Global Voices Online

Afghan blogger Sohrab Kabuli has a photo of people, including children, in a poor district of the capital city, struggling with buckets on carrying poles (the luckier ones have donkeys) to get their daily supply of water.

Aid worker Sleepless in Sudan shares some e-mails she has received from researchers and other aid-workers in the troubled region of Darfur, as African Union peacekeepers begin their mission.

Flame Lily writes on the Sokwanele Civic Action Support Group blog how she saw Zimbabwean police drag a body out of a ditch where those made homeless by the government's mass demolitions of shanty-towns had been sleeping.

Pol-Blog gets behind a grass-roots, citizen-based political initiative aimed at communicating directly with EU institutions, and being run by the European Citizen Action Service.

Richard says this year's Grenada Carnival was a slight disappointment compared to last year's.

Small Island Girl has two long posts summarizing the Tobago Jazz Festival.

MMK, over at African Bullets and Honey, decries the attitude of the Kenyan government to its athletes in the wake of the World Championships in Helsinki.

Plan Colombia and Beyond makes its case against the spraying of spores and fungi over Colombia’s coca-growing zones. With links to data about health and environmental impacts.

Marianna Idrisova Gurtovnik, in her blog dedicated to the Azerbaijan elections, details allegations of a coup conspiracy leveled against opposition supporters.

Boz has the story on Peruvian president, Alejandro Toledo's fall from grace.

Robert Wright from line of sight, with the help of Marcelo Metayer, has added a photoblog of Buenos Aires to complement his excellent, CC-licensed online walking tour of the city.

Jeff Barry gives a brief history of early 20th century intellectual magazines from Buenos Aires.

United We Blog! has a post weighing the pros and cons of the Internet as a medium.

Independence Day in Pakistan. Leaders make pledges , reflections on Partition and notes for the country's future.

Hoder reports that Iran's Telecom company has ordered all ISPs to filter blogrolling.com.

Discrimination in Bangladesh has many manifestations says Imtiaz.

Sepia Mutiny has a post on the Government's decision to ban hand-pulled rickshaws in Calcutta.

Links for Indian Independence Day (15 Aug) - Arun on the contexts of Independence. Thoughts on the flag at Caferati.

Point Pedro Institute of Development has an article on the corruption in Sri Lanka that has compounded the misery of those who lost lives and livelihoods due to the Tsunami.

The Cicak (lizard in Malay) is climbing up the wall. San Francisco-based student Poh Si Tang leads a virtual world of young Malaysians scattered across the world to blog on politics, society, education, media and business back home. She takes the role of managing editor, besides toiling her busy schedule as a student and reporter at a community newspaper in the Bay Area.

Her team members have just turned 21: Ng Khai Lee, Kristel Leow (Seattle), Brian Ong (New York), Rachel Leow (UK, who wrote for International Herald Tribune when she was 16), Nurjehan, Lee Hui Huang, Audery Tang (San Francisco), Ana A (Silicon Valley), Jason Lim (London) and The Marquis (so-named due to work-hazard related constraints). They share Poh Si's belief in her search of free speech and expression.

Omid Memarian says that Islamists groups in Iran creates hate against the west between the youth generation. He gives an example of that by yesterday's Iranian Students protest against the UK embassy in Tehran to show their hate about what this country and the other western countries have done during the war between Iran and Iraq (1980-1989).

The Sandmonkey is getting a little bit confused. He says that according to News Filbalad (an Egyptian news website), the Multinational Force and Observers declared that no explosion took place at Sinai, and that there are no people injured or killed. That all that happened that a car driven by 2 people- who sustained no injuries- got “destroyed”. On the Other hand, Al Jazeera confirms the explosion story and states that it was informed by sources inside the Egyptian National security apparatus.

Mahmood asks if anyone can shed some light on GDN's article (PDF) about a Bahraini mosque preacher (Imam) in Muharraq, who has been suspended due to a sermon he preached about Zionism and “Sectarian Issues”.

International Solidarity Movement posting a press release stating that hundreds of women to participate in the International Women in Black Conference in Jerusalem will travel today to the village of Bil’in to participate with village women in a vigil against construction of Israel’s illegal annexation wall that will cut 60 percent of Bil'in’s farmland from its people so that nearby settlers can take over the land.

Rafah Pundits writes that disengagement is official and that there’s so much information, and disinformation. Watch for more links at their del.icio.us. Laila describes this day and says it's like a zoo there, and reminds her of the fall of the Berlin Wall. With thousands of journalists flown in from around the world, spread across every inch of Gaza, every settlement, refugee camp, border crossing, with satellite link-up, Internet, radio, you name it. A new article by Uri Avnery is published at Gush Shalom. He writes, A Miracle of Rare Device: This week, a great event will take place: for the first time, settlements in Palestine are being removed. The Settlement enterprise, which has always moved forward, is for the first time moving backwards. On the other hand, ninathedog reports that Settlers declare independent ‘Gaza state’. In a ceremony held Sunday evening at the Gaza Strip settlement of Shirat HaYam, several dozen settlers declared the establishment of the “Independent Jewish Authority in the Gaza Region.

In israpundit, Daniel Pipes writes that the Israeli government's removal of its own citizens from Gaza ranks as one of the worst errors ever made by a democracy. Imshin says that there are reports that settlers have smuggled hundreds of army and police uniforms into the Gaza Strip and that they intend to wear them when the evacuators arrive so as to create confusion. Andrew Schamess writes Thinking Beyond the Disengagement and comes to a conclusion “I don't think Sharon has any respect for the Palestinians, and I don't think he's the man to make peace with them. But, we can hope.” Shiloh Musings points to the propaganda program in favor of Disengagement and against the “fanatic, extremist Jews”.

Blogger Koh Lay Chin blew her own cover one week after setting up Haze Haters In Malaysia as a repository of images of Malaysia shrouded in smog and haze. She has originally blogged behind anonymity - an effort she calls a pictorial petition - to protest against Indonesia for allowing open burning in plantations that caused hazardous air pollutants to blow across the Malacca Straits, plunging Malaysia in emergency… until mainstream New Sunday Times invited her to write a story in first-person.