Rhod Sharp, Kevin Anderson and Chris Vallance blog for Up All Night

Ford's troubles, hostages... and pork.24 January 2006

We began with a look at the troubles of the US automotive industry. Ford has announced 25 -30,000 job losses across the US including Michigan. We spoke with DetroitWonk aka blogger Ray Wert who has experience in state politics and economic development in Michigan, and asked him about the cuts and the future of Ford.

Journalist Jill Carroll remains, at time of writing, a hostage in Iraq. Blogger Natasha Tynes is a good friend of Jill's and she told us about the intense efforts to secure her release. A read of Natasha's blog is a moving experience - Natasha is a powerful advocate for her friend.

Protests errupted over the weekend in Nepal, prompting the authorities to turn off the mobile phone networks, but information still gets out of the country thanks to the bloggers. We spoke to a pro-democracy blogger and journalist Dinesh Wagel

There was consternation in the blogs as it emerged the US government had requested search records from search engines. Google has decided to fight the request in the courts but other companies have complied. Xeni Jardin is a coeditor of the mega-popular website Boingboing (she's not a co-founder as I eroneously said on air). Xeni is also a contributor to NPR and Wired. She gave us the low-down on the story.

In American political slang "pork" refers to unnecessary expenditure added to bills often for the purpose of persuading legislators to lend a particular measure their support. Last year bloggers ran a campaign to cut the pork from US government.

Now some of these "porkbusters" have banded together to quiz candidates for the job of House Majority Leader about their commitment to pork free law making. Kevin Anderson spoke to porkbusting blogger NZ of the Truth Laid Bear website...

As promised we had an interview with blogger and podcaster Ahmed Humeid about the Arab blog portal www.itoot.net - it's a good read, the Arab blogosphere is clearly in robust health... but the Arab podosphere could do with a boost. Ahmed's 360east podcast is one of very few in the region.

And lastly we explored the world in sound thanks to audio from the excellent freesounds website and its creator Bram de Jong. Visit the site and take a virtual trip to Melbourne if you want to know what a musical cactus sounds like.

Incidentally next week's show will come from Washington DC. If you've any suggestions for good bloggers and podcasters in the DC area we should talk to, drop us a line to the usual address upallnight@bbc.co.uk.

Tue, 16 May 2006

• UNICEF podcasting and an alternative view of the US border

Tue, 09 May 2006

• Drowning not waving ...

Thu, 04 May 2006

• Evolution and Flashing 12s

Thu, 13 Apr 2006

• Britcaster, Complete Tosh and Student Radio

Mon, 27 Mar 2006

• Marches, comedy and silly patents

• Article archive