Eternal Remont writes: “Apparently, Russia's state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport is livid that Bulgaria would violate the sacred principles of intellectual property and trademark protection to produce an, um, we're going to call it an ‘open source AK-47′.”

Ari Rusila examines the Balkan-related results of the Freedom House's Freedom in the World survey at AriRusila’s BalkanBlog, and writes about the Henley Visa Restrictions Index, highlighting the results for countries of Central and Eastern Europe, at AriRusila's BalkanPerspective at Blogactiv.eu.

Below is a selection of recent posts by bloggers from around Central and Eastern Europe on social networking, participatory media, online activism and other related issues. Eternal Remont writes about Russian businessman Oleg Teterin, who claims to have trademarked the ;-) emoticon: […] Seeing that the Russian patent agency will grant a trademark for just about anything these days, Eternal Remont is attempting to trademark “Oleg Teterin,” (trademark pending) and will expect payment whenever anyone speaks, writes, prints, or otherwise uses this phrase in all media known to humanity, existing or future. […] Streetwise Professor has chosen a different approach: […] To Mr. Teterin, I say: ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) So sue me. Russian Blog writes about the Russian Facebook look-alike, vkontakte.ru - which, among other things, appears to be a good language learning tool: When learning a foreign language communication is crucial. […] I tell my Russian students of Swedish to join Swedish online communities, and the same advice goes for you who are studying Russian - join a Russian online community! Not only will you find lots of interesting (or uninteresting) clubs as well as people, or be able write to strangers from one sixth of the Earth’s ground (that’s just how big a country this is), but for those of you who are only beginning to study Russian joining in itself will be a challenge. After all - one must join in Russian. […] There’s a Russian version of Facebook, though it’s completely independent, and in no way connected to Facebook, except for one thing - it is an almost exact copy of the way Facebook used to look before (the old Facebook), translated into Russian. […] Siberian Light interviews Dmitry, the owner and manager of Expatriates.ru, a new social networking site with fast-growing membership: […] What inspired you to develop expatriates.ru? During my studies abroad many people asked me a lot of questions about Russia. I decided to create a community where all people will find the answers to their questions about Russia and where they can talk and discuss issues related to Russia. […] Siberian Light also discusses some of the challenges that a blogger writing on sensitive geopolitical issues - in this case, Russia - often has to deal with: […] Over the past few months, I’ve written posts that have both criticised and praised Russia. I write them because I think that Russia is often right, although it’s also far too often wrong. And, far too often, I take crap from people. Usually because of what they think I have said, in the context of their tiny little world views, rather than what I have actually said, in the context of an entire blog post, or a series of posts. […] Gray Falcon, a blogger focusing on the Balkans, seems to share Siberian Light's frustration: It has been almost ten years since I started publishing commentary on-line, and it never ceases to amaze me that people seem to possess a remarkable capacity of completely missing the point of entire articles to zero in on one particular sentence or phrase and make a huge deal of it. […] Look, I'm routinely attacked by Albanians because I'm a Serb (it doesn't matter what I say, really - unless I endorse the KLA somehow; then I'm a poster child for what needs to be done). I get grief from Greeks, because I dare say “Macedonia” instead of FYROM or what have you (look, Alexander was a barbarian, OK? Just because he embraced the culture of Hellas and spread it around the known world doesn't make him any more Greek than my Orthodox faith makes me one). And now I'm marked for malice by Macedonians for daring to point out that hey, today's Macedonia exists within the boundaries of the territory liberated from the Ottoman Empire by the Kingdom of Serbia. […] Belgraded writes about the Facebook group celebrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre (the group is now closed; an earlier GV text on it by Sinisa Boljanovic is here): […] What struck me as interesting is that the vast majority of members were not even born when the Yugoslavia breakup wars started and were still in pre-school when it all ended. So where do they get their ‘knowledge’ and information about the past from? Who makes the biggest influence on how they see the past – their parents, media, their friends, the whole society? […] There are no similar hate groups in English, presumably because the facebook admins can react swiftly if they can understand what some group is all about without waiting for numerous people to hit the ‘report’ button and translate ‘Ubij [insert nationality here]’ for them. I know also some would like to blame facebook and other social media for making hate speech so available, but remember – it’s not guns that kill people. I guess that facebook is still not considered to be so influential or important by mainstream media, at least not in the Balkans. All this despite the fact that both Serbia and Croatia have around 170.ooo members on facebook each, a respectable number which is only going to grow in the future, with Bosnia lagging behind with about 50.000 members. Despite the fact that it’s mostly teenagers. Despite the fact that members post things under