Global Voices Online

Pari at Daisyinthesdust blog is talking about her Bollywood dancing experience. “Thoughts of performing the kinds of dance moves I see in Bollywood movies threatened to leave me in hysterics. I like the style as it is carefree and leaves a lot to self-expression rather than precision. Trouble is that my dance is as expressive as gravel.”

Blogger Vietnamese God takes refuge in a Saigon street side eatery to escape the rain and ends up trying Grilled beef rolled in La Lot leaves.

Dr. Emer at parallel universes blog is asking Filipino couple who are having a hard time having children to relax. The blogger is pointing to a news article that claims that relaxing and lowering stress helps. The bloggers also talks about the high fertility rate in the Philippines. A comment on the post suggests “getting pregnant is not the only way to have children. there are already enough children existing. i guess instead of trying IVF, people should also be encouraged to warm up to the idea of adoption”

Wanna introduces fellow Cambodian bloggers he metup with in Phnom Penh.

Our Local Style in Brunei compares two news stories relating to the royalty in two South East Asian countries - one from Thailand where the people are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the King's rune and another from Brunei where three locals are facing a charge of sedition for using images of members of the royal family in a computer generated video clip.

Christian Garbis offers random photos from Yerevan, many of which are of old buildings set for demolition.

Former Malaysian prime-minister Mahathir is criticising the policies of the current prime minister Badawi (also known as Pak Lah). Nik Nazmi in Malaysia talks about continuing the reforms and forging consensus among Malaysians. He says “Going back entirely to the Dr. M model however is economically unsustainable, and will be a step back politically”

Leila rounds up the Kazakhstani blogosphere at neweurasia.

Tinkertailer goes to a trade show and discoveres a new mobile phone language developed by an Israeli company.

Zarchka writes about Tbilisi and Georgia, remarking on the difficulties associated with trying to speak Russian there, noting the parks and scenery in the capital, and contrasting the country with Armenia.

Luke Distelhorst inteviewed a member of Mongolia's parliament who says that the country needs a clear vision for reform.

At Iraq Blog Count a group of contributors keep a tally of, yes, you've guessed it, blogs in Iraq. The latest addition, Baghdad Chronicle, gets a rave review:

Woah, I don't know how this one slipped through IBC's collective radar. Miraj has been blogging since January and the blog description is simply “The detailed daily events of a Baghdadi woman”. But no, it's more than that, much more than that. Its touching, personal, gripping, exciting. Her writing style keeps you on the edge of your seat. In a word brilliant.

London, Lanka and Drums on the Sri Lankan festivities in London. “Trafalgar Square was buzzing when we arrived at about midday. The band was starting to soundcheck, the usual stuff with a bloke counting into all the different microphones, the drummer doing a bit, the singer poncing around on stage trying to look natural and pretending he is unaware of the people watching him from the crowd.”

Indi.ca on peace in Sri Lanka and why it involves being inclusive about Tamil culture and people. “If you want a United Sri Lanka then you want to live with Tamil people. It means that you want them as neighbors, co-workers and friends. It means that you want to see their language and hear their music and eat their food and do all the fun and annoying things that come with living together. It means that they deserve the same security, rights and common decency as any fellow citizen.” The commentspace is thriving with discussion.

Selma on culture and fashion at Mumbai's Fashion Street. “Opposite to Mumbai's grand Azad Maidan, and along the Cross Maidan lies the fashion solution for Mumbai's poor and elite alike. Welcome to Mumbai's Fashion Street. Amid the colors, figures being quoted in the bargaining process, yelling kids, weary moms, hep aunties and trendy college kids - always full of ideas but short of money, you might bag yourself a good deal here.”

Mommy blogs, and women in the blogosphere discussed at the Morph blog.

As activists in Egypt continue to demand an independent judiciary Baheyya celebrates the life of the recently deceased campaigning lawyer Ahmed Nbil al Hilali.

In his lifetime, he was christened “the saint of the national movement,” the “liberties lawyer,” and “the Egyptian people’s advocate,” since he spent nearly all of his waking hours defending those accused of engaging in free expression, association, and assembly.

“Volkswagen” reports on preparations in Belarus for possible natural gas price increases.

“The French again have demonstrated that crimes committed abroad in developing nations shouldn't necessarily be punished,” writes an outraged Fontaine, who reports that a French mercenary, who has also been implicated in several coups or coup attempts in other countries, has received only a five-year suspended sentence after having been found guilty for his involvement in an aborted coup in the Comoros in 1995.

Sean Guillory analyzes whether the war in Iraq can be compared to the war in Chechnya: “And I’m sure American politicians and policy makers would be delighted to have the problems Putin has in Chechnya. But as the current moment shows both Iraq and Chechnya are worlds apart. Still, a comparison between the two wars is attractive and possibly instructive.”

Sean Guillory examines English-language literature available on the subject of Muslims in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union.

the beatroot discusses the risks of terrorism in Poland.

