Global Voices Online

Pablo Bastidas (ES) and FayerWayer (ES) both comment on Entel's recent announcement to blanket 14 of Chile's biggest cities with WiMax internet access.

Happy Día de la Virgen. Calypso MX has a description while photographer Carlos Bravo offers his own contribution, which resonates wide amongst the Flickr community.

Passion of the Present writes on a UNICEF project to provide safe places for refugee children to help them overcome trauma and malnutrition…..UNICEF is supporting 46 ‘child-friendly spaces’ in five refugee camps in eastern Chad, where families have fled the fighting in the neighbouring Darfur region of Sudan.

Anthony talks of Nupi Lal (or Women's War), an occassion that celebrates women who were involved in an uprising in the early 1930s when food prices shot up in Manipur.

This is Zimbabwe - reports on WOZA - Women of Zimbabwe Arise - who took to the streets of Harare on Saturday 10th December which was Human Rights Day. During the demonstration women were assulted by security forces and some of them arrested….”By noon five women from the Harare protest were in custody at Harare Central Police station. They were assaulted with open palms and baton sticks whilst in detention by officers, including one called Mhondoro. Due to a combination of this assault and refusal of access to lawyers, the women decided to negotiate the payment of ZD $25,000 admission of guilt fines. They were released on this basis at 16:45 pm”.

DesiPundit collates various links to the latest bribery scandal that has been unveiled by a sting operation. The sting involves sitting Members of Parliament accepting bribes to raise questions in the Parliament.

Trivial Matters has an excellent collection of photographs on the open spaces in Bombay (also known as Maidans).

This is Zimbabwe - reports on WOZA - Women of Zimbabwe Arise - who took to the streets of Harare on Saturday 10th December which was Human Rights Day. During the demonstration women were assulted by security forces and some of them arrested….”By noon five women from the Harare protest were in custody at Harare Central Police station. They were assaulted with open palms and baton sticks whilst in detention by officers, including one called Mhondoro. Due to a combination of this assault and refusal of access to lawyers, the women decided to negotiate the payment of ZD $25,000 admission of guilt fines. They were released on this basis at 16:45 pm”.

Mzansi Afrika reports about the policy of evictions in African urban centers - this time in Lagos Nigeria….”Police broke down the gate of a huge housing complex to oust thousands of civil servants and their families last Friday in the latest mass eviction by a government struggling to gain control of its chaotic and crowded cities. Police officials were not available for comment on the evictions, but Umma Muhammed, a spokeswoman for tenants of 1 004 Residences, said the move followed a decision by the government to sell off several of its properties in a privatisation scheme. Authorities have not provided the estimated 8 000 residents with other accommodation.”

African Unchained writes that Africa needs trade not aid……”The best thing that America and Europe can do for Africa is not to give it handouts but to reduce trade barriers and buy the products that Africa is capable of producing competitively — not just agricultural products but also labor-intensive manufactured goods such as textiles…Africa has the trade routes and the potential to industrialize through export-oriented manufactures, but it still faces many formidable difficulties”.

Rezwan on the spate of violence in Bangladesh and its likely impact on the next elections.

Samudaya.org has photographs of a huge meet organized by the Communist Party of Nepal.

Black Star Journal writes on a Global Witness report which states “An upsurge in illegal diamond mining and logging by ex-combatants in Liberia is undermining international efforts to promote good governance and stability in the worn torn West African country, and could fuel a return to warlordism.”

Kenyan Pundit comments on the amnesia of the Kenyan Press….”I think the Kenyan press is no less complicit and it is time that they should be taken to task. For instance, why were Kenyans overseas complaining that they were not getting a good sense of things on the ground from the press during the referendum when the Kenyan press had the resources to do more than just an orange-vs-banana story? Why aren’t we reading more honest and well-thought out stories? How can we complain about mediocre coverage by the West when we are doing a pretty abysmal job of telling our stories”?

Festival of kites in Lahore remembered with much fondness by Shirazi.

Grandiose Parlour reports on yet another plane crash in Nigeria which killed 101 people half of whom were children……….”The incessant and unnecessary loss of lives in Nigeria is nothing but appalling. This is a nation where thousands die each year from preventable causes like poor access to health care, and traffic accidents such as these airliner crashes. Just as it is with land travel in Nigeria, the aviation facilities and airliners in use are poorly serviced, or too old to be put to any save use”.

Redeem Ethiopia reports on a new “propaganda” website called “Himbasha Commentary” which they believe is an online outlet for the EPRDF (Meles Party) in Ethiopia….”We are convinced that the intended audience for this website is groups who are already supporters of the present ruling class in Ethiopia. The article foot notes seem to have the purpose of explaining to this audience what the significance of the selected articles is and how to understand them”.

MentalAcrobatics introduces the new Kenyan Unlimited Open Blog - “There have been waves in the Kenyan blogosphere with the launch of the KenyaUnlimited Open Blog. This Open Blog is an experimental blog featuring contributions from the members of the Kenyan Blogs Webring. Through these contributions you will be able to track and trace issues that are of relevance to the Kenyan blogosphere or being debated in the wider Kenyan blogosphere.”

Fons Tuinstra compares the GVO summit in London and the new media conference in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's Next magazine prints a profile of Roland Soong, the blogger behind the indispensable China blog EastSouthWestNorth.

Making the rounds on the blogs is this spoof documentary on how to eat sushi. It's funny but also surprisingly informative.

As the inaugural East Asia Summit approaches in Kuala Lumpur, Competitive Malaysia finds similarities between certain Asian countries and western countries. Find out why he thinks Singapore is the Switzerland of Asia or Thailand is its Norway.

Yawning Bread grapples with the idea that Singapore's population can only afford one viable political party.

Rosario offers a Uruguayan's perspective on Bill Bryson's book, “Made in America.”

Radio Open Source invites political science professor, Daniel Hellinger, Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez, and bloggers, Miguel Octavio and Daniel Duquenal to hash out Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution after last week's low vote turnout in support of Chavez's parties. Comments following the post have been lively.

Robert Wright has a three
part series on how Kirchner is (mis)using his political capital and what forces lie behind the scenes.

Nicolette Bethel, considering the prospect of life abroad herself, makes the provocative argument that the Bahamas' lack of cultural export is rooted in its artists' tendency - unlike other Caribbean islanders - to stay put rather than live in exile.

Nora visits the newly reopened border crossing between Rafah and Gaza strip. She takes several photos and writes in Arabic about her experience. She documents the frustrations of people trying to get into Gaza. Notices the excessive video surveillance by Israel. She then explains who can cross the border; Palestinians with a passport who live in the Palestinian territories. In addition to that only people above 40, female, registered as a student in a university across the border or has a document that proves s/he is seeking medical treatment. Egyptians may not cross.