávez, freedom, freedom_of_speech, Bolivarian_Revolution

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Syria: 19-year-old blogger arrested

Image via Wikipedia

Arab Network for Human Rights has denounced that in Syria a 19-year-old girl who wrote a blog in the internet, has been detained for the last 3 months and without allowing her to communicate with her parents.

In a press release, the NGO explains that Tal Al Melouhi was arrested on Dec 27th, her house was searched and her computer intervened by police. “Since that moment, her family has lost all communication with her, is not allowed to visit her and hasn’t been informed of where she is now”, it adds.

For the Arab Net, “arresting so young a blogger, who has just completed secondary education because of a poem who is not offensive to anyone and is not against the law, shows a profoundly implacable and clearly repressive and hostile attitude to freedom of expression”.

via Detienen a una bloguera de 19 años por publicar un poema en Siria – Libertad Digital.

technorati tags: Tal_Al_Melouhi, Syria, Arab_Network_for_Human_Rights, blogosphere, blogger, freedom_of_expression

Venezuela: Chavez calls for internet controls

Image by ¡Que comunismo! via Flickr

“The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms,” Chavez said. He cited German Chancellor Angel Merkel as having expressed a similar sentiment recently.

Chavez is angry with Venezuelan political opinion and gossip website Noticierodigital, which he said had falsely written that Diosdado Cabello, a senior minister and close aide, had been assassinated. The president said the story remained on the site for two days.

“We have to act. We are going to ask the attorney general for help, because this is a crime. I have information that this page periodically publishes stories calling for a coup d'etat. That cannot be permitted.”

via Venezuela’s Chavez calls for internet controls | Reuters.

But the web has other story to tell. It is an open web, you just have to register and you can begin commenting and posting. That is what has made possible that a new member, nicknamed “IR Presidente2012”, wrote that news. Only 168 minutes later the web cancelled the comments in that post and later erased it. In fact the news never reached the front page. Of course, that is not understood by Chávez, who only sees people plotting another coup d’etat in every place he looks.

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Hamas Minister: "Jews are Bacteria, May He Anhilate This Filthy People"

MEMRI has the whole speech.

“[The Jews] suffer from a mental disorder, because they are thieves and aggressors. A thief or an aggressor, who took property or land, develops a psychological disorder and pangs of conscience, because he took something that wasn’t his.
“They want to present themselves to the world as if they have rights, but, in fact, they are foreign bacteria – a microbe unparalleled in the world. It’s not me who says this. The Koran itself says that they have no parallel: ‘You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the believers to be the Jews.’
“May He annihilate this filthy people who have neither religion nor conscience. I condemn whoever believes in normalizing relations with them, whoever supports sitting down with them, and whoever believes that they are human beings. They are not human beings. They are not people. They have no religion, no conscience, and no moral values.”

Abdallah Jarbu, Hamas Deputy Minister of Religious Endowments.

He is really meaning all the Jews, not the Zionists only. Not because Zionists should be anihilated but because Western press is normally blaming everything on the Zionists, as if the latter were the guys responsible of the present situation. As everyone can see, this guy is referring himself to all the Jews.

Thanks to No A Todo for the tip.

A new beginning

Hope you like the new blog. The T&P on wordpress will be maintained as it is and its archives will be linked as background. It is much more comfortable to post in:

1. it is possible to embed other files, without using vodpod.
2. it supports plugins, so there are much more functionalities added to it.
3. it is also free, but with ads (I hope no one gets angry because of them).

I have to learn how to manage some things here, but they are not really important. 🙂

And so…. the posting continues.

PS: If someone wants his/her blog to be listed here, just add a comment here. Every blog that was already linked in T&P will be added.

(Have updated the post link. Tx Karen for the note).

Google denounces censorship in Spain

Image by bfishadow via Flickr

Before the US Senate, Google executives have complained about blog censroship in Spain. Nicole Wong, the company’s lawyer, explained that is has been one of the countries with other democracies such as Pakistan or China, who have censored blogs on its platform.

Spain is included in this list for preventing two blogs from being published. Both blogs were published with Google’s Blogspot platform and both of them were asking for a cava and other catalan products’ boycott back in 2007.

What is remarkable is that both of those bloggers were blogging freely, while there are other platforms such as Omnium Cultural, who are receiving public money to support boycotts towards other products coming from other regions outside Catalonia.

Wong added that Google considers it’s necessary that the Governments “work harder to reduce censorship in Internet and to support freedom of expression in the net”.

Prominent Spanish blogger Prevost has noted something of interest:

From this blog, I have been supporting socialist blogs who could have been silenced by (center-right) PP. Since 2004, I have not seen once, only one post from Spanish left defending right-wing bloggers against censorship when they have been accused by the Totalitarian hand.

I’m not surprised by this. Not the least. Zapatero has insisted on his talante for years. Despite the number of times, he mentioned that word, he never said it was good talante.

A new beginning

Hope you like the new blog. The T&P on wordpress will be maintained as it is and I will link its archives as background. I hope you’l like this better, it is much more comfortable to post in:

1. it is possible to embed other files, without using vodpod.
2. it supports plugins, so there are much more functionalities added to it.
3. it is also free, but with ads (I hope no one gets angry because of them).

I have to learn how to manage some things here, but they are not really important.

And so…. the posting continues.

PS: If someone wants his/her blog to be listed here, just add a comment here. Every blog that was already linked in T&P will be added.