Alex(ei) of The Russian Dilettante's Weblog translates Russian poetry: Osip Mandelstam's Lamarck and Fyodor Tyutchev's Insomnia.

Our Man in Tirana offers a selection of posters and banners from Albania.

Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog writes about the myth of the hordes of Russians vacationing abroad, and about Sochi, “the only opportunity to enjoy the “Riviera” for many Russian businessmen and officials who either do not have enough time to go abroad or cannot leave Russia, because they will be arrested for financial crimes.”

Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog posts an ad of a Russian “Clinic of Aesthetical Medicine” that uses Marilyn Monroe - and her moles - as its model.

Zimbabwe News Update has released a new podcast. Among the topics covered in this episode are “Mugabe Buys Luxury Vehicle For Army Officers” and “Chinese Planes Grounded As AirZim Cancels London Flight”.

The Poster of Ruminations on Russia cites Russians' causes of death statistics from 1980 to 2004: “Delighted to see that less people are dying of “accidental alcohol poisoning” - that would be drinking themselves to death to you and I.”

Vilhelm Konnander reports on two Belarusian human rights activists who have been awarded Swedish prizes for their work.

In a lengthy post, Rombo muses on her own relative career success and the lack of employment opportunities for Kenyan university graduates, including some of her former classmates. “What happens to all the people for whom the future is not what it used to be?” she asks. “Where do they go from here?”

Politics.za notes that there have been reports of “further self censorship” within the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and that a list of those no longer welcome to appear on SABC's current affairs and news shows has been drawn up by SABC's Head of News.

Azadeh 7 says that Mr. Saeed Mortazavi, General Prosecutor of Tehran, will be present in UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The blogger adds more than 100 newspapers & magazines were shut down in Iran because of Mortazavi's order (Persian)!

Soyapi Mumba seems to have his tongue firmly in his cheek as he riffs off Thierry Henry's nickname (”Atcheya” or chairperson) and compares the soon-to-retire Bill Gates with Dr Bakili Muluzi, former President of Malawi.

Virtual China has a guest blogger today, Kathrine Hoersted, who brings us a post looking at the young Tibetan woman with whom she lived during her graduate research in a small village in Tibet, and how despite severely limited internet access there the two have managed to keep in touch.

In response to backpedalling administrations and denial of access to watching World Cup games, students at two universities in China rioted this week, leaving widespread and costly damage. Translations [#061] from EastSouthWestNorth's Roland Soong and some perspective from OneManBandwith's Lonnie Hodge, looking at the conditions under which many students—and professors—end up there.

As North Korea prepares to test-fire an inter-continental ballistic missile—”The US and Japan have warned the North Koreans not to test-fire their ICBM; but the lunatics in charge of the failed Stalinist state, led by the Hitlerian tyrant Kim Jong-il, have insisted on their right to fire away.”—China Confidential's Confidential Reporter draws some attention to what he writes amounts to North Korea's own holocaust: “For several years, the world has known about the North Korean concentration camps—called ‘control zones'—housing some 200,000 men, women and children at any given time. At least 20 percent of the prisoners die from torture or arbitrary killing each year. Atrocities reminiscent of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps are commonplace, including public executions, baby killings, gruesome medical experiments—and gas chambers. Prisoners are starved, beaten and worked to death. Sometimes, entire families are gassed at once while researchers take notes.”

When Rising Sun blogger GaijinBiker walked out onto the streets of Tokyo this morning, the first thing he noticed was the missing motorcycles and scooters, as described in his post ‘A law meant to be broken.'

“No Smooking,” says a misspelt sign posted by JP at Japundit, preceded by a post telling of a mother in Japan charged for neglecting the law which makes her two sons' smoking illegal.

According to Ahmad Shirzad, Mr.Akbar Mousavi Khoiniha, former deputy of Parliament, is the only one who is not released from prison after 12 June demonstration. The blogger says Khoiniha was his colleague in Parliament and he was very active to discover underground and non declared prisons running out of reformist government's control (Persian).

Medicina Cubana links to a news story about the sudden imprisonment in Cuba of a US citizen who runs an organisation which, for several years, has been sending donated medical equipment to Cuba: “In retrospect, Schwag, 53, thinks he might have run afoul of high-ranking Cuban officials who might have helped “divert” costly anesthesiology machines he was transporting to the island from doctors at Johns Hopkins University.”

ArubaGirl posts an image satirising the behaviour of Aruba's union leaders during the recent anti-government protests on the island. “The novel thing about it,” she says, “is that this has spread quickly through the internet. Aruba is finally reaching the 21st century.”

Says AlterPresse (Fr): ” Haitian and foreign artists [including Togolese Kossi Assou] promise to work towards a culture of peace through a program, Sculptures for Peace put together jointly by Africamerica Foundation and the section on Disarmament, Demobilization and Social Reinsertion of the UN Mission in Haiti. The project, hosted by the foundation's 4th Annual forum of contemporary arts (June 15-30), seeks to involve artists as peace agents in the ongoing disarmament effort.”