Global Voices Online

Registan.net discusses possible US sanctions against Uzbekistan.

Nessuna reports on a lecture on democracy and the future of the South Caucasus.

Zarchka writes about all the tasks involved with uborka, Armenian spring cleaning, and all the “oofs” that come with it.

Luke Distelhorst writes about “tuts,” Mongolian kiosks, weighing their positives and negatives.

According to Yadashthaye Adabi, Farhad Darya, a famous Afghan singer, performed among street kids to attract government's attention to children's misery in Afghanistan (Persian).

Ed of Balkan Baby is happy to be back in Moldova: he has escaped “the breakaway nightmare republic of Transdnistria.”

Following Dick Cheney's recent speech in Vilnius, TOL's Belarus Blog writes that “the U.S. and Western Europe are becoming more and more aware of Belarusan situation.”

Amid ethnic and racial tensions, Moscow experiences something different for a change: a group of “Africans from over twenty countries (Congo and Ethiopia included), Iranians, and Iraqis [were] all raking leaves as part of a subbotnik organized by Opora, a Moscow NGO run by Ethiopian Dr. Gezahgn Wordofa. This was Opora's way of saying thanks to Moscow for letting this city be home for them,” reports Raffi Aftandelian of maaskva: nashimi glazami.

Jane Keeler of From Russia With Blog begins a series of posts about her trip to Siberia and back - Siberian Adventure Part 1: The Trans-Siberian Railroad.

Russia Blog posts Victory Day stills from one of Russia's state-controlled TV channels, RTR.

Both Un Lobo en Peru and Jorge Bazo Escudero (ES) quote a new poll released today that shows Alan García with a comfortable lead over Ollanta Humala. Support for García is especially strong in Lima.

Eduardo Arcos has posted two brief campaign spots, which he says show that presidential candidates Calderón and López Obrador (ES) are “two sides of the same coin.”

Writing from Panama, Leon Kadoch explains his crush on an Argentine belly dancer with humorous enthusiasm.

The Guatemalan Adoption Blog has an interesting profile of Mazatenango the capital of southwest Suchitepéquez state.

Writing from San José, Costa Rica, Adam Isacson shares his first-hand account of the inauguration of his former boss, Oscar Arias and former co-worker-turned-vice-president, Kevin Casas. “(I admit I had trouble treating Kevin with the deference his new position requires. In retrospect, saying “hey man, you’re Costa Rica’s Dick Cheney now” was probably over the line.)”

Atina Chile has a heart-warming video, set of photos, and description (ES) of the awards ceremony of the Atina Blog Awards. For anyone who has been following Chile's blog community for some time, these are the faces and smiles behind the incredible words and energetic movement.

The winners of the “Mexicommons Creativity Contest” have been announced (ES). You can download the winning songs, podcasts, photographs, and designs from the post. The site Bienes Comunes (Common Good) has a list of works (ES) from Argentina that will be included on a DVD to be presented at the iCommons Summit in Rio de Janeiro this June.

Following an unfortunately established precedent, “Leuzor” of BlogsPerú laments (ES) the suicide of Andres Kishimoto (ES), a blogger described by (ES) El Comercio as “a young 26-year-old psychologist and author of several books on existentialism.”

Nepali Netbook on the (Counter)Revolution - “It must be a testimony to our twisted times that, in a matter of a fortnight, Nepalis have graduated from discussing a nebulous “total democracy” to deliberating on the threat of a “counterrevolution.””

As they try and undo the damage done by the Monarchy, Legal News From Nepal reports “months after the controversy and protests, the King in October last year, had promulgated an ordinance to amend some laws related to the media, imposing severe restrictions on the free press.”

A US airstrike killed and injured some people in Waziristan. Metroblogging Lahore says “Sometimes I feel that people of Pakistan should ask US government to bear the expanses of our military and I am sure our tax can be used for a lot better options like health and education.”

Transcurrents.com on the sudden imposition of a curfew in Jaffna, the possible reasons for it and how it impacted the life of people.

Who says the mainstream media doesn't have a bias. War For News on how a particular TV channel has a political inclination and seems to have found an icon to shower attention on.

Alice Backer continues her “Kevin Sites Watch”, her analysis of the journalist's coverage of Haiti. She gives his story on voodoo a thumbs up, but is “still chewing on his “mud pie” story”.

Taran Rampersad weighs in on the controversy surrounding the posting on the internet of a photo of a minor accused of the murder of a six-year old boy in Trinidad. “This is an interesting chapter for Trinidad and Tobago as it finds it's way toward developed nation status, coming to terms with the Internet and the new media,” writes Taran. “The lessons of Sean Luke and the associated case may well be the fire that tempers legislative changes as related to the media, to the internet, Trinidad and Tobago society and ultimately, a part of Global Society.”

Barbados Free Press questions the assertion by the Governor of the Barbados Central Bank that the economy is soaring. “This purported “Barbados GDP Growth” is not being fuelled by increases in production efficiency or capacity, expanded and new markets, new buyers or the establishment of new businesses attracting new foreign sales and profits. Nope. This claimed GDP growth is fuelled by government spending and borrowed money.”

According to VivirLatino, the recent focus on undocumented immigrants may be obscuring the potential effects of a growing financial crisis in Puerto Rico which may prompt a wave of legal “immigration” of Puerto Ricans to the United States.