their full names with their photos attached – without having any fear or feeling no responsibility that the things they are posting could be dangerous and are wrong. […] In another post, Belgraded welcomes a new arrival on Serbia's online magazine scene: White City magazine is “Belgrade’s first English-language domestic urban magazine. It is written entirely in English, entirely by local Serbian writers for a Serbian readership.” Check it out - it looks good, the articles are very well written, hopefully it will survive in this tough competition. Scraps of Moscow reviews some of the new arrivals in “Moldovasphere”: Moldovaphiles should check out this new website, Moldovarious, which has been set up by a couple of Austrians. Curiously, the guys behind another interesting project related to Moldova (well, related to the PMR) profiled here are also Austrian. […] And, via barabanch, I learned of another newly launched project, this one initiated by Moldovans and called ThinkMoldova (also available in English) […]. One of the people involved in the project is Barabanov's wife and fellow New Times journalist Natalia Morari. […] Hungarian Spectrum writes about the blog of the Hungarian PM Ferenc Gyurcsány: […] Quite a few Hungarian politicians decided at one time or another to write a blog but after a few days, or at most after a few weeks, they gave up the ghost. Ferenc Gyurcsány is an exception. He began writing a blog about two and a half years ago, just before the 2006 elections. […] Even in the midst of a grueling campaign the Hungarian prime minister wrote his blog practically every weekday. Moreover, he didn't stop after the election that he managed to win practically single-handedly. […] I think one reason that he didn't stop is that the readers of the blog were so enthusiastic and so supportive that he felt it his duty not to disappoint the team that supported him with words and deeds. Eventually Gyurcsány and his readers organized personal meetings where people revealed their pseudonyms, where they met each other as well as the prime minister. The fact is that he is a good blog writer. His notes are interesting. Very often he reveals government plans that the readers of the blog are the first to know. By now the members of the media visit the blog every morning to see what's going on in Gyurcsány's head. […] Meglena Kuneva - a Bulgarian politician, the European consumer affairs commissioner, and a blogger - writes this about “the realities of cross-border e-commerce for consumers in Europe”: Some of you have complained through this blog that you cannot buy over the internet from certain stores located in other EU countries. I share your frustration. The Internet has the potential to bring the single European market to a whole new level, and to provide consumers with the chance to buy the very best that is on offer within the EU in terms of choice, price and quality. But the fact is that although a third of EU citizens already shop on the internet, only 7% shop online from other Member States than their own. […] Cyrus Farivar writes this about Estonia's advanced voting practices: The Estonian parliament […] has just approved a bill to let Estonian citizens vote via their mobile phone. This makes the country the first country in the world to do so, and comes about 20 months after Estonia held its first nation-wide election where the electorate could cast their ballots online. […] Update (Dec 17.): I spoke with Silver Meikar, an Estonian MP, who told me that this actually isn’t quite mobile phone voting. In fact, this is using Estonia’s digital ID card infrastructure to use your phone as an ID tool instead of your ID card and reader. You still need a computer and an Internet connection to vote online, but you now can just have your phone instead of your ID card. So, not as sexy. […] Window on Eurasia reports on what appears to be a move in the opposite direction for Russia: In the name of fighting extremism, a group of United Russia Duma deputies has proposed new legislation that would allow the government to impose sanctions on those who distribute what Moscow believes are “extremist” materials via the Internet and to close down the sites they post them on. […] And even though the nature of the world wide web is such that Russian government efforts in this area are unlikely to be fully effective, such moves against what many consider to be the last free media space in Russia represent a further act of intimidation by Vladimir Putin and his associates against the embattled members of civil society in that country. […] In Latvia, too, the state seems to be taking a proactive approach in its dealings with the online world. Free Speech Emergency in Latvia wrote this last week: According to unconfirmed reports, the Latvian Security Police have detained Valdis Rošāns, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi who has been writing his views extensively on the internet (in Latvian) using the nickname FENIKSS. […] By harassing a young neo-Nazi crackpot, the Security Police may be trying to restore their image after their detention of economist Dmitrijs Smirnovs and questioning of musician Valters Frīdenbergs. This caused an international uproar. I don't think too many people will rally around Valdis Rošāns, but his case should be put on the record. […] Earlier this month, Aleks Tapinsh of All About Latvia wrote on GV about Dmitrijs Smirnovs' case and the economic crisis dimension of the freedom of speech situation in Latvia. On his blog, he posted a picture of a t-shirt featuring a mock message to the Latvian security police: Notice to the security police: I admit that yesterday I withdrew money from my bank. Please don’t arrest me. I did it to buy milk and bread, and not to destabilize Latvia’s financial system.

