Global Voices Online

Both Alvaro and Eduardo give their impressions of a recent BBC feature on Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Luke Distelhorst of neweurasia writes that Mongolia's Citizens' Will Party is forming a shadow government and hoping that the Democratic Party will join them.

Blogrel reports that Armenia has probably avoided anticipated huge gas price increases.

Larry Tweed, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, writes about the thoughts that follow waking up to the muezzin's morning call to prayer.

Luke Distelhorst has an update on the protests in Mongolia and reports that one of the country's political parties has paid students to stage a counterprotest.

David Read writes that his young son is speaking three languages–Kyrgyz, Russian, and English–and wonders how he can make sure his son is able to use all three.

Michael of The Glory of Carniola reports on a video hosting site's ‘collective punishment policy' toward Slovenians.

Henrik of Hungarian Accent comments on the bloggers' lack of response to the recent general election in Hungary.

Andrei Khrapavitski wonders why there hasn't appeared a single Hollywood movie about Belarus, “the baffling country between Russia and Poland.”

Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog writes about Sibir Airline's new identity - and its new name: S7, or - if you listen to the airline's flight attendants - “Ass Seven.”

Raffi Aftandelian of maaskva: nashimi glazami translates a few poems by the Russian children's poet Grigoriy Oster, author of the Harmful Advice: A Book for Naughty Children and Their Parents.

Mad Bull wonders if the homophobic agenda of a Jamaican blog called Killbattyman.org is a huge joke — or deadly serious.

“When our tourists find out that those who grew up here can speak at least four languages, there are usually exclamations of wonder and marvel at our linguistic prowess,” says ArubaGirl, in her explanation as to why most Arubans speak Dutch, English, Spanish and Papiamento.

After a month-long blog break to finish a novel, Jeff Barry is back to point out that Borges wrote about Judas' potential good side long before National Geographic.

The strike in Nepal was dotted with violence. United We Blog! on what happened in Gongabu - “Armed police fired more than hundred rounds of real bullets as the bloodiest people-police clash at Gongabu injured more than 130, some of whom are serious”

imperfect world 2006 on the appointment of Richard Benkin as the PR man for Bangladesh. “In other words, can foreign policy principles be bought? We will have to wait and see. Israel, incidentally, was one of the first countries in the world to recognise Bangladesh.”

Two more Argentine indie groups recommended by musical connoisseur Fernando Casale. Check out sample tracks from Sync Filmico and Alvy Singer. From Spain, 4024 Segundos is a compilation available for download of new songs licensed under the Spanish Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.

Blog de Esquipulas has an intriguing review (ES) of the movie Fronteras Sangrientas, which was filmed in rural Guatemala.

Nick at baliblog writes about a Danish trader in the 1800s who helped put Bali on the trading map.

Conspiracypenguins lament on the lack of interest in local music in Singapore.

“On July 14, 1969, Honduras and El Salvador went to war. The 100 hour war took 6000 lives, 12,000 were wounded, and 50,000 people rendered homeless The cause was ostensibly the World Cup matches between Honduras and El Salvador qualifying for Mexico ‘70.” Shourin Roy gives context to the tragedy on SoccerBlog.com.

Malaysian blogger Kenny Sia wishes for some computer features to be made available in real life.

Scruffydan is travelling through Laos and he encounters the rural life and a river that flows through a 7.5 km cave.

Indonesian blogger A. Fatih Syuhud analyzes why intellectual politicians loose out to the “stupid ones” in elections.

Rehabilitation is an ongoing process in Sri Lanka. Sarvodaya on a project in which “Thirty houses in Galle district were ceremonially handed over to Tsunami-affected families in the villages of Akurala and Kahawa.”

Leodini, a Filipino magician and blogger complains about the increase in misspellings because of text messaging.

River's Blue Elephants reflects on personal experiences as someone who has handled admissions process in a college to talk about the reservations issue in the Indian Education System.

What role does India have to play as Nepal burns even after the strike at Nepali Netbook -”How can the world’s most populous democracy sit by and watch the palace desecrate the democratic aspirations of the Nepalese people?”

Alpar (Persian), Iran based blogger, has informed us that many journalists who work for ILNA ( Iran Labour News Agency) have been fired. It seems that there is no budget. Most journalists worked for political section of Agency.

“I'm standing under the cool dark shade of my julie mango tree looking for my breakfast,” writes Attillah at The Pan Collective in her paean to one of the Caribbean's favourite non-indigenous fruit.

