Global Voices Online

Sheri offers an overview (es) of schools in Puerto Rico that are using blogs.

Malmi announces (es) the 4th International Festival of Poor Cinema, which takes place in Gibara, Cuba, from April 17-23, and discusses the festival's background and philosophy. “Those new technologies,” writes Malmi, “that widen the gap between rich and poor, when applied to the world of the image, allow for films to be produced on smaller budgets and have become a guarantee of the survival of cinema in countries which are underdeveloped or which exist on the margins of the lucrative cinema monopoly: this is the thesis of the organizers of this festival.”

Sean is excited at the prospect of an underwater turbine being planned by BELCO, Bermuda's electricity company, which will make use of the Gulf Stream to generate power.

“Passa passa” events, which are also causing a stir in Grenada, have arrived in Barbados as well, according to Barbados Free Press, who notes that the story has also been picked up by Russian news service Pravda. “We must congratulate the Royal Barbados Police Force for moving against this bit of Jamaican “culture” that is so at odds with acceptable Bajan behaviour and cultural celebrations,” says Barbados Free Press. “Anyone who has seen one of these fetes up close knows of the violence, illegal drugs, gang sex and general mahem associated with ‘Passa Passa'.”

The Limey is pleased to see that Bermuda's National Drug Control Minister is backing the partial decriminalisation of marijuana.

neweurasia reports on Mongolia's 18th and 19th confirmed cases of HIV and the steps being taken in response.

Luke Distelhorst has an update on the ongoing protests in Mongolia.

Zarchka writes about Easter celebrations in Armenia.

Onnik Krikorian notes that an official has admitted that the 2003 presidential election was falsified and he comments on the prospects for fairer votes in the 2007 and 2008 elections.

Guido Verboom covers a war of words on Wikipedia over entries for Mongolian politicians.

Tim Newman of White Sun of the Desert reports that Russia is planning to provide financial aid to Hamas: “For the last few years, much of Russia’s foreign policy has been a two step process: 1) See what the US is doing. 2) Do the opposite.”

Snowsquare.com takes a look at Moscow's VIP market. Also noted is a special Orthodox Easter feature for cell phones.

Sean Guillory writes about Komsomol and its influence on today's political youth movements in Russia.

Megan Case takes a picture of a sexist beer ad in a St. Petersburg subway train - and gets fined for doing it. Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog comments on this ad.

Sergey Belyakov of Travel Russia! (formerly known as RUBLog) posts a note on the Russian LiveJournal world: ZheZhe, as it is known in Russian, is currently 274,763 users strong.

Petro Rondiak of Petro's Jotter writes about how he almost ended up bribing a traffic policeman during a family trip from Kyiv to Odesa.

Stefan of Dykun quotes a message from Oksana Kolodnytska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian school teacher from Pidhajtsi, on why Yulia Tymoshenko's Bloc has gotten so many votes in the March 26 parliamentary election.

LEvko of Foreign Notes comments on political battles in Ukraine and in its capital, Kyiv.

As the Warsaw Crow Flies, Further Ramblings of a N.Irish Magyar and The Glory of Carniola describe Easter traditions in Poland, Hungary and Slovenia.

The beatroot writes about “Poland’s answer to Martha Stewart”: former first lady Jolanta Kwasniewska, now “a fashion and lifestyle guru.”

Pestiside.hu writes about high demand for Hungarian coffin in Western Europe.

Pestiside.hu reviews the coverage of sentencing to life of an Azeri army officer who killed his Armenian colleague while on the NATO's Partnership for Peace training program in Budapest.

TOL's Belarus Blog writes about the release of opposition politician Mikhail Marynich. Andrei Khrapavitski reports on protesters in Minsk demanding the release of the former presidential candidate Aleksandr Kozulin. br23 blog links to pictures and posts a report from a flash mob that gathered in Prague to protest awarding “second-rate Russian pop-singers and anti-Belarusan Russian politicians” with Belarus' “highest award.” br23 blog also writes on yet another case of slanted coverage on EuroNews' Russian Service. Tobias Ljungvall reviews last week's political events in Belarus.