Veni Markovski writes about an online petition against Bulgarian Muslims.

Veni Markovski reports that the Bulgarian president’s site “has been launched officially under Creative Commons license.”

Veni Markovski writes about a recent case of misrepresenting Bulgaria in the International Herald Tribune and posts his letter to the editors. He also writes about the European Commission's decision to cut funding to Bulgaria (and so does The 8th Circle), and about Sofia mayor's explanation for a recent earthquake in Bulgaria's capital.

Leopolis discusses the possible impact of “a McCain or Obama presidency” for Central Europe.

How to Marry a Bulgarian spent three hours at an Obama campaign office this past weekend, “making calls to Pennsylvanian voters, encouraging them to turn out and vote” - and during that time, she “really felt that there was hope and that we were all contributing to bringing about change. That is not a feeling I get when considering political action in my native Bulgaria. Alas.”

Central Europa Activ writes about a trilateral agreement signed by Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia to combat organized crime and improve border patrol: “I believe that instead of making great political gestures that make Serbian and European voters suspect of hidden agreements, this kind of pragmatic, goal-focused co-operation is the best way to bring Serbia into the European camp.”

Petya of Bighead announces a new blog project: How to Marry a Bulgarian.

The EU's plan to finalize an Association Agreement with Ukraine in 2009 was made public at the EU-Ukraine Summit in Paris on Sept. 9. The media and bloggers greeted it with mixed reactions. “EU offers reassurance to Ukraine,” read a BBC headline. “EU offers no promises to hopeful Ukraine,” wrote the Irish Times. “EU Makes Positive Noises But Offers Only Vague Deal to Ukraine,” stated Deutsche Welle. “Nervous EU offers Ukraine hope for the future but no seat at the table,” concluded The Times. The negative part of the assessment of the Summit's results stems from the EU's decision not to include the term “membership perspective” in the description of Ukraine’s future relationship with the EU - a phrase, which, according to Vitaly of The 8th Circle, “would identify Ukraine’s EU aspirations as something more than a hypothetical idea”: […] To myself, I thought that this is not surprising. With the EU still digesting the 2004 and 2007 enlargement waves, experiencing the Romania-Bulgaria fatigue syndrome, and dealing with an internal problem caused by Ireland’s vote against the Lisbon constitution treaty, any talk of further enlargement perspective for other states, especially those like Ukraine with 46 million citizens or Turkey with 70 million, must be nauseating. Although, smaller states, like Serbia with a population of 7 million, have a more realistic perspective as we have recently learned from Mr. Barroso […]. The 8th Circle points at another alleged reason for deciding against Ukraine's “European perspective” - the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine - but argues that “what Ukraine is going through right now SHARES quite a bit with the European values”: […] Furthermore it is puzzling why the withdrawal of one section from the ruling coalition, and the consequent potential for a pre-term election is NOT an example of shared values between the EU and Ukraine. As a democracy with competitive, free and fair elections, Ukraine is attempting to find an institutional solution that will accommodate all of its political actors. It is a democratic process through which every democratic state must pass through if it is to move beyond the adjective - “transitional.” Well consolidated democracies, such as Canada and Japan are currently going through the same coalition formation/pre-term election