Global Voices Online

Luandino Vieira, from Angola, has been chosen for the 2006 Edition of Camões Prize . The Portuguese language's most prestigious award was given to the Angolan writer Luandino Vieira. Born José Vieira Mateus da Graça, in 1935 in Portugal, he moved to Angola with his parents at the age of three. He became an Angolan citizen as a result of his participation in the country's national movement for liberation and chose the name ‘Luandino' as an homage to the city of Luanda. His main books are “No antigamente, na vida - estórias”, “Luanda”, “A Vida verdadeira de Domingos Xavier” and “Nosso Musseque”. It's the second time an Angolan writer is awarded with the Camoes Prize - the first one was Pepetela, in 1997.

Guillermo Parra features Venezuelan poet Elizabeth Schön who he describes as “a writer who has often been overlooked in Venezuela, but whose work has maintained a consistent philosophical and technical rigor throughout her long career.”

Both Miguel Octavio and Daniel Duquenal write about yesterday's mayoral elections in Carrizal and Nirgua, which Duquenal describes as “insignificant in the grand scheme of things, though very telling in illustrating the contradictions within Venezuelan politics.”

Dani Santo Domingo, writing from Costa Rica, says that protesters around Latin America stood outside Nicaraguan embassies in Argentina, Chile, México, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay to speak out against the country's anti-sodomy laws. He has posted pictures from most of the protests.

Fernando Casale has posted the first album of Ale Lago, “published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.5 AR license, so you’re free to copy, share and remix, as soon as you don’t do it for commerial purposes.”

Maxwell A. Cameron has written an excellent and thorough summary of the presidential debate between Alan Garcia and Ollanta Humala, concluding: “Garcia won on substance, while Humala won on style. The overall effect is unlikely to be decisive.” Gran Combo Club has a review [ES] of the reaction by Peru's media. Meanwhile, Boz is skeptical of Vladimiro Montesinos' claim that “Ollanta Humala staged a fake military rebellion to help him escape the country.

Andrew Comings last week's gang violence and the nature of the Brazilian penal code. Luís Afonso Assumpção recommends an article from FrontPage Magazine.

The General Intelligence Department of Jordan announced today that they caught a senior member of Al Qaeda at Iraq. Khalf wonders; while it is good to learn that the GID is working in Iraq to protect Jordan, it is not obvious what use it is to let the world know about this.

Dubai is making more headlines than Paris Hilton these days. And unsurprisingly, there's as much dirty linen as glittering party frocks hanging on the line, secretdubai said.

Lebanon has become infected with World Cup fever spread from migrating satellites.

Rajiv Gandhi, an Indian politician assasinated by the LTTE is remembered at Transcurrents.com.

Bongo Vongo has a podcast of an english translation of Rabindranath Tagore's works.

The reservation issue in India is still burning. Photographs, opinions and some sarcasm.

The Bombay Stock Exchange seems to have been jumping on a trampoline today. The ups and down of a single day captured at Don't Trust the Indian Media.

Bhutan Weblog on the constitution, orchestrated debates and hope for Bhutan's future.

Do men and women argue in different ways in online forums? Pickled Politics on gender, the way we argue and the differences. The comment space is especially interesting.

Lemuel of Deleted by Tomorrow writes about and posts a video of an incident that took place during a Czech Dentist Association conference two weeks before the general election: Miroslav Macek, former minister from an opposition party (Civic Democratic), smacked David Rath, health minister from the governing party (Social Democratic), on the head because of a “private affair.” “If these were civilised times they would have had a duel. But then if these were civilised times, there wouldn’t be a raving power-hungry Bolshevik demagogue Health minister and a pathetic clown wouldn’t have to be his main critic and I wouldn’t have to write this post,” writes Lemuel.

Iryna of TOL's Belarus Blog writes about an unprecedented (even for Belarus) trial: “We have become used to the fact that prominent academics and journalists are being sentenced to 15 days in prison for swearing or hooliganism, but last week a student was actually tried for sending a text message to another student.”

TOL's Belarus Blog reports on the Belarusian blogosphere's lack of interest in such important issues as the EU's initiatives to freeze Aleksandr Lukashenko's assets and boycott an Interpol conference in Minsk. Polina Smolova's very poor performance at this year's Eurovision Song Contest is widely discussed in Belarusian LiveJournals, however.

TOL's Belarus Blog cites Google Trends and Technorati to show that Belarus has virtually disappeared “from the radars of mainstream media” and bloggers.

Ivan Lenin of Rush-Mush marks the 84th anniversary of Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization by retelling one Belarusian bloggers' story (in Russian) on how he got expelled from this Soviet youth organization “right before his 10th birthday.” TOL's Belarus Blog writes about the Belarusian blogosphere's reaction to the decision to withdraw The DaVinci Code.

TOL's Belarus Blog reports that a band called Thievery Corporation has released a new single on iTunes: the proceeds of the downloads of the song will go to the Chernobyl Children’s Project International.

