3 year anniversary

Well, activity is a little low right now (but more is to come) - I do however want to commemorate that now in late November is the 3 year anniversary of this blog! I began in November 2005... not bad! I certainly never imagined it at the time and have appreciated the energy I have put into this hobby-project enormously. I hope you can enjoy further!

Sharjah mosque

The Sharjah heritage area housed this pretty mosque by the corniche.

Bloggers

Bitte Hammargren of Svenska Dagbladet highlights bloggers in the Arab world in her most recent post.

I've linked this post from Pop the casbah before but it's a good overview on the same topic. Also Global Voices gives you more links to Middle East bloggers!

Downtown Sharjah

Sharjah looks sort of like old Dubai, but nothing like the new Dubai.. do you follow me?

Last picture shows the fort amid the more modern bank buildings.

Museum of Islamic civilizations

The Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization is the nicest I have seen in the UAE so far. It even had a nice cafeteria and a really decent museum shop! Really good exhibition on Islamic science to, with interactive aspects.

Brief Central Asia update

Afghanistan is slightly outside what we usually think of as Central Asia, but is firmly geographically in it. Al Jazeera ran an update on the war against drug production.

Human Rights Watch reports on the situation for women in Kyrgyzstan.

Maybe most important and interesting in this selection is the interviews with the Swedish journalist who reported from Andijan in Uzbekistan - here from Svenska Dagbladet. We never went to the Ferghana valley during our visit earlier this year, but having seen the country it still feels urgent.

Sharjah corniche

More sights along the Sharjah corniche. I guess Gulf trade has looked pretty much like this for a long long time - and the mix and mingle between old and new is fantastic.

Turkey

One of several postings of links - a little bit thematized this time... - that have been waiting for quite some time for me to publish. If I find I have more within a reasonable timespan - I will probably add and republish...

BBC reports on the renewal of historic wine-making, - not wholly uncontroversial...

BBC also discusses the status of historic churches in Turkey - museums or living shrines?

A paper by Svante Cornell and Magnus Karaveli ask whether AKP and their particular brand of modern Islamic politics will reform Turkey?

ICG explores Ankara's relations with Kurds in Iraq and the Barzani administration in the north.

The mayor of Batman dislikes his namesake film, reports Dagens Nyheter...

Karin Olsson from Expressen discusses reforms in Turkey in view of the Swedish Eu-preisdency 2009.

Hosn fortress in Sharjah

In downtown Sharjah, between the heritage and arts areas, a replica of the old fort, rebuilt by the current Sheikh from memories of his childhood, stands as a museum.

Sharjah, like the Creek area of Dubai, has a more genuine and old-fashioned feeling (even if it is hardly really old by regional standards).

Sharjah dhow harbour!

Walking along the Sharjah corniche, this is what meets the eye. My favourite is the first picture, with any number of cars on board a dhow, but the leopard sofa further down is great too!

Film from Afghanistan - the Makhmalbafs do it again!

This time it is Hana Makhmalbaf who directs a new Iranian film on children in Afghanistan. I'm sure it is both beautiful and heart-wrenching and would love to see it.

In Stockholm, it opens tomorrow at Zita.

Friday update: Dagens Nyheter meets Hana Makhmalbaf.

Looking forward

After a period of low activity here i now do have some new photos. However, my camera and my computer are not fully cooperating with me, so it may yet take some time before I can show you dhows and abras and other aspects of UAE boating life - recently taken during some excursions last week.

I also have a shot of the new apple of my eye - an Iranian nomad playing an important role in my everyday life.

But I can share a couple of links (out of a large accumulated mass of links yet to be sorted and commented...) on a Swedish visiting programme for young Arab leaders and on programmes for visiting Arab journalists.

11/11 - 90 years

It's 90 years since the First World War ended on the western front - symbolically with a truce beginning at 11:11 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

In the part of the world where I move it has profoundly changed history and geography. The map and developments in the Middle East were changed to the core and the parts which were not sorted out but frozen still haunt us. At home in Sweden, we were less involved, but of course not unscathed.

Niclas Ekdal previously of Dagens Nyheter sees important similarities with our time.

Challenging Calcutta

Dagens Nyheter runs a set of photos from Calcutta today. They are taken by Marianne Ahrne, who also writes about the challenges of the vast city, both for visitors and inhabitants.

Spanarna

One of my favourite programs on Swedish radio, Spanarna, celebrates it's 20th anniversary this weekend!

For all of you who don't listen regularly, Spanarna is a humoristic studio-conversation between 3 people who each give a prognosis of a phenomenon of our time, which they see as defining for the future. They also play cool jazz between each prognosis and have really funny sarcastic conversations on these defining features. Crystal clear? Cannot be explained, has to be lived!

Stockholm!

Stockholm from the seaside!

United Nations

Today is the UN Day - 63 years since the founding of the United Nations.

In Sweden, politicians of both the government and the opposition are highlighting this. I had the opportunity this week to underline this myself too. Strangely, none of the major morning papers seem to have had editorials on the topic today...

Waxholm fort

The fort of Vaxholm.

On seeing this, the German field-marshal von Moltke is said to have laughed one of the two times in his whole life. The other was when his mother-in-law died.

NB I don't know if it's true - but the story is quite widespread in Sweden. ;-)

Human rights award

Another human rights award was given yesterday also, this one to Egyptian activist Nora Younis. Here internet activism has been in focus.

Sacharov award

The European parliament today awarded the Chinese activist Hu Jia with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Svenska Dagbladet reports here.

Human Rights Watch comments here.