process, and Belgium in the past year took 196 days to form a coalition, which almost beat their 1977 record of 208 days. […] J Clive Matthews of Nosemonkey's EUtopia thinks that the EU should adopt a more practical approach to dealing with Ukraine: […] So Ukraine’s less welcome than tiny Albania and Macedonia? Less welcome than Serbia, a country built on a genocidal civil war and still in dispute with much of the EU over the status of Kosovo? Yeah, cheers for that. Really encouraging. Nice one. The promise of future EU membership can be a force for good, inspiring positive shifts towards greater democratic freedoms. But the promise has to be made. Taking a carrot and stick approach is a tried-and-tested method for getting people to do what you want - and that goes for countries too. Yet in the case of Ukraine, the EU’s carrot would appear to be largely imaginary - while at the same time, Ukrainians know that Russia has both stick and carrot, and isn’t afraid to use either. Taras of Ukrainiana takes a harsh stance on the performance of Ukraine's politicians: […] Sure, Euro-beggars can’t be Euro-choosers. Especially if you come to the negotiation table in such a grotesque disarray. In the meantime, let our oligarchs buy a little more of Monaco. Maybe then we’ll have our chance to join the EU? […] Part of the passage above is actually a reaction to Victor Yushchenko's seemingly awkward and inappropriately positive response to what Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly said on behalf of the EU at the end of the Summit. Ukrainiana posted a news report broadcast by one of Ukrainian TV stations and provided an English translation of the Ukrainian voiceover translation of Sarkozy's words: French President Nicolas Sarkozy: This association agreement [to be signed in 2009] does not close any paths, nor does it open any paths. That’s all we could give. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko: We very much appreciate what we reached today. It turns out, however, that Sarkozy's remark has been mistranslated, and the incorrect translation was then featured prominently in the Ukrainian and a few Western media outlets (more about it - here). The original statement - “[…] cet accord d’association ne ferme aucune piste, que même il en ouvre” - apparently translates as “[…] this association agreement does not close any route, it even opens some.” “Well, let's see what that means in practical terms,” concludes Ukrainiana after posting a correction. The 8th Circle believes that the EU should “stay engaged with its Eastern Neighborhood” and that the Polish-Swedish Eastern Partnership project might be “a good small step in that direction.” Here is why: […] This partnership more than anything will show that the EU retains its leadership role in Europe by staying actively engaged with “neighborhood countries” that are at various stages of democratic and economic development. […] Note that the question is not about making a promise of membership or candidateship - like the one made by Barroso vis-a-vis Serbia - rather it is about signaling to politicians in Kyiv and the Ukrainian population that if they want to and if they reform accordingly, then the EU is a viable option. […]

A Fistful of Euros writes about Serbia’s Radical Party, which seems to be “breaking up”: “What makes the Radicals different from, say, “Attack” in Bulgaria or Vadim Tudor’s Greater Romania Party is Serbia’s unhappy recent history. While “Attack” and such may have a lot of members who fantasize wistfully about gathering members of unpopular and despised minorities together, killing them, and dumping their bodies in a nearby large body of water, the Radical Party includes a number of people who have actually done so. In fact, its leader is currently on trial in the Hague for war crimes.”