Over at the West Indies Cricket blog, Ryan Naraine cites the NOAA’s 2006 Atlantic hurricane season outlook, which says there is “an 80% chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 15% chance of a near-normal season, and only a 5% chance of a below-normal season.”

Oneworld Multimedia writes about rumors surrounding the Armavia plane crash near Sochi at the beginning of May.

Noting that blocking roads is becoming a common form of protest in Kyrgyzstan, The Golden Road to Samarqand writes about the country's road system.

Onnik Krikorian has more photos and posts on Armenian bikers, including an interview with the leader of a biker club, Norayr Martirosian.

Stavros writes about language realities in Kazakhstan, where both Russian and Kazakh are used.

neweurasia has a series of posts on religion's role in politics across Central Asia and in Azerbaijan.

Luke Distelhorst interviews the leader of the Resolute Reforms Civil Movement about mining and corruption in Mongolia.

Andrew Biggs writes about a north Thai school teacher who became a victim of religious divide in the deep south of Thailand. Most of Thailand is Buddhist while the southern provinces close to Malaysia have sizeable Muslim population. Religion based violence has flared up often in these areas in recent past.

Indi at indirani,net writes why he will not vote for Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono again. Many Indonesians are disappointed that the president dropped corruption charged against ailing former leader Suharto.

Kyk-Over-Al links to a column in Guyana's Stabroek News criticising the new West Indian anthem adopted recently by CARICOM (the Caribbean Community), and the Caribbean Beat blog asks its readers how Caribbean leaders should have gone about choosing an anthem. “Via a competition, soliciting entries from the region's best composers and musicians? Or is there an existing song or piece of music meaningful enough to be adopted as a regional anthem?”

Many foreign couples go to Bali to get married attracted by the traditional Hindu wedding ceremony. Indcoup warns that such a marriage may not be legal in the west. “You may think you’ve been married, but if you’ve only done the religious part, and the extremely complex bureaucratic procedures – including notification of your own country via your Consulate – ain’t been followed through exactly to the book then technically you ain’t married.”

Today begins, proclaims blogger Lyn Jeffrey, Virtual China's official coverage leading up to the 2008 Beijing summer olympics.

“Yes, we're a bit late to the game,” says Jeffrey, “but our focus will, of course, be how 2008 plays out in virtual China, both in Chinese and in English. A few things we can already say for sure: There will be an explosion of blog posts written by foreign journalists and tourists, adding to the virtual view of China in non-Chinese languages; there will be an explosion of Chinese chatter on the BBS, much of it proud much of it even nationalistic…”

Stan at Khmer440 looks at the layout and architecture of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital city. “In addition to good design enhancing its livability, P P has other plusses in that regard. The first is that it’s a low-rise city. Far superior on the psyche; it is human scale. You don’t feel minimized, pressured, cowed by your surroundings as you would in a skyscraper city; you feel relaxed and comfortable. This also keeps it from excessive crowding. When a city gets past a certain size or density, livability is in reverse proportion to each additional citizen added.”

Moemoe links to the recent happenings in Myanmar along with a picture of snacks in a popular Yangoon market.

Kenny Sia's blog reports on the winners and losers in Eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak's elections. The recent election saw the the opposition increase their number of seats.

Stories this week from China Herald blogger-journalist Fons Tuinstra include a public protest against the Cultural Revolution in downtown Shanghai, wage raises and indicators, a review of a book on leading Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo and a Dutch academic's thoughts on how best to describe politically today's China in colors:

“The choice is between red, orange and green. Red might be obvious, orange is the mixture of imperial yellow and communist red. Green is the mixture between red and the favorite color of the west: blue. In the end Landsberger picks the most boring color of all: brown, a mixture of yellow, red and blue. In the end it will end up being white, he ends in a somber tone: globalization will cause all color to disappear.”

Elspeth at Now Is Wow describes an HIV/AIDS candlelight memorial service held in Arima in east Trinidad, and explains why unexpected strong winds may have put out the lights but didn't dim the message. “The thing is to not give up.”

Barbados Free Press reports that environment minister Liz Thompson “was ‘in a state' all last week trying to discover the identity of ‘Hummingbird' — the Environment Ministry insider who has lately been talking to Barbados Free Press and other island media”, and posts a satirical poem on the subject.

Francis Wade thinks about the “missing generation” of middle-class Jamaicans who emigrated seeking better lives for their families, and suggests four reasons for expatriate Jamaicans to return to their homeland, as he himself did. “We probably should not be so ready to encourage our children to migrate, selling them on the idea that happiness lies across the border.”

At The Pan Collective, Trinidadian Attillah Springer describes the Ifa ancestral ceremony held yesterday on the third anniversary of her grandmother's death. “We sang for her. Cooked her favourite foods. Cried a bit and missed her dry humour terribly. And in the end the Iya cast the obi. The offering is accepted.” And rain lilies blooming on his lawn remind Geoffrey Philp of the time his late father gave him a flower at his house in Jamaica. “The old devil laughed. And all I could do was laugh and tell him that I loved him.”