Simone Elgeln gives an update on Belize's recent oil discovery and the efforts being made by the company which made the find to act the responsible corporate citizen: “The government needed a miracle and hopefully they got it in the form of this black gold,” says Simone. “Of course, we're all worried as to how this will impact the environment & what kind of corruption we're going to witness this time (this government has proven to be terribly corrupt). But all we can do is sit and wait & see how it all plays out.”

Stacy-Marie Ishmael of the Trinidad & Tobago World Cup Blog posts her answers to the question of how the World Cup can be improved. She also reports that a comic book is being produced in tribute to the Soca Warriors, Trinidad & Tobago's national football team.

León Felipe Sánchez introduces the Mexican rock band Encordados whose latest album is licensed under Creative Commons and freely available for download.

Jorge Yau points to (ES) an article (ES) in the newspaper Panamá América about Panamanian blogs including Melissa de León's CookingDiva and the popular tech blog for women, TechnoChica.

Writing from her blog T-Salon, Andrea mentions an upcoming television program which will look at the identity of ‘the Tank Man'—known to many as the Tiananmen square protestor who stood his ground against a line of incoming China's People's Liberation Army tanks on June 5, 1989.

“I remember it was just over Christmas vacation that the tank man slipped into a conversation that I had with a former Beijing resident who is now living abroad. He said both the tank man and the soldier who operated the tank were executed,” she recounts.

An previously well-respected and outspoken Chinese newspaper which was taken over by the government earlier this year has since resorted to copying stories from other publications, says Non-violent Resistance blogger uleewang.

“In the same weekly section, one also finds international stories about the Jordanian queen, the smart red-haired chimpanzees of Sumatra, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin's resignation, and Ukraine's post-election politics. I don't think the Beijing Times has the editorial budget to send its own reporters to do these stories,” he continues.

Rank Beginner of the Taiwan-based blog Rank pre-empts Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan's visit to China scheduled for Thursday with a look at recent China-Taiwan diplomatic talks and the prediction of a subtle yet important declaration.

Lee at Tokyo Times ‘pokes' a little fun at the opening this past weekend of Kaiyo Academy, an all-boys boarding school modeled after Britain's Eton College.

Talks over a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and Korea are seen by many as an opportunity to further an anti-American agenda, writes Joshua from The Korea Liberator, possibly resulting in no FTA and an accelerated deterioration in the U.S.-Korean relations.

He continues: “With key elections approaching at the end of May, the hyenas pounced with a stunning swiftness…even for sleazy Korean politicians. The scavengers are now questioning the deal—which is fine—but the lowest of them are comparing a possible trade agreement to the Japanese colonization of Korea—which isn't. Comparing U.S. trade negotiators to those who forced hundreds of thousands of Koreans into forced labor and sexual slavery is the sort of gutter incitement worthy of men who can't remember which end of the alimentary canal ought to do the talking.”

Occidentalism's Matt looks at a recent move by the South Korean government aimed at improving the situation of the country's foreign worker population.

“It is claimed to be so bad that foreign workers returning to their home countries start to actively campaign against Korea,” he notes. “The most well-known case of this is an organisation in Thailand called the Anti Korean Interests Agency' (AIKA) that threatened terrorist attacks against Korean targets, including Korean citizens in SE Asia, and Korean Air.”

Nathan “n8ma” Madsen writes on his Xanga blog about the controversy surrounding Hong Kong Chief Executive Officer Donald Tsang's plans to relocate government headquarters into a new complex which will also house the Special Administrative Region's Legislative Council.

“I wonder,” Nathan asks, “does Sir Donald want to relocate the HQ to Tamar so everyone in government is forced to look out their windows and gaze on the PLA soldiers next door, doing bayonet practice at the old Prince of Wales Building? Yeah, that's probably the reason.”

Jason Li from Virtual China translates a post from Linghucong's Blog [zh] which looks at the “increasing amount of feature articles that possess a well-informed, sharp, satirical edge” seen on major Chinese portal website Netease.

Generation Consciente, Une Autre Afrique publishes (FR) a list of francophone journalists who cover Africa.

Under pressure from UDPS sympathizers, UDPS will organize a conference on May 1st to answer questions and make available documentation on several questioned actions of the party and its leader Etienne Tshisekedi in the 1990s, writes (FR) UDPS Liege. The blog also announced that the party's next priority is to figure out what its election strategy should be despite not actually running.