In my earlier GV article, Bulgaria, Macedonia: Blog Wars Over History, I outlined the contradictions between our two countries and their impact on the local blogosphere, which had become a kind of a battlefield for a never-ending blogging war. But it turned out that the Macedonian and Bulgarian bloggers are capable not only of constant enmity but also of cutting roads between the people in the two countries – which, for the time being, is quite hard for their governments. Macedonian blogger Mecheto Ushko, disgusted at the pointless verbal crossfire between Bulgarians and Macedonians, laid the foundation of the initiative “With Literature, Against the Balkan Provincialism”: What's happening on Blogeray [Macedonian blogging platform] is no longer NATIONALISM, it is PROVINTIALISM. […] Let’s make a brief retrospective. At the outset it all started normally on Blogeray. As it should. There appeared a group of bloggers who started writing what they wanted to write. We live in the era of freedom of thinking and speech. Not a single word, not a single thought, is fearsome and dangerous as long as it does not hold in itself elements of hatred, genocide and intolerance. Each word spoken outside the street vocabulary is by itself sufficient for discussion and analysis. There appeared a countergroup of bloggers sharing the same outlook and way of action in the reverse direction. There appeared that blog propaganda from OUR NEIGHBOUR (Bulgaria), that was condemned by every reasonable person – but it raised so much dust that it cannot settle and the clear perspective cannot reemerge. The blog provincialism went on as a method of self-expression, a heap of semi-literates and simple thickheads, who went on spitting as far as they could, appeared. Nobody is capable of avoiding this regardless of where they are. This whole attitude is getting ridiculous, comical, farcical and commonplace. There is a blog with nearly 7,500 comments to a single post. I wonder who those people could be, who read and comment on such texts. But those are most often people who never read and who think even less. There appeared a petition that called to the owner of this blog service (blog.com.mk) to ban access to all those who write stuff that they (the petitioners) dislike. We are forgetting that the internet is a global medium and that practically it is very hard to censor or ban something. Leaning against the windows of their closed rooms, we are looking at only the part of the world that we can see when opening or closing the window. Where the horizon of this scope of visibility is, only thus far we can see. We do not want to look further ahead in the future and we have the computer in front of us. Isn’t that a paradox? With the internet you have the world on your palm and we do not want to look inside it. We do not want to accept the influence from the western democracies. We are looking at only the negative things, the positive seem not to exist. We are sealed in not only our own country but in our towns, a very parochial closure. The whole thing is even more tragic, because this attitude is connived at by the liberal and intellectual circles of this Blogeray, who cannot accept the fact that the world has been changed and we remain all the same in a big waiting room where we wait to be accepted somewhere. Remember that all you do and you are done to remains. All that you are going to say or write. You cannot pretend that you do not see something which is in front of your very eyes. It is before you and you must fight to change it because (otherwise) you will leave it as a burden for your descendants. Because of that in the next few days, as a reflection of my revolt against all this provincial-chauvinistic farce there will appear short stories by renowned Bulgarian writers and actors. Let us raise the voice of reason. The voice of the cultured and well-educated person that can be stronger than the voice of the Balkan chauvinism. This is the start of the new era, the era of LITERARY CHAUVINISM. WITH LITERATURE, AGAINST THE BALKAN PROVINCIALISM. Because the past cannot vanquish the present! Because hatred cannot vanquish love! A similar initiative on the Bulgarian side had already been undertaken by the Konstantin Pavlov. In a blog called “Lozari-Vinary” specifically made for the purpose, he introduced young Macedonian authors to the Bulgarian public. But Pavlov did