Global Voices Online

“night_eulen” says that the plan to build a new orphanage for disabled children in Tajikistan has some troubling aspects.

This year's First Carnival of Blog Translation has concluded and Liz Henry has a list of the original posts along with their translations. Russian, French, English, Portuguese, Swedish, Bulgarian, and Spanish are represented.

Christian Garbis says that someone needs to do something to stop the cutting of Yerevan's trees.

Mirwais calls on the international community to save dying children and mothers in Afghanistan.

James discusses Kazakhstan's shadow politics at neweurasia.

Luís Afonso Assumpção says that beneath the festive celebrating of Carnival, there is a political-cultural current.

Testimonies from the oppressed community at the Punjab Dalit Solidarity blog - “I, Baljit Kaur, daughter of Sri Bant Singh, am a resident of village Burj Jhabbar in Mansa District, Punjab. I was gang-raped on 6 July 2002….”

Pickled Politics asks a pertinent question -”Does multi-culturalism lead to racism?“

The political stand-off analysed at Bahas -”Analysts believe that the deep personal distrust King Gyanendra holds against the politicians lies at the root of the standoff. But the dislike appears to be mutual and the agitating parties have not behaved better either.”

United We Blog! has a feature written by a person who spent some time in Nepal.

Raheel questions the logic of banning blogspot blogs in Pakistan -”Okay if you want to block then do it on specific blogs which have such material, why they have blocked every single blog. I dont have problem with this censorship but why all the blogs?”

Taylor Kirk of The Latin Americanist and Tyler Bridges of The Miami Herald both have great posts on Peruvian presidential candidate, Lourdes Flores who - if the polls are correct - is slated to become Peru's first female president. Un Lobo en Perú, however, says that's a big if. In a bizarre “survey about surveys,” by Catholic University, most Peruvians give little or no importance to pre-election polling in the country. Which, perhaps, means take the latest poll posted on Peru Election 2006 with some skepticism.

En Tu Ciudad is excited to hear (ES) that a committee is pushing for the 2018 olympic winter games to be held in Santiago, Chile. Meanwhile, the folks at Atina Chile have two online campaigns in action: “Internet Access for All” and “Let's Use Wikipedia in the Schools.”

Bicyclemark interviews the always-informed Taylor Kirk about the recent presidential elections in Costa Rica.

Mowgli at Maytel2020 is having an ethical dilemma: what beer should he drink when many beer companies in Cambodia use “beer girls”? The girls, who hang out in bars and restaurants to promote their brands, are often expected by customers to provide sexual services. According to beergirls.org, a site set up to campaign for their protection, a fifth have been infected with HIV.

Jakartass says the Indonesian blogosphere is protesting a new anti-pornography law. A group of Balinese activists have set up a bilingual blog just to do that.

Pestiside.hu reports on the “highlights” of Vladimir Putin's visit to Budapest, Hungary. The “low points,” that is.

Christopher of From Ukraine With Love writes on how good the upcoming election is for a small-town Ukrainian school - good in a twisted sort of way: “From how it’s been explained to me, elections time is when politicians start giving out gifts.”

the news at 10 weighs in on the controversial oil price hike in Malaysia: “The malaysian public has reacted with furore, and have even planned a protest against it. (this is a big thing you see, the malaysian public doesnt really protest much, they dont see the point.) so what does this mean for everybody?”

Opponents of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo have come up with an interesting form of “flash-mob protest.” It involves dressing in black, buying a drink and standing at a Starbucks.

Virtual Doug chronicles the increasingly rare xích lô (cyclo, or trishaw), which has almost disappeared in Hà Nội and Sài Gòn but “is still hanging on in Huê.”

The normally apolitical thai-blogs.com gets more political. This time, vdaniel writes about a political coming of age in Thailand as protests against PM Thaksin Shinawatra continue. “The glaring problem in the “land of smiles” is the small hypocrisies that many people in Thailand are willing to overlook. It’s the small cracks in the system that essential weakens the whole foundation.”

Michael of The Glory of Carniola comments on a Slovenian anti-spam program, Spamfighter.

Michael of The Glory of Carniola analyzes the EU's strange funding priorities: in Dec. 2005, it is decided to cut aid to Eastern European member states by 10% - and on Feb. 27, 2006, following the victory of Hamas in Palestine and despite it, the EU pledges “120 million euros in aid to the Palestinians” and “unblocks 17.5 million euros that were frozen in a trust fund.”

Molara Wood reports on an advert for a film called “Date Movie”. She asks that “If you view the advert as offensive, degrading, or poor taste please take the time to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority which investigates complaints of taste and decency and has upheld similar complaints in the past”

LEvko at Foreign Notes writes of the comparatively inconspicuous campaigning style of Victor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine Bloc, which alienates potential voters but may prove not harmful to the politicians in the end, if they agree to forge an alliance with Victor Yanukovych's Regions of Ukraine Party, the former archrival. One of Yulia Tymoshenko's chief strategists predicts such an outcome.

