Global Voices Online

Jonathan Ali links to an Observer article on Bob Dylan's efforts to become a deejay, noting the presence on Dylan's playlist of a song by Trinidad calypsonian Lord Beginner.

Would new Bolivian president, Evo Morales come to the US to play a game of football? Eduardo Ávila explains.

ThandieLand asks whether the Windsor Park Sports Stadium, an international-standard sporting facility, is a gift or a burden.

Frank Barnako reports that demonstrators protesting condominium development were barred from attending a ceremony marking the opening of the port in St. John, US Virgin Islands.

Guyana Diaspora profiles Britain-based playright Michael Abbensetts.

ArubaGirl explains the presence of bands of wandering donkey's in Aruba.

Alex(ei) of The Russian Dilettante's Weblog writes that the case of the former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina might be a “replay” of the 1930s and deserves “international interference or protests.” “The convicted mother of two, who has been in detention since 2005, is not only legally innocent — her standing within YUKOS clearly prevented her from playing a significant part in any corporate wrongdoing — but innocent in the sense that victims of hurricanes and terrorist attacks are. She happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and so got railroaded. […] Bakhmina, a hard-working professional mother and wife, is nothing but a victim of the evil system Putin has partly set up, partly revived, partly inherited.”

Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog writes about “another nostalgia food product” - klyukva v sakhare (cranberry in sugar).

Megan Case posts links to Chernobyl-related websites and writes about her own memories of 1986.

An American in Romania writes about “the Romanian version of Wal-Mart”: “The Romanian kiosk looks nothing like a Wal-Mart, that's why it is so deceptive. It's a tiny building with room inside for one or maybe two people tops. You could probably link arms with three of your friends and completely surround the thing. Yet packed inside every Romanian kiosk are nearly enough products to stock your average Wal-Mart.”

All About Latvia writes that, according to one survey, “53 percent of [Russian] respondents named Georgia as the most dangerous country to Russians, while Latvia came second with 29 percent.” Belarus and Kazakhstan are considered the safest.

Paul of Further Ramblings of a N.Irish Magyar cites an amazingly cliched text about Budapest for aspiring expats.

Iryna of TOL's Belarus Blog writes about a Belarusian-language alternative online student resource - www.studenty.by: “More than 10,000 people visited the web-site when the first cartoon about Vasilek, a freshmen university student who came to Miensk from a small village, was posted a couple of months ago (you can see it at http://studenty.by/news848.html). A series of cartoons will show students’ life in Belarus disclosing its severe social and political problems. The second cartoon was expected to appear in March, but its production was delayed, since several of the creators were arrested and spent a couple of weeks in prison. Now the authors are re-writing some of the dialogs to include recent events and experience into a new episode.”

The dilemmas of being a young working woman in India Iat genderbenders.

Democracy For Nepal on the reaction of Maoists to the political developments in Nepal.

Nepali Netbook on India's stand on the situation in Nepal - “History is instructive here. Remember the Delhi Compromise of 1951 under which Jawahar Lal Nehru constructed the platform for King Tribhuvan, B.P. Koirala and Mohan Sumshere Rana to work out their differences?”

Drishtipat has a post with a release by the South Asia Forum for Human Rights on the developments in Nepal and the duties of various stakeholders - “It will not satisfy the demand for the establishment of a true democracy in the country, for the fulfillment of which the nation has risen in a spontaneous and mass revolt.”

imperfect world 2006 draws up an analogy between Lennon getting shot and Bangladesh becoming free, and wonders who Musharraf looks upto.

neweurasia reports on what Tajikistan gains by playing host to India's first foreign military base.

James looks at the winners and losers in the recent announcement of the breakup of a terrorist ring by Kazakh authorities.

Nick of neweurasia reports on anti-drug initiatives in Central Asia and the two levels of the drug problem in Uzbekistan.

