Middle East & North Africa

Billboards in Cairo to welcome Erdogan by AymanM from yfrog on Twitter

Nama Jafari has published a 70's film showing the flamingos in Lake Urmia (Rezayieh). There were several demonstrations in recent weeks to save this dying lake. The blogger says that this lake 30 years ago was a tourist attraction and now a dying one.

This post is part of our special coverage Egypt Revolution 2011.

After seeing the huge impact of social media on the Egyptian revolution, Egyptian blogger and Twitter user, Mahmoud Salem (@SandMonkey) decided to collaborate with a local non-profit organisation to help them raise funds using the power of Twitter to offer basic services in an impoverished neighborhood of Cairo.

Algerian-American Kal, from The Moor Next Door, shares some thoughts on the Arab Spring. “This blog does not write about “Arab revolutions”; no such thing has taken place in the Arab countries from a results-oriented stand point. Important and substantive political change came to a number of Arab countries in 2011. But nothing as of yet can be called a revolution, socially, economically, culturally or politically in the Arab region,” he blogs.

Egyptian Christian business tycoon, and recent politician, Naguib Sawiris, posted a cartoon on his Twitter account showing Mickey Mouse with a beard and Minnie Mouse in Niqab, and commented on it saying: “Micky and Minnie after…”

He received lots of comments later from people who didn't accept what they see as mockery of the Islamic religion.

Ilan Chaim Grapel, an American immigrant to Israel, was arrested in Egypt last Sunday. Grapel is now detained for 15 days as he is being questioned by the State Security Prosecution over alleged espionage activities in Egypt, attempting to instigate conflict between the Egyptian people and the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, and to incite religious conflict between Muslims and Copts.

The appearance of Egyptian political activist and tweep Gigi Ibrahim on The Daily Show brought a wave of support and protests from fellow tweeps, who covered the Egyptian revolution.

This post is part of our special coverage Egypt Revolution 2011.

Last February, Sheryl Stolberg of The New York Times wrote an article about the political science professor, Gene Sharp, whose ideas were credited by her as being an inspiration for the Egyptian revolution, as well as many other uprisings in the region.

Written by Sasa Milosevic

This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.

Written by Ayesha Saldanha

What would you do if you found a camera, and wanted to return it to its owner? One Egyptian taxi driver decided to do it the Egyptian way and utilise the internet - with rapid results.