Opposition politician James Gomez's blog has updates on him being questioned for the second time by the police. Gomez was stopped from leaving for Sweden on Sunday to help investigations regarding an alleged charge of “criminal intimidation”. The politician got into a row with election officials last week when he claimed that he had submitted some election related documents. The officials provided recorded telephone conversation and cctv footage that disputed Gomez 's claim. Gomez had later issued a apology over the incident.

Synesthetique talks about the summer in Philippines and she is hoping that the government will enclose the country in an airconditioned bubble.

Venitha, an expat in Singapore, describes her fellow subway commuters at her Singapore Adventure blog.

Sam at Dili-Dallying is disappointed at the quality of reporting on East-Timor by journalists from Australia, Indonesia and Portugal. Sam takes couple of Australian newspapers to task for not having reports in East Timor and instead reporting “unsubstantiated rumours from afar”.

The Outreach is disturbed by gay blood donation ban. The blogger creates a fictional account on his blog to show the cold treatment a gay blood donor might receive. “if you have multiple sex partner, you should not donate, then it makes sense. But why is it man with a man? Does being gay make you unprofessional? Does being gay change your characteristic on how you treat others?”

Boye Khak says Mosharekat, country's major reformist party, did not get permission to publish its new journal, Iranian (Persian).

Wondering if increased consumption of Biodiesel will be a boon to Argentina, Martin Varsavsky asks “Is Oil to Chavez what Biodiesel is to Kirchner?” Sangroncito recently wrote about Brazil's success with Ethanol.

You Missed This reports on a Kenyan airways mid air scare that took place yesterday. The plane was on it's way from Nairobi to Dar-es-salaam. (the plane) “went through a terrifying ordeal that forced the pilot to land back In Nairobi barely 10 minutes after take off”.

A rounded weekend of heavy duty blogging from China Confidential's Confidential Reporter.

A preview of China Central Television's upcoming multi-episode documentary which claims the decline of America's role in global politics on Saturday:

“Unlike the crude state-sponsored videos that glorified the September 11 terrorist attacks as a humiliating strike against an arrogant superpower, the planned multipart production promises to be a slick dissection of American economic and military might.

Further China-U.S. conflicts over revaluation of the yuan on Sunday and good news for Chinese companies with the expected release of new rules regarding issuing of IPOs from the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Monday.

The AngryChineseBlogger takes a very close look at a recently-released report which gives a very poor rating of the protection of intellectual property rights in four of China's top ten universities, adds an analysis of fiscal, socio-cultural and legal factors which might contribute to the problem, and ends with a prediction of how this report is most likely to be viewed within China:

“While a great many, some would argue most, Chinese universities commit a broad range of IPR violations on a regular basis, and do little or nothing to keep this fact a secret, the way in which the five institutes were named by the IIPA, and the public highlighting of their transgressions, remains an extreme loss of face.”

Joel Martinsen of the Chinese media research team at Danwei keeps the pioneering coverage of China's publishing industry with a look at several official and otherwise ways to start one's own publication in China in ‘Wait, what's the name of this magazine again?‘ and we see Jeremy Goldkorn in the latest release from Danwei TV, Mainland May Day in Hong Kong.

Aside from a trip to a sex market in the Southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and the displayed breakthrough in research of ancient Chinese erotic art, Frances at Supernaut keeps blogging up to the opening of her collaborative death metal Cantonese opera performance project, Apocalypse Pearl River Delta.

EastSouthWestNorth blogger Roland Soong translates an essay written by former Peking university journalism professor Jiao Guobao in commemoration of last week's World Press Freedom Day. Find therein a defence of anti-Communist Party of China reporting and mention of two tools widely used to bypass The Great Firewall of China.

Seckasysteme posts two mp3s of local music, invites (FR) readers to relax and says: “Hanging on to their power and privilege like bloodsuckers, PDS [Senegalese Democratic Party] leaders seem … ready to do anything to maintain power… and seasoned political observers fear a resurgence in violence leading up to the February 2007 election.”

Habahoot Natamam, says recently scientific magazines (in the West) started to reject scientific articles written by Iranians (Persian). He adds articles are sent back by editor to writers without any scientific judgement. Blogger concludes maybe hidden embargo against Iran has already started.

Soy Salvadoreño was impressed with the low prices (ES) at the Universidad Centroamericana book fair in San Salvador. Jeff Barry went to the Book Fair at La Rural in Buenos Aires where he observed that the media company Grupo Clarín “obviously hired models to work the Clarín booths, which seemed to lower the intellectual quality of the whole thing.”

It was Sigmund Freud's 150th birthday this past weekend and Roberto Bobrow commemorates the influence of Freudian psychoanalysis in Argentina, noting that a neighborhood of the capital city is even called “Villa Freud.” Using a “new set of digital oils,” Bobrow also sketched the well known Argentine conservative columnist, Morales Solá.

Daniel Duquenal gives props to the Boston Globe for publishing his letter to the editor the letter, using the moment as an opportunity to criticize the New York Times' coverage of Venezuela. Duquenal has also started a series on what he sees as “the problems in the Venezuelan electoral system.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias was inaugurated today. Uri Ridelman writes that he believes Costa Rica to be “one of the few countries in the world where a president can still walk to his swearing in ceremony with nothing but a personal escort beside him.” Commenting on the small margin of votes that separated Arias from his main opponent, Ottón Solís, American expat Erin R. draws a comparison to the most recent US elections: “Almost half of all Costa Ricans wanted a president other than Arias, and I think Americans understand this feeling all too well.” Meanwhile, Roberto Gallardo thinks the Legislative Assembly is off to a positive start (ES).