Traveller One of Stepping Stones posts pictures of several colorful buildings in Tirana and links to a piece in the New Yorker about the “radical” mayor who made the city look cheerful: “What's behind the front may still be dark and dreary, but at least there is joy on the outside.”

Eric Gordy of East Ethnia writes how two Danish artists have responded to the neofascist posters supporting war criminal Ratko Mladic in Belgrade. He also replies with dignity and sarcasm to an abusive anonymous commenter. Balkan Ghost of Finding Karadzic has received a mock poster of another war criminal, Radovan Karadzic, “pondering his choices” on a game show called “Who Wants to Be a Prisonaire?” Balkan Ghost also announces a conference on the lessons of the Milosevic trial to be held in Ireland on April 29-30.

While comparisons between Delhi and Mumbai tend to get rather emotional, Dhoomketu takes a grastronomic look at the cities and rates them on the basis of the food and cuisine they offer.

Adverts disgused as news seem to run on headline tickers. I don't know what's worse - that companies resort to such advertising, or that media organisations need money that bad. Youth Curry has more.

Even as the second round of negotiations are underway at Geneva, Moju examines the recent spate of violence and wonders if Geneva II could have had a worse start.

Bangladesh plays cricket, however the Police seems to be weilding the stick. Rezwan on “The tension mounted during lunch break when the DC North of Chittagong Police started using his fist against a journalist (Jahirul Haque) aged like his father (65) and kicked him continuously to show that this kind of power they exercise on the people of Bangladesh.”

When Chinese president Hu Jintao stops over for dinner at Bill Gates' house and Microsoft centers research in Beijing, bloggers start to wonder:

“Bill Gates, Jerry Yang, Eric Schmidt and the other executives should be challenging repressive regimes,” says Jeff Chester from Digital Destiny, “by refusing to operate in countries where search is censored and information about dissenters has to be turned over to authorities. But these companies see the digital future and it’s about targeted ads—along with new forms of commercial and political surveillance.”

Photographs of dissent and protest at United We Blog! and Online Journalism Review covers Dinesh Wagle's talk at UCLA.

Lian Yue's Eighth Continent blogger makes mention of New York Times correspondents Jim Yardley and Joseph Kahn who, as announced Monday, have been awarded a Pulitzer prize for their recent series Rule by Law.

As the expatriate vote continues to be counted, the margin of Alan Garcia's small second place lead over Lourdes Flores is narrowing. Un lobo en Perú has the latest numbers with over 90% of the votes counted. On Peru Election 2006, Jorge Bazo Escudero says that the influence of the party, Unidad Nacional is dependent on Flores' win.

Latin America On Screen has been resurrected with a fresh review of Sam Peckinpah's “The Wild Bunch”.

“Documentary maker and journalist Hao Wu has been jailed in China without charge and is - according to Chinese law - held illegally in detention. A petition for his release has been set up here,” writes heavyweight China Herald blogger Fons Tuinstra.

Shiva (Persian), Iran based blogger, talks about underground life in Tehran's rich neighbourhood. She says in Iran you have no right to have disco but underground parties is a common thing in rich part of Tehran where young people take drugs and get involved in wild sex.

Yesterday was the first official meeting to launch youth podcasting in Morocco. The goal is to introduce young Moroccans to a new form of self-expression and to give them a site on which to post their podcasts. Although the project was orginally launched by a group of Americans living in Morocco, the goal is to turn the project over to Moroccan control as soon as possible, Mary said.

Jar Elkamar wrote an eye witness account of one of the last Friday church attacks in Egypt. Elijah translated it here.

Also of interest is this opinion by a Christian Egyptian who said that the attacks do not represent Islam and warning about using it as an excuse to crush the Muslim Brotherhood.

Beijing or Bust blogger Wu Hao has been imprisoned without charge for close to two months. With various efforts aiming to secure Wu's release already underway, Migratory Fool blogger suggests how to kick it up a notch in a comment on the latest post of Wu's sister Nina's blog:

“I have an idea. Could you write a personal letter (email) to Bill Gates? He will host a dinner for [Chinese] President Hu [Jintao] on Tuesday, which incidently is your brother's birthday. It's a long shot, but probably worth trying and Mr.Gates is a very decent person.”