not stop there. He was the first to publish on paper and at his own expense a contemporary Macedonian author. We are referring to Alex Boukarski - one of the most renowned young authors, publicists and bloggers. Boukarski has been awarded the literary debut price of Macedonia in 2006. His short stories and books are extremely popular with the younger generation of Macedonians. His blog is among the most authoritative ones and boasts one of the highest counts of visitors in Macedonia, and we will be justified to say that he is among the informal leaders of the blog community there. He has participated in a number of discussions about cultural and social problems. For a while he was an author with the Macedonian weekly “Nedelno vreme,” where he had a column on the problems of youth, culture and literature in Macedonia. Although Boukarski and Pavlov differ in their views on a number of questions, between them there has developed a friendship that led to the appearance in Bulgarian of a debut collection of short stories by Boukarski titled “People whose parachute does not open.” The event attracted the attention of the Bulgarian blogging community. In some 40 of the most authoritative blogs in Bulgaria there appeared reactions and comments on the book's promotion. Blogger Peter Dobrev writes: […] Instead of muttering that there is no state called Macedonia and that the language spoken there is actually Bulgarian, we can try to get to know the Macedonia in question. To see what on Earth the people who live there could be like. And not like a nice student from the Varna Free University ask whether the people there are Christians. We might perchance make some cultural exchange and perchance get closer. Because no matter how common our roots are, they have become quite entangled. So… every normal Bulgarian who is not obliged to be a historian but is interested in Macedonia, about which Slavi [famous Bulgarian showman] slips in dumb jokes, can see the book by Alex Boukarski “People whose parachute does not open.” The book is out in the Bulgarian market… […] “People whose parachute does not open“ is precisely about the real life. In it there are no brave heroes, fair ladies, there is even no Boyko Borisov [Sofia’s mayor well-known for his macho behaviour and popular with the masses]. Inside the book are, however, neighbourhood drunks, wanker students, little gamer boys from the “Cyber” [internet café in Bitola], miserable little gypsies and menopause-stricken old bags. The language is lively, as colourful as you can hear it in the neighbourhood. In the original it is not even the literary Macedonian but rather the Bitola dialect. In the translation of Konstantin Pavlov the dialogue retains its brightness still not losing its savoury Macedonian flavour. The book, the promotion and the author are all worth it. Promo poster of the book Image: http://komitata.blogspot.com Indeed the book by Boukarski introduced to the Bulgarian audience an unfamiliar Macedonia. Thanks to it the external observer can orient in Macedonia’s present which otherwise remains inscrutable to them. That's why it is no wonder that the presentation of the book had unprecedented success. In the crowded room, apart from university students, bloggers and literary authors, were representatives of a number of mainstream media. (Footage from the presentation in Bulgarian and Macedonian: Bukarski in Bulgaria 1, Bukarski in Bulgaria 2. Source: http://bukarski.blog.com.mk/) The works by Boukarsky were highly praised by his Bulgarian colleagues. The renowned writer Bogdan Rousev writes that “at its best the prose by Boukarski is so raging and full-blooded as though it pressed to escape from the page and punch you in the nose.” Of interest is the fact that the content of the book was licensed under the conditions of CC 2.5 – which had not happened in Bulgaria before. Maybe this step will be the start of a new era in the book distribution in Bulgaria, if other authors follow suit. In the following days of Boukarsky’s stay, his interviews appeared in a leading printed media. The guest appeared on a number of well-known TV shows. We can say that through his initiative Konstantin Pavlov contributed more to the improvement of the Bulgarian-Macedonian relations and the familiarization of the people in the two countries than the Bulgarian and Macedonian governments from the recent years.

