Meedan Translates Libyan Blogger for Guardian Comment is Free
In a partnership with the Guardian Comment is Free, we are working to source, translate and edit comment pieces from bloggers on the ground in Middle Eastern countries experiencing revolutionary protests and reform movements. Our latest effort involved working with a brilliant young Libyan blogger based in Tripoli whose piece was published today after we translated it. Here’s a snippet from the Guardian piece: as the calls for foreign intervention grow, I’d like to send a message to western leaders: Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy. This is a priceless opportunity that... Read The Rest →
How you can help spark east-west dialogue with a delicious tag
If you’ve ever tagged a bookmark on delicious, you can help us. What? Yes, we want you to help us track, aggregate and translate the stories and sources you care about, using a popular bookmarking service on the web. All it takes is a simple tag: for_meedan. How? Imagine you’ve just read a brilliant article about Gaza that you feel needs to be seen more widely. You might share it with your close friends on facebook, or send it to a mailing list. But you can also pretty easily share... Read The Rest →
Meedan on YouTube: 5 videos to help you join a cross-language conversation
If you haven’t experienced a cross-language conversation and networking experience before, Meedan.net may throw up some surprises. It’s novel to most users that your comments are translated first by a machine and then by other members of the Meedan translator community. It’s also pretty fun to see your blog or article switch into another language. Unlike many other web services and applications, Meedan.net implicitly combines different roles for a successful experience. Middle East enthusiasts, journalists and bloggers may be drawn more towards posting links and writing comments. Arabic-English translators and... Read The Rest →
'Bloggers scream: We are searching for a real outlet for our thoughts, away from surveillance!'
Read the original Arabic article in Al Raya here. Translated by Randa. Cairo- Al-Rayah Newspaper – Raymaa Abdel-Ghafoor: One of the events at the Cairo International Book Fair was a provocative symposium about “Blogs’ literature: Is it just a number of screams or scattered papers?” The symposium was run by the novelist, Youssef Al-Qaeed, in the presence of Shaban Youssef, the poet, and the young bloggers, Ghada Abdel-Aal, Mai Khaled, and Shady Asslan. Al-Qaeed mentioned that the subject of the symposium considers the ideology behind blogs, of which the new... Read The Rest →
10: Azmi Bishara, former Israeli politician, critic and blogger – by Boushra
A Palestinian academic and an ex-member of Knesset, Azmi Bishara is adept at analyzing the Arab-Israeli crisis as well as other political issues. I personally consider him to be the best contemporary political writer. He writes a weekly editorial in Arabs48.com. He wrote many important books on the Intifada, Israel and civil society. Share → Tweet
5-9: Syria on the web: Where to look for a better understanding – by Boushra
9: Burhan Ghalioun, political activist and blogger A very moderate Syrian political activist and blogger. He is an expert on Syrian issues, socially as well as politically. He usually writes in Aljazeera.net. 8: Bouthaina Shaaban, Syrian minister of expatriates and writer A very clever writer who was the interpreter of Hafez Alasad and is the Syrian minister of expatriates. She is concerned about the relations between Arabs and West, and Arab women issues. 7: Imad Fawzi Alshoubi, charismatic spokesman of Syrian government He can be considered as a moderate spokesman... Read The Rest →
1: Born-to-be-blogger Abu Aardvark covers the story when the reporters have gone home
If ever there was a blogger who should have been born blogging, it would be Abu Aardvark. Prolific would be an understatement; his blog is a universe unto itself. This is a web log that sprawls across half a decade, documenting political developments from Kirbala to Cairo through each of those five turbulent years with a fine toothcomb. To the new visitor, it may seem dense. But to the regular these pages are rich and fertile pastures, where curious minds can graze for hours on end. Abu Aardvark may be... Read The Rest →