Pinyin, the alphabetized version of simplified Chinese which today makes learning of the language so much easier was not, as noted by Pinyin.info blogger Mark Swofford, embraced during the Cultural Revolution as a communication tool, but rather attacked as ideologically incorrect with all traces burnt in the street.

Hunjangûi Karûch'im's Antti Leppänen looks at updates to and blurring of Korea's complex set of terms of interpersonal address.

Is the identity of China Confidential's ‘mysteriously' anonymous Confidential Reporter soon to be revealed? And is a Da Vinci Code-style thriller about China's world domination plans and the bloggers who discover them soon to be made?

Among several tips for better investing in China and a post—For Your Eyes Only—on the Ernst & Young estimation—since retracted—earlier this week of China's $900 billion in bad debts from Dan Harris at China Law Blog comes a list of even more Chinese law research guides.

Lehman Law intern Kevin Fisher at Chinablawger blogs on a law recently passed by the Chinese government which puts tight restrictions on foreign law firms operating in China. That non-Chinese cannot sit for the Chinese bar aside, he says, the new law is not too dissimilar from equivalent laws in other countries:

“To me, this seems like something of a natural process. As Chinese lawyers continue to grow in experience and competency, they will want their market back from foreigners. But Chinese law is in a tight spot. You can't just kick out foreign lawyers—their expertise and client base are too valuable. So I imagine that the Chinese government will start by slowly tightening the gray area that foreign lawyers have created for themselves. They will do this as much as they trust their own Chinese lawyers to pick up the slack. So the question is: how much faith do Chinese officials have in Chinese lawyers?”

Noushin Najafi, photoblogger, has published a couple of Iranian woman pilot photos. Noushin says most of the women pilots after graduation will be attracted by foreigner airlines. Iran airline has employed only two women pilots after 1979 revolution.

In Bombing the walls blog, we can discover new graffiti works on the wall. The Blogger, Bombing the walls, invites us to discover his first work, Skate, a graffiti on the wall in Tehran.

Abde Tavanche writes in his blog that AmirKabir University has become a war zone. Blogger says security forces & director of university want to stop students to choose their ( student) own council (Persian). According to blogger some people, who are not from university, started to chant slogans such as down with American council (they refer to student council).

Martinique-based Le Blog de [Moi] reacts to “Darfur is Dying,” an mtvU online simulation game featuring a family attempting to flee Darfur. The game is designed to raise consciousness about the hardships in Darfur but the blogger is not pleased (Fr): “Where is the world going? I know we have to talk about Darfur but does the end justify the means? I ask myself… I ask you… Is the video arcade on domestic violence next? On rape? On the Shoah? (…) I mean, it's better to do something than nothing at all… apparently.”

On the occasion of Haitian Flag Day celebrated in both Haiti and the diaspora, AyitiCherieConnexion says (Fr) “May 18, 1803, Catherine Flon sowed the first Haitian flag … to mark the ending of colonisation. La Dessalinienne, the national anthem, was composed in 1904 with lyrics by Justin Lherisson and music by Nicolas Geffrard.” The blogger posts a link to a theme of the anthem. Radio Kiskeya reported on ceremonies to honor the Haitian Holiday at New York's City Hall and at the White House and said President Preval brought flowers to a Jean-Jacques Dessalines Monument amidst official ceremonies in Arcahaie, the flag's city of birth.

Scribbles from the Den commemorates the reunification of Cameroon and the advantages to both the English and French speaking regions.

Sotho comments on immigration chaos in the US and reports that France faces similar chaos with the enacting of a new law “Use them, abuse them, but at election time tell ‘em to go back “home” since they are occupying jobs that real nationals could be holding.”

Africa Unchained points to a feature on Ghana web which accuses Ghanaians (Sub Saharan Africans) of lacking self-reliance and questions African leadership...”The question is, do our leaders have to sit down doing no brain search to find ways to get us out of spoon feeding by others, and feed ourselves?”

Bankelele comments on the opening of two new banks in Kenya that appear to have tribal and religious affiliations….”Banking is about inclusiveness (for a fee), not discrimination or controversy - and it is in the best interests of the banking sector if these banks are not licensed”

Oro comments on the now debunked 3rd term project of President Obasanjo of Nigeria...”Now that we have successfully declared that Nigerians are interested in their own future and are willing to take that same future up by themselves, the onus of the sustainability of democratic growth depends on you and I.”

The Passion of the Present points to two stories in Newsday on building new lives in post war southern Sudan. No work and no school and little change.

Congo Watch points to an IRIN report on the Central African Republic - 3000 people took to the streets on Friday 19th to protest against the continued violence especially in the North West where some 70,000 are displaced

Afrika-aphukira remembers Malcolm X's birthday. He writes that 41 years after the assassination, Pan-African consciousness is dead and asks “What happened to such a promising start? What can we do today to make pan-Africanism once again the ideological force that it once was?”