UDPS spokesperson Jn-Baptiste Bomanza made several revelations on a Congolese talk show, reports (FR) Le Blog du Congolais. Bomanza's most surprising comment waa that “[t]here will be no election without UDPS” but he also accused the president of the Electoral Commission Rev. Malu-Malu of belonging to the same party as interim president Kabila and claimed that EU commissary Louis Michel was engaging in unfair competition in the Congolese diamond exploitation industry.

Ore's notes reviews “The Edible Woman” by Margaret Atwood.…”it was an interesting concept to me - the idea of our subconcious and our bodies rejecting decisions that we are making or not making (as in Marian's case). The idea of our bodies rebelling by rejecting food was also fascinating.”

4Sheezy writes on the Kenyan air crash in which 14 politicians were killed on Monday. ….”My heart goes out to all of their families. Most of all to Dr Bonaya Godana's family. Dr Godana rose from being a herdsboy to a serious intellectual.He fought tirelessly for pastoralists in the area he represented in parliament.This man represented more than leadership. He was a symbol of hope for his people and indeed the whole citizenry.”

Ijebuman's Diary discusses abuse of power and asks ” What is it that turns man into a monster when he has power over others?” He points to an op/ed in the UK Guardian “The Last Word on Power” for an answer.

Gukira has an excellent commentary on violence against women and rape in particular. He asks why there are so many rape poems written…”.For these rape poems, whatever their formal merits, suggest how women understand their structural position within gendered norms. The rape poem captures the experience of space and time, in which routes taken during the day may not be traversed at night….And it captures whispered stories told to close friends, often accompanied by binding promises: don’t tell anyone, please. Even now, I do not betray these secrets”.

Ethiopundit remembers the Battle of Adwa which was a victory against colonialism for Ethiopia..“For the victors it was decisive; for the vanquished, catastrophic. The Italian colonialist soldiers were crushed. Their casualty figure was 70%; all their artillery pieces were captured, one out of four of their generals was taken prisoner and two of the remaining as well as almost half of their staff officers were killed on the battlefield.”

This is Zimbabwe writes a post on the lack of medical care in Zimbabwe and how this impacts on sick children.

Chippla writes on China's latest African destination - Angola. “Energy may be what China is really after but by building infrastructure and providing aid to Angola, it increases its relevance on a continent that is undoubtedly the least developed in the world.”

Kenyan Soccer is a new blog dedicated to covering the Kenyan soccer scene. More African soccer blogs wanted please!

My Heart is in Accra reports and comments on the ferry accident on Lake Volta in Northern Ghana in which a boat built to carry 70 passengers had at least 150 on board. So far only 3 bodies have been recovered.

Yebo Gogo comments on a report in the Christian Science monitor on the responsbilities of Western journalists to help those they cover. “Where the line falls that reporters shouldn't cross has been debated as long as there have been newspapers. The ethics seem to vary by country”.

Black Star Journal comments on High Courts decision that the Ugandan elections are “not free or fair but still valid”

What did you do this weekend? Roland at EastSouthWestNorth spent his translating The True Life of a Political Worm, a Tianya Club forum post which gives an insider's perspective on Communist Party culture in China.

“Laptop computers, mobile phones, hand-held devices, MP3 music players and even the occasional photocopy machine fill the carriage with a cacophony of unpleasantness. It's high-tech gone mad,” writes the Englishman in Osaka blogger of Japanese trains.

BigWhiteGuy Randall posts on the unearthing this week of “a massive stockpile” of leftover World War Two explosives from just three feet below an inner-Hong Kong street.

“From what I understand, the hills around the old West Brigade headquarters at the Wong Nai Chung Gap are still loaded with munitions,” he adds.

SimonWorld links to an article from mainland China-born but American-based political science professor Pei Minxin which, Simon says, contains “brave observations about why we should be pessimistic about political liberalization following on from economic liberalization.”

The Life After Jiangxi blogger describes life on the media-restricted Chinese mainland.

“I go to these posh hotels, and watch BBCWorld and realise that the situation in Nepal is pretty serious or intense or even godforbid revolutionary. Then I come back to my normal life, with information provided by CCTV [China Central Television] and the internet, and it's as if Nepal has just been blotted out from the surface of the world. Spooky.”