A Blog Counting the Blogs of Kurdistan
Currently the title for my Kurdish roundups on Global Voices is “Travels in the Kurdish Blogosphere”, which I am not sure whether or not I actually like. So for my 10+ readers I would like to offer a comment contest (the prize being me using your suggestion) to come up with a new name for the weekly article. So please, comment away.
As reported by the Kurdistan Blog Count several new Kurdish blogs in English were found. The first of which Talk about the Passion is actually written by an American going to teach for the next six months in Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan. While he has just started teaching there, he has already posted about an interesting encounter with meat. The second post mentioned is called my Personals which was started this week. The third mentioned is called me, myself and I (including you) which has an interesting take on the imprisonment of Dr. Kadir by the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Vladimir of From Holland to Kurdistan has a fantastic post covering all the news of greater Kurdistan. He also has a personal account of racism that he encountered while out with Kurdish friends in Holland. Other news written by Vladimir this week include news that Turkish banks will open in Kurdistan, the leader of the PKK stating that “Turkey wants to destory him”, and information on Turk and Kurd support of EU talks for Turkey.
Roj Bash writes about a new mass grave found in Iraq and has a post in honor of the anniversary of the creation of the first Kurdish republic founded in Iran.
Rasti has two new posts entitled (I love his titles!) Masks and Deceptions-Whose needs do you satisfy? and Turkey, the OIC, and the Kurdish Voice.
This week the Kurdistan Bloggers Union gave a link to the new National Geographic magazine article which featured an article about the Kurds in Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan.
Nashville Kurds Daily is back after a 2 month hiatus with an update on the Kurdish Community in Tennesse.
If you are looking for a site that gives continual news updates on Iran, East of Kurdistan is an excellent place to start. Notable posts (out of many) from this week include the Human Rights Report on Iran, information on meetings of the Iranian government to deal with the current international crisis that they are in the middle of, and the blocking of Persian BBC in Iran.
Hiwa from Hiwa Hopes, besides having problems with Amazon UK writes about the inability of the new Iraqi government to do anything at the moment and the sad case of a Kurdish man who has been imprisoned for almost a decade for the theft of a Kurdistan Regional Government’s employee’s coat.
See you next week!
From a comment on another blog of mine came the tip for this new website called Hasankeyf. The pictures are fantastic and hopefully if more people can get involved with the cause to save Hasankeyf, it will be wonderful.
Talk about the Passion is a blog written by a gentleman who will be teaching in Northern iraq/Southern Kurdistan for the next 6 months, I think that this one will be a fun one to watch in the future.
Additionally, here is a link to a translation of an article about the Kurds in Kirkuk from the blog Nur al-Cubicle.
Came across a new Kurdish blog today that was started this month called my Personals.
A quick question to my few readers, should I individual updates on some of the blogs we cover? This would be different than the weekly update I regularly do, I would want to feature one blog at a time.
The January 2006 edition of National Geographic has a wonderful article on the Kurds of Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan, their website has extra features that I would recommentd checking out.
I was playing around in Technorati this morning and found this link to a posting about some beginning Kurdish words. I am sure that some might disagree with some of his comments, however I think that the author should be commended for compliling his notes and doing the research.
I have been remiss in my duties to you, dear Global Voices readers, in not posting about the Kurdish Blogosphere for three weeks. Today I will try to catch you up in the ongoings of the Kurds in this new year. As to why I missed my articles, let’s just say that planning a wedding is much more of a daunting task than I thought that it would be.
For mental ease on my part, we are going to go blog by blog instead of thematically. The Kurdistan Bloggers Union besides New Year’s Greetings has two other posts of mild interest: One, about the media coverage of the bird flu and civil war rumors in Iraq, the comments on this post reveal more about the issues that the original post; the second post (which I admittedly wrote) is about an evening with former US Ambassador Joe Wilson and his comments on the Middle East.
Land of the Sun:Kurdistan has a post about the famous Van Cat, once you see pictures of this distinctive cat I am sure that you will remember seeing it in many places.
Sami from Iraqi Thoughts has returned and gives us his impressions of the December voting in Iraq:
Hiwa from Hiwa Hopes writes about the Turkish schools in Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan, and his hopes for a less corrupt government in Southern Kurdistan. He also has a fun post about a non-smoking Kurdish village.
Pearls of Iraq has Kurdish proverbs, part one and part two. She also continues to give us weekly updates on the reconstruction efforts in Southern Kurdistan, including part two, part three, and the weekly update for this week.
From Holland to Kurdistan writes about the importance of the recent conviction of Dutch businessman Van Anraat:
Vladimir also posted several times about the bird flu in northern Kurdistan and how the Turkish health ministers are not handling the situation and letting it reach crisis proportions. Other posts include rumors of a movie to be made about Mustafa Barzani and the salon skincare craze of Kurdish men in Southern Kurdistan.
Roj Bash has a fabulous post detailing the defense at the University of Sorbonne, Paris, of Saywan Barzani’s thesis in politicial science : The Iraqi Kurdistan Question, 1991-2005.
I find that I can’t say enough about the work that Save Roj TV is doing and I just recommend that you make this blog a daily regular on your reading list.
If you want to know about the lastest updates on the bird flu in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan Rasti is the place to go, as he has multiple posts on this topic I will not link to all of them just his main page. Of course the bird flu is not all that Rasti has written about, for instance he has a great post about memories of Kurdish bread and false claims of Kurdish gangsters.
Last up on this short novel I am apparently writing is a reminder that on this weekly article I try to cover what is being written in the english Kurdish blogs, however an alternative project of mine Kurdistan Blog Count attempts to follow the Kurdish blogs in all languages. Also if you are interested there is also a Kurdish Blogs Aggregator that is regularly updated with each new Kurdish blog found.
sorry for the delay folks, after a brief hiatus I am back in the saddle so to speak. I have two new links for you today and then a Global Voices update hopefully later on.
First up a new Kurdish News site called New Kurdistan, it seems that many Kurds are opting to create news sites rather than blogs which I find a unique.
Second up is a new blog (shown to me by a generous comment-thank you readers) called I, me and others (including you).
I am not sure why China needs to have a Kurdish policy still, but this article from a Turkish newspaper covers the issue, an interesting read regardless.