Sudan Reeves reports that Darfur is held hostage as Sudan rejects UN peace keeping forces.……..”Khartoum’s overwhelmingly dominant National Islamic Front (NIF) has, with growing confidence, aggressively rejected a UN peacekeeping force (itself only a distant and almost certainly inadequate means of protection)

Africa Blogs writes that Uganda is following in the footsteps of China as they have become the first African country to block a website.

Mental Acrobatics posts CCTV footage of the raid on the Kenyan newspaper, the Standard by agents of the Kenyan Government. …..The raid were carried out by a rapid response unit code-named the Kanga Squad, detectives from Nairobi provincial CID headquarters and officers from the General Service Unit. They are wearing bright orange reflective vests with “QRU” for Quick Rescue Unit/Quick Response Unit which indicates their day job of fight hardcore criminals like carjackers, bank robbers and murder hit squads.”

Grandiose Parlor comments on a BBC report on the appalling racism faced by African students in Russia

The Fish Bowl reports on the outcome of South Africa's local elections and the performance of the ANC.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Freshly Arrived Denzian writes that he is sick of the arguments on debt relief in Africa referring to an article on “Make Poverty History“.

Sean Guillory translates parts of an interview with Mikhail Gorbachev that appeared in the Russian-language Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Gorbachev turned 75 yesterday.

France Watcher posts a response to their blog by a reader from France. The person strongly disagrees with the motives and facts of France Watcher - interesting read.

W. Shedd of The Accidental Russophile writes about American foreign adoptions and the excessive coverage of the 12 tragic deaths of Russian children at the hands of their American adopted parents (0.03% of approximately 40,000 children adopted since 1996) in the Russian media.

br23 blog reports on a politically eventful - and alarming - day in Belarus: an opposition candidate gets beaten, detained and charged with criminal offense after tearing the president's posters off the police station walls, thus endangering his chances to run in the upcoming election; several journalists get beaten; police fire three shots at a journalist driving away in his car; police prevents several thousand people from meeting with another opposition candidate.

Amnesty International calls on the Chinese authorities to review an announcement by the government in the southern province of Guangdong recently, which warned that drive-by handbag snatchers could face the death penalty.

“An authoritarian China has been highly predictable. A more open and democratic China could produce new uncertainties about both domestic policy and international relations,” says a new report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, entitled In the Balance: China's unprecedented growth and implications for the Asia-Pacific, picked up by China Digital Times, via AFP and the Christian Science Monitor.

Sun Bin summarizes a commentary written by Stephen Cheung in the Hong Kong Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper, which suggests that the Chinese yuan should not be pegged to any foreign currency, but instead to a basket of commodities.

Glutter takes a deep breath and dives in to embrace a conspiracy theory surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in that fateful car chase in Paris. “You will never hear me talk about anything to do with aliens, crop circles, princess grace, how Courtney Love Hired a hit man to kill Kurt Cobain, fung shui, nor is Elvis or Jim Morrison Alive. I don't even think Bush won the election due to voters irregularities. But this one. I am really not sure,” she writes, following a personal visit to Kensington Palace.

ESWN weighs up the points made by Guangdong-based academic Yuan Weishi in his article on the official view of China's recent imperial history, and those made in a critique of his view published in the first issue of Freezing Point to hit the newsstands since its suspension ended. The cutting-edge supplement to the China Youth Daily was suspended Jan. 24 following Yuan's article, and former editors Li Datong and Lu Yuegang have been transferred to the paper's news research department.

Danwei translates rough highlights from an online discussion forum thrown open to the public by the official Xinhua news agency ahead of the forthcoming parliamentary sessions in Beijing: hot threads include those on official corruption, land reform, education, political rights, food safety, the entertainment industry and laid-off/retired workers. Original Chinese here.

OhmyNews and the Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea are co-hosting a series of online discussion fora entitled Talk! Northeast Asia. Translated and cross-posted in Korean, Japanese, Chinese and English between Feb. 27 and March 15, the event aims to provide the means for Northeast Asian citizens to produce ideas as a group for peace in Northeast Asia.

Zeyad asks for a campaign to remember murdered journalist Atwar Bahjat. He repeats a suggestion made by Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy:

Al-Arabiya, entrepreneurs in the Arab world and journalism schools in the region should be encouraged to set up a scholarship programme in her honour that would fund the education of female journalists in Iraq as well as in the Arab world.

Zeyad adds:

Whoever killed Atwar, had in fact killed Iraq and killed that tiny glimmer of hope. I believe the above suggestion is the least we can do to preserve the beautiful memory of Atwar Bahjat. … Let us know if you can help with this noble endeavor.