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We all know that the traditional media outlets often provide biased coverage of Africa, if at all. So where do you go if you want to get a more nuanced picture of the continent?

Blogs, of course.

Some of my recommendations on where to get started:

• African Path: The uber-blog for African news, featuring some of the top bloggers and writers from across the continent. Sign up to their mailing list to receive regular updates.
• Global Voices Sub-Saharan Africa coverage - the BEST place to get an introduction to the range of bloggers in Africa.
• Afrigator: an aggregator of African blogs.
• Blog Africa: another aggregator of African blogs.
• African Women Blogs: an aggregator focusing specifically on women bloggers.

Full size cartoon available on The Economist.

On the 26th of September we held a screening for Why Democracy in New York.

It went well. Nick Fraser and Mette Hoffmann answered questions about the series and we showed Please Vote for Me.

The images of the violent repression in Myanmar have stirred something in me. Not just a sense of outrage, but also a deep appreciation for the freedoms that I enjoy as a Kenyan and for the people who sacrified their lives to make it happen.

Saudi Arabia is changing its legal system. For years there have been complaints that Saudi Arabian judges judged arbitrarily.

King Abdullah issued a decree imposing a supreme court that will enable appeals and also start training judges and lawyers.

According to Crossroads Arabia:

These steps do not yet codify the law—an important measure in assuring justice, in my opinion—but they do go a long way in restricting arbitrary judgments.

Read the full article here.

Watch the 10 min. edited version of Please Vote for Me on MySpace!

Click HERE!

We already have more than 7000 viewers.

We asked all sorts of people -- authors, athletes, movie stars, politicians, thinkers, workers, dreamers -- ten tough questions about democracy. We will publish many of the answers on this page, with new ones every day. Be sure to tell us what you think in the forums.

Who would you vote for as President of the World?
To me, the person for the job of President of the World is really obvious. His name is Nelson Mandela. Actually, I’d like to have two people share the presidency: Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. For President of the World we need people who can forgive, who are not revengeful; people who are passionate, and people who are truly concerned for humanity, not just themselves.

What is wrong with democracy?

In my opinion what is wrong with democracy it’s not how it’s written or thought, but how it is applied. Put into practice, especially here in Brazil where you have an unspoken racism, democracy ends up privileging people that are not the majority, that come from a different reality, with money, are well raised, have a nice family that supports them. It seems that in reality these people have their rights more democratically guaranteed, and that is wrong.

Who would you vote for as President of the World?
To be totally honest, I don’t think anyone can be qualified for such a huge job. It would be interesting to see who wanted to do it. I think a lot of the people who put themselves up for positions of power are doing it for personal motives rather than to help others.

source: Times online

Read more Burmese stories and about how bloggers worldwide took action on yesterday's "International Bloggers' Day for Burma on the 4th of October".