AfghanLord reports on recent Taliban attacks: Suicide bombing and attacks around the country especially in the south against international and American forces embarrassed those involved in the country, especially the US.

BangkokPundit links to Thai newspaper stories that have the Thai king declaring that he will not intervene to appoint a prime minister. The king is asking the country's top courts to help resolve the deadlock. Even after two rounds of elections there is no clear winner as boycotts have led to 13 seats remaining vacant. The parliament cannot convene to form a new government until all the seats of the lower house are filled.

sevenyearsinChina's Han Girl stayed up late one night last week to show us why it wasn't in Hong Kong television station TVB's best interest to cover a recent report from Greenpeace which found levels of pesticides—some banned in the European Union—in vegetables sold in the city's two largest supermarkets at up to 240 times the safety level.

Chinese opera came to Singapore with the early immigrants from China. They were very popular in the days before movies and television. Some troupes are still active and once in a while they stage a show. themediaslut has a photo heavy post on one such performance.

Asri tells us why she likes Antoine de Saint-Exupery's book The Little Prince. The author's simple style has Asri smitten and has a lesson for her own writing style.

China Confidential's Confidential Reporter continues to make the case that China and the United States are locked in a race to the bottom of the world's oil barrel.

“Like a player in a modern version of the Great Game—the classic contest between the British empire and Czarist Russia for mastery of Central Asia—China is roaming the world in search of energy supplies to feed its economic expansion,” the blogger writes, “and Washington is watching.”

Has Google Earth left Tibet off the map? (via China Herald)

The An Englishman in Osaka blogger posts on the unique way Japanese police track down their most wanted.

Chris Bunting at Buyo shares his discovery of two free online Japanese learning tools: one mouse-over pop-up translator and a vocabulary-drilling role playing game.

Outside In blogger outwits a gang outside a cave during travels in Western China's Muslim-dominated Ningxia Autonomous Region.

InternetRapide.com points (FR) to recent efforts to promote Martinique and Guadeloupe bananas, including a commercial and website featuring athletes from the two islands. The blogger cites increased competition from American corporations and international regulations limiting French government subsidies as threats. Caribbean Free Radio gave the commercial a thumbs up.

Touched by an Angel talks about a new law in the Philippines that protects women from abusive husbands. The post illustrates a case where the law came to the rescue of the blogger's friend.

Oro reports that Nigerian internet traffic will soon have it's own exchange points which should speed up the time it takes for your email to reach its destination and vice versa. “The Board of Nigerian Communications Commission has approved a proposal to fund the setting up of Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) in Nigeria. The proposed IXPs which will operate on a not-for-profit basis, will be done by NCC in collaboration with the ISP community under the umbrella of Internet Service Providers Association of Nigeria (ISPAN) to achieve this objective.”

Moral Fibre reports that Zimbabwean Vice President has complained that young Zimbabweans are not generally patriotic. Hardly surprising given the state of the country….”Circumstances in Zimbabwe are not conducive to a patriotic populace, I'm afraid. What with inflation at 913.6%, unemployment at 70% and the omnipresent threat of wide-scale famine, I doubt too many Zimbabwean youths go home at dusk to solemnly salute the Zimbabwean flag before retiring to bed beneath a large portrait of Robert Mugabe.”

akwaabaghana reports that the Chinese leader, President Hu Jintao begins a week long tour of Africa - no doubt to check on how his country's investments are going and to encourage African leaders to welcome even more Chinese money.

Kenyan blogger Gukira writes that not all Kenyans are runners and wonders what Kenyans are running from? “As the Kenyan sport, running is less a ritual of patriotism than a critique of the nation.”

My Hearts in Accra writes on oil and its relationship with various African countries. Certain African countries have benefited from the high demand and the expensive supply side - countries we dont generally hear about in relation to oil such as Chad Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania and the Congo Republic

Competitivemalaysia lists the loosers and gainers in the recently scrapped bridge project between Malaysia and Singapore.