Lisa at The Paper Tiger posts on the lack of progress in imprisoned blogger Hao Wu's case and shifts her gaze towards Chinese president Hu Jintao:

“President Hu will be visiting the United States from April 18th through the 21st. Originally the hope was that he would consider releasing Wu Hao as a gesture of good-will in advance of that visit. Obviously this hasn't happened. Whether this is because Hao's detention is especially sensitive or because it simply hasn't been brought to Hu Jintao's attention is impossible to say. But now is the time to try and get some publicity for Hao.”

Richard at The Peking Duck contrasts Chinese president Hu Jintao's diplomatic savvy outside the country with his track record back home in Two Chinas:

“Should we admire Hu Jintao as the Bismarck or Metternich of his time, using political skill to achieve enviable results? Or should we laugh at him for being utterly impotent to effect any meaningful change in the country over which he allegedly rules? If he is so utterly incapable of halting corruption, of freeing the innocent, of enforcing the law, of imprisoning unabashed scoundrel and murderers, why does he even live in China?”

Blogger Tony Katombe from Le Blog du Congolais invites (FR) readers to sign up for the Demosphere, ” a network of sites, blogs and emails of activists and militants involved with the struggle for democracy in countries under dictatorship.” Last week, Katombe and the Demosphere were the subject of a Europe 1 online article and podcast, writes Katombe. [The date to click for the podcast is 4/14/o6.]

UDPS Spokesman Valentin Mubake was on Congolese TV again. Blogger Tony Katombe explains (FR) that Mubake unveiled attempts by electoral commission head Rev. Malu-Malu to act as a demographer by deflating population numbers in regions where UDPS is popular. In Katombe's words, Mubake also charged that international community officials in the DRC “are involved with illicit business in the mining industry” and hence “would not for anything in the world like to see the DRC stabilize.” Mubake promised to produce evidence if necessary.

A couple of Iranian bloggers participated in BBC's “World Have Your Say“” discussion about nuclear crisis. Several Iranian joined this discussion and shared their opinion by sending email or by giving phone calls.

Passion of the Present has a commentary and some historical background on the Island of the Comoros with a roundup selection on the elections from the mainstream media.

Sotho writes on democracy and technology and asks “Imagine Steve Biko blogging”?.
Would we have been indifferent? Judging by the number of people who frequent popular blogs, I doubt it. More of us would have listened more intently. And perhaps more of us would have done something.

Naijablog believes that the West can learn much from the African/Nigerian “extended” family system …”nstead of ego-trauma as in the West, the fluidity of parenting opportunities in the extended family situation means the child does not experience the shift in a negative fashion”

Redeem Ethiopia wonders what the US state dept is up to referring to a recent speech by the US Charge d' Affairs in which she expressed a wish for Meles' government to release prisoners rather than “calling for the release“….”By going on the record to state that the courts should decide the issue [quickly or not], she is saying that the U.S. administration washes its hands off the same individuals that Amnesty International calls prisoners of conscious.”

African Architecture and Design writes on the “13 Principles of Sustainable Architecture” which fall under three categories “Small is beautiful”. “Heat with the sun. “Keep your cool”.. he writes “My wife and I (and our two dogs) have happily lived in a forty foot bus for the last four years. The key to this is efficient use of space, good organization, and keeping possessions to a manageable level. We do look forward to spreading out some in the passive solar, earthbag home we are building.

Enough is Enough is a new group blog from Zimbabwe. Writers include Zimpundit and the site is designed to enable you ” to find a wealth of information in different multimedia formats from a variety of vantage points including other Zimbloggers, observers, and Zimbabweans abroad. In Curt's words, “Enough is Enough is designed to act as a blog aggregator, an information exchange for concerned Zimbabweans within the country, and a “bridge blog” to carry the news in that country (now completely devoid of an independent press) to the outside worl

Ayaan Hirsi Ali blog posts an interview with Hirsi Ali on a report advising the Dutch government to take a softer line on Islam.

African music blog, Benn loxo du taccu reports on an Ethiopian concert he attended last week. Great music and video clips of an amazing sax solo by Getatchew Mekuria - I have already played it half a dozen times.