Arabs really love shopping, they spend hours after hours in malls, and that's why they wanted to show their shopping skills at this year's Summer Olympics. Unfortunately shopping is not included in the games, but this couldn't stop some Arabs from showing their shopping skills. Kuwaitism [Ar] paints the picture here: حبيت آخذ هالفرصة لشكر بعض ممثلينا العرب – سامويل فرانسيس (قطر) جايمس كواليا كوكوروي (قطر) فيلكس كيكواي كيبوري (قطر) سلطان زمان (قطر) الإسم الأصلي أونيسفور نكونزيمانا (بوروندي) جمال سالم (قطر) الإسم الأصلي توماس كاتيو (كينيا) دهام بشير (قطر) الإسم الأصلي دايفيد إينياغا (كينيا) عيسى راشد (قطر) الإسم الأصلي دانييل كيبكوسكي (كينيا) جابر سالم (قطر) الإسم الأصلي ياني مارشوكوف (بلغاريا) – حول جنسيته بـ1,000,000 دولار عام 2000. مبارك شامي (قطر) الإسم الأصلي ريتشارد ياتيتش (كينيا) أحمد حسن عبدالله (قطر) الإسم الأصلي ألبرت تشيبكوروي (كينيا) بلال منصور علي (بحرين) الإسم الأصلي جون ييكو (كينيا) مريم يوسف جمال (بحرين) الإسم الأصلي زينيبيش تولا (أثيوبيا) نادية الجافني (بحرين) الأصل مغربية يوسف سعد كامل (بحرين) الأصل غريغوري كونشيلا (كينيا) آدم اسماعيل خميس (بحرين) الأصل هوسيا كوسغي (كينيا) حسن محبوب (بحرين) الأصل سايلاس كيروي (كينيا) رشيد رمزي (بحرين) الأصل مغربي ناصر سعيد (بحرين) الأصل ستيفان لورو كامار (كينيا) طارق مبارك طاهر (بحرين) الأصل دينيس كيبكوروي سانغ (كينيا) محمد عبدالله زكريا (بحرين) الأصل مغربي قطر و البحرين مثلهما 11 كيني 3 مغربيين 1 بوروندي 1 أثيوبي 1 بلغاري 3 غير معروف من أفريقيا I wanted to take this chance to thank our Arab representatives in the games: Samuel A. Francis (Qatar) [Nigeria] James Kwalia C'Kurui (Qatar) [Kenya] Felix Kikwai Kibore (Qatar) [Kenya] Sultan Zaman (Qatar) - born Onesphore Nkunzimana (Burundi) Gamal Salem (Qatar) - born Thomas Katui (Kenya) Daham Bashir (Qatar) - born David Nyaga (Kenya) Essa Ismail Rashed (Qatar) - born Daniel Kipkosgei (Kenya) Jaber Saeed Salem (Qatar) - born Yani Marchokov (Bulgaria) he changed his nationality for 1,000,000 Dollars in 2000. Mubarak Hassan Shami (Qatar) - born Richard Yatich (Kenya) Ahmad Hassan Abdullah (Qatar) - born Albert Chepkurui (Kenya) Bilal Mansour Ali (Bahrain) - born John Biko (Kenya) Jamal Maryam Yusuf (Bahrain) - born Zenebech Tola (Ethiopia) Nadia Ejjafini (Bahrain/Morocco) Yusuf Saad Kamel (Bahrain) - born Gregory Konchellah (Kenya) Aadam Ismaeel Khamis (Bahrain) - born Hosea Kosgei (Kenya) Hasan Mahboob (Bahrain) - born Silas Kirui (Kenya) Rashid Ramzi (Bahrain/Morocco) Nasar Sakar Saeed (Bahrain) - born Stephen Loruo Kamar (Kenya) Tareq Mubarak Taher (Bahrain) - born Denis Kipkurui Keter (Kenya) Mohammad Abdullah Zakaria (Bahrain/Morocco) In brief, Qatar and Bahrain were represented by 11 Kenyans, 3 Moroccans, 1 from Burundi, 1 Ethiopian, 1 Bulgarian and 3 others.

Maya of Maya's Corner follows up on her earlier posts on Bulgaria's institutionalized disabled children and posts an account by a woman who adopted two Bulgarian Roma children ten years ago and managed to locate her adoptive daughter's twin sister.