Global Voices Online

Tim Newman reports that, driven by current high prices, Russia and Kazakhstan are pursuing effective renationalization of their oil industries.

Oneworld Multimedia discusses the development of civil society in Armenia and the role being played or not, as the case may be, by NGOs.

AdJab and Adverblog both highlight a new campaign underway in Santiago, Chile to discourage child abuse.

Wooster Collective has some fresh “street art” from the streets of Chile.

Costa Rica Internet Portal makes some observations on the gay subculture present in Costa Rica.

Rob Mercatante and company get CBS to shape up their “Guatemala Relief” web page. Chapinadas weighs the pros and cons of Survivor's impact on Guatemala and all about E explains why she's no longer watching the show.

Members of Bahamas Issues, a group forum, discuss a recent incident involving student violence and look for solutions to the Bahamas' rising crime scene.

Fernando Cassia was at Expocomm Argentina and finds it ironic that Argentina is implementing WIMAX internet access before the United States.

Just came across a new Arabic ‘Blog-to-Media' project, which is still on beta. It's called ArabiskBlog. What they do is quite interesting. On weekly bases they publish a PDF Magazine called ‘Blogging Beyond Borders‘ (already three issues), of selected Arabic language Blog posts. Although it looks so far to concentrate on Egyptian blogs, however we have to admit that Egyptian Arabic language Blogs are the majority in the Arabic Blogsphere.
[Hat Tip: Mohammad Ibahrine, for the link]

Here is the link to the transcript (Arabic) of Arab TV Al Jazeera program about www.yezzi.org. The title of the program was “What's behind this news: Tunisians are protesting on the Net” and the subject was: “Can a virtual action on the Net have an impact on the real political life?” (and there is also an audio link).
[Hat Tip: Neila Charchour Hachicha]

Premarital sex in contemporary Bangladesh - Rifat has some views on media and society.

Imtiaz's weBlog on the verbs and language used by politicians. Lip service all the way!

The King makes many tall promises. But instead of ushering in democracy, the King in Nepal only seems to be getting more powerful says Samudaya.org.

A first-hand account of Balakot - ravaged by the earthquake.

…She kept on repeatig ‘koi nahi rukka (nobody stopped for help)' and I couldn't find courage to explain her that almost everyone had, somewhere in the city, their own loved ones calling for help…

The Margalla Towers - a 13 storey building that collapsed in the earthquake was the scene of rescue, hope and disaster - on a personal account at Metroblogging Lahore.

On his blog China Herald, Fons Tuinstra explains his fence-sitting position in the increasingly acrimonious debate over the beating of Lu Banglie for bringing Guardian correspondent Benjamin Joffe-Walt to Taishi.

In this post, Mack Zulkifli muses on smoking, getting older, faith and fasting during Ramadan.

Noting Retzwerx's high traffic on the back of his coverage of Pinoy Big Brother, technology news blog Ambot ah! muses on “focus blogs” and asks his readers to share how they found their niche.

Beng of Born on Ninth of August has started a Singapore podcasting directory: Podcasting Under the Stars and Moon. He also prods a friend to make one. The result: A meditation, in Cantonese, on life, ambition and the heroine of Korean drama serial Dae Jang Geum.

The Marmot's Hole takes issue with a SFGate column on dog-eating in Asia: “Dog meat? Fade away? God, I hope not.”

Diary of a Mad Kenyan Woman, discusses the issue of the contribution of “white” writers in African literary history and the arbitrary changing of people´s social categories in order to fit in to the category of “white”. Since when was Franz Fanon “white” ? “he would be twirling like a top in his grave to hear that he was consider to be a “white writer”.

Emeka Okafor´s blog Africa Unchained reports on the investigate journalism of Elendu Reports by Jonathan Elendu and Sowore Omoyele

A Free Writer says that while excavating ruins of a 2000-year-old village near Baghdad, workers discovered mysterious small vase. German archaeologist ,Wilhelm Konig, examined the object and came to a surprising conclusion that the clay pot was nothing less than an ancient electric battery.

A Family From Mosul writes: A much-discussed article in The New Yorker last March did not make reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency report or consider that Iranian gas might have killed the Kurds. On the rare occasions the report is brought up, there is usually speculation, with no proof, that it was skewed out of American political favoritism toward Iraq in its war against Iran…. Accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war.

African Music for the Masses Blog, Benn Loxo Du Taccu remembers one of Africa´s greatest musicans Congolese master guitarist Franco, who 20 years after his death is still heard daily on the streets of Africa.

Mr.Behi writes that after each Earthquake inside or outside Iran, People of Tehran get shaken and alarms about the earthquake that our city has been waiting for, start to flash. Tehran is not at all prepared for such a shake. It is very populated, has many historical and thus old parts. Many narrow streets that if get blocked, become the prison for any survivor.

Tehran is a beautiful mountain side city with trees all along it's streams, we shall save it from falling before the faults around it shake it to the death dance.

The Big Pharaoh says that around 3000 Muslim protesters surrounded a church in Alexandria to protest a church play that they deemed as “offensive to Islam.” Police cordoned off the building to protect it from the angry crowd.

Issandr El Amrani says that he found nothing remarkable about King Abdullah first TV interview as king to the American channel ABC. The transcript is here. However, Issandr finds that Iran part is interesting.

Kiswahili blog, Mwandani reports that the legacy of former Tanzanian President, the late Julius Nyerere has gone astray in the corrupt environment of the ongoing election campaigns.

From Mahmood's Blog: The Bahrain Cinema Club in Association with Al-Ayam 13th Cultural Festival cordially invite you to the opening of Bahrain Film Days at 9pm on October 18th at the International Exhibition Centre where the film “The Confession” will be screened by Bahraini director Bassam Al-Thawadi.

Sabbah says that terrorism is the dominating theme in two major soap operas series during Ramadan this year and aired through Arab television venues, like the Middle East Broadcasting Company (MBC), Syria, Jordan, and Abu Dhabi television stations.

Ethiopian Paradox predicts the end of Prime Minister “Meles the Terrible” of Ethiopia as the country remains in the grip revolutionary fervor with one “Mahal Sefari” leading the movement.

Nouri bin Khalid agrees that women in Africa need to be more aggressive in their efforts to face up to the various challenges, but he do think that the men should do their part to help women get ahead too.

LinuxChix Africa partners with Kasi Open Source Software (KOSS) and takes Open Source software into the urban townships of South Africa and then on to the rural areas and villages

Bronwyn of Mzansi Afrika reports on the appalling lack of housing faced by South Africa´s urban poor and migrant population.

Mohammed says that Garangao (aka Gergea'an), celebrated on the 14th day of Ramadan (which falls on the 17 October 2005), is special to the Gulf region and is believed to have its roots in the pearl-diving tradition of the region. This evening, children, clad in their traditional clothes, will come out of their homes and knock on every door in their neighbourhood, which will be ready to receive them with sweets and nuts. They collect the goodies in the special cotton bags, hanging loosely from their necks.