Word: blog
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...players' popularity will rub off on Serbia itself. During and after the NATO bombing that ended the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, Serbs became stock villains in Western media: the terrorists plotting mayhem in the first year of the HBO series 24 were Serbs. Now, opines "serbiangirl" in a blog, Ana, Novak and Jelena can show "that the Serbian people are not just terorists [sic] and criminals, we are nice, talented and good people!!!" Just don't call them Croats. With reporting by Dejan Anastasijevic/Belgrade
...Even more confusing is the fake blog for Prime Minister Dung. The impostor "Nguyen Tan Dung" sounds less like a dissident than a Communist fanboy, posting items including "Have a Strong Belief in Communist Party" and most recently warning against attempts to "sway" the population against the government and also criticizing several jailed dissidents by name. The same post also featured nine-line poem praising the late communist independence leader Ho Chi Minh...
...turns out, the answer is no. Vietnamese officials revealed Thursday that the site is actually the work of a clever impostor. "The Prime Minister doesn't blog. He has too much other work to do," Dung's spokesman Nguyen Kinh Quoc told TIME. Separate blogs purportedly run by Manh, the Party leader, and President Nguyen Minh Triet, the official head of state, are also fakes. The government only became aware of the faux blogs this week, and vowed to track down the impersonators...
...Like China, Vietnam uses a firewall to block access to pornography and political websites, and is talking about censoring blogs - although that is more difficult because most are posted on foreign-based websites. But the impostor blog campaign could well be an innovation in the ongoing battle between the Party and its opponents for the hearts and minds of Vietnamese Internet users. The identity of the fake bloggers remains a mystery. The rhetoric of their postings mimics official jargon, but is subtly peppered with anti-communist barbs. The fake "Nong Duc Manh blog," for instance, features a post on corruption...
...Vietnamese web forums are hotly debating the fake blogs, with some participants appearing to take the postings at face value. On the "Nguyen Tan Dung" blog, one of the first comments is from a spiky-haired Vietnamese (from his photo) calling himself "Romeo" who enthuses " I know our country has a lot of difficulties, but the Party and State are still paying attention to the younger generation." Another poster called Nguyen Tuan Kien, identified as a student, says "I totally support the prime minister." If the fake blogs are indeed a dissident ruse, it may have been a little...