Curated knowlege, trenchant insights & witty bon mots
A new Pew Research Center study finds both Muslims and Westerners holding unflattering views of the other one. An excerpt from the BBC story: The researchers canvassed the opinions of 14,000 people in 13 countries. BBC Islamic affairs analyst Roger Hardy says a string of events, from last year's London bombings to the more recent [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » * Big Picture Stuff, Main Page » Comments Off
Martin Adler, a TV cameraman, was shot and killed Friday while covering a massive demostration in Mogadishu held in support of Thursday's peace agreement. An excerpt from the BBC story: Mogadishu's Islamist leader has condemned the killing as “barbaric”. The peace deal was agreed in Sudan by the interim government and the Union of Islamic [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
In Koreatown, supporters of the Republic of South Korea were out by the hundreds along Bloor Street. But there was to be no delirious street celebration this time like the quarter-final victory over Spain in 2002. I watched the second half at Clinton's Tavern, which was totally packed — mostly Koreans, but a healthy proportion [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » Main Page, Minutiae » Comments Off
From the Beeb. Spot the typo! Frankie's stories The rise of the “citizen journalist” is challenging the authority of traditional reporting. Citizen journalist Frankie Roberto has given up a week of his holiday to spend time in the offices of the BBC News website and see at first-hand what advatanges professional reporters have. Here, through [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
A Beeb story by Martin Shankleman on how HD (high definition) TV actually took away from the experience of watching the England-Paraguay World Cup match. An excerpt: It was 14.03 pm on Saturday 10 June, during England's opening match with Paraguay. Beckham was poised to take a vital free kick. As the rest of the [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
While the audience doesn't compare to TV, FIFA has served up 31 million streaming World Cup 2006 clips so far. An excerpt from the BBC story: This is the first time video clips have been available free on the web. But the figures pale in comparison to the TV audiences. Some 60 million people were [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » Main Page, Media, Minutiae » Comments Off
This Beeb article talks about how mobile devices that can offer TV and video are the rage at the Broadcast Asia trade show in Singapore. An excerpt: The World Cup seems to have energised people in South Korea, a pioneer in mobile TV. Sales of handsets for the free-to-air terrestrial mobile service have soared this [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
Jon Stewart of the Daily Show found a news item that makes for a dandy quiz question: Of the 32 teams in the first round of the World Cup, guess which one drove around in an anonymous bus? As a hint, you have two choices: Iran, or the United States. Here's a Beeb feature on [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » Main Page, Minutiae » Comments Off
A BBC story on Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has some troubling observations about the Afghan national government's commitment to freedom of the press. An excerpt: … This week there was another sign of a government on the defensive, as media restrictions were the talk of Kabul. The media has thrived in Afghanistan in recent years [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » Main Page, Media » Comments Off
A new round of anti-terror arrests has reportedly been carried out in Miami. The early word is they were targeting the Sears tower in Chicago. Apparently the suspects have no al Qaeda link. But to this point, authorities haven't said if they turned up any bomb-making equipment or similar evidence. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [...]
Fri, June 23 2006 » * Big Picture Stuff, Main Page » Comments Off