Global Voices Online

David Weber from Japundit blogs about the Kamogawa Odori which is a geisha dance performance presented in the late spring in the Pontocho district of Kyoto (with many photos).

Ben Ng blogs about the free use practice and logo in Japan and hope that Hong Kong can take the experience from Japan to balance between intellectual property rights and sharing of knowledges (zh).

A citizen reporter from Taiwan blogs about his experience on the July 1st demonstration this year in InMediaHK. The writer has joined the July 1st rally for three years hoping to find out what is the meaning of citizen movement in Hong Kong and the substance of local social movement apart from universal suffrage. He observes that the demonstrators had strong sentiment against the bureaucratic government but the “anti-” stand may result in an “dis-identification” process (zh).

In a post tiltled “I am a dad again” the blogger at Notes from the Peanut Gallery talks about how he got hooked into Tamagotchi world after taking care of his daughter's creature for a while.

Cambodia is mobilising gay men to help raise awareness about AIDS. Cambodia has one of the highest infection rate in South East Asia. Vutha in Cambodia has more details.

ESWN blogs a series of striking photos from BBS wenxue city on the pollution of the long river, also known as Chang Jiang and Yangtse River.

Yesterday (July 4) an earthquake (5.1 Richter scale) occurred in Hebei region. Zhang blogs about his 2 seconds earthquake experience and wonders why China earthquake administration did not forecast it (zh).

Makzhou in Human-error processor blogs about his experience in body check, his package was 275 yuan (around USD35) and there was a long queue. During his body check, he found out that the hospital only received 10% of its revenue from the government (zh).

Andrés Duque has a thorough summary of pride parades from around Latin America, including a disturbed observation of the use of blackface imagery in Colombia.

Posthegemony reviews Los Pichiciegos, set during the Falklands/Malvinas conflict, by Argentine author Rodolfo Fogwill.

Ani has an article about “art and feminism in uruguay”.

Oil Wars pleads to Venezuela's opposition candidates that they soon make up their mind over whether to hold primary elections or not.

Dina on the rains in Mumbai. How everything we had known about the rains has changed after the downpour last year. “But we never feared it. We sort of knew it would happen at least once through the monsoons, and in that knowledge we were prepared for all the chaos and disruption that came with it.”

Maoists, the army and ordinary people at United We Blog! “As soon as Kailash, younger son in the Poudel family, joined the army, threats started coming in from the Maoist party: take out your son from the army or you will be kicked out of the house.”

Moju on women in Sri Lanka waging peace. “WE, the women of Sri Lanka, Singhalese, Tamil, Muslim and Burgher, irrelevant of race, caste, creed or religion, start our battle to wage peace against war.

Metroblogging Lahore on Shamshaan Ghaats - or cremation grounds, and the politics of converting these to burial grounds. “After Independence in 1947, all Shamshaam-ghaats in Lahore were destroyed in wake of departure of Hindus & Sikhs from Lahore. Shamshaan-ghaat is the place where Hindus & Sikhs perform the last rituals of the dead.”

Chippla takes a look at the case of two Nigerian journalists currently charged under sedition laws left over from colonial times after they questioned the cost of the president's newly acquired private jet in their reporting.

Jerusalem Gypsy was asked to write for a new blog, called Middle East Youth. She jumped at the chance, not only because she was flattered at being asked to write for it, and having some great moments of being read by mostly Arab readers, but because it was for Middle East Youth.

It's not only relocating from Gaza to USA, and it is not only her worries about her beloved one's back home, but the lack of news in USA media about the situation in Palestine, yet, the $150 that can “save” a “persecuted Jew” in Russia in the religious TV channel that she came across amidst all this. The “so-called” Palestinian, Laila El-Haddad getting very little sleep.

Abu Kais writes controversial piece about Shia in general (Lebanon Shia in particular). He said: “When you’re a member of a persecuted minority, you often need a scapegoat to go with your world view. Ever since Shia Islam developed as a quietist branch of Islam, Shia religious scholars have been directing their community as to who to blame for their wretched misery. The list of scapegoats is long, and many of them have indeed butchered and maimed Shias. It begins with Mu’awiya and the Umayyads, and ends with American imperialism and the international Zionist conspiracy.”

Farah talks about child molestation in Saudi Arabia. She wonders: “What's more is what such deprivation leads to later on in life. Likewise, living in a society fixated on honor and pride, everything goes unrecorded. The innocent lives it blemishes, sometimes even rips apart.. silently. Not a word to be said. Not a thing to be done.

Child molestation is silently yet very swiftly taking our little boys away from us, and what are we going to do about it?”

Having problems sleeping? Cannot sleep during the day or are very light-sleepers? Tololy has a bunch of useful tips to help you get a good night’s sleep!

MMM is amazed on how many Tunisians live their whole lives in debt. The average Tunisian spends his whole life sinking deeper and deeper in debt, trying to pay back his dues until his dying day, in more occasions than not leaving a burden for his children to carry on after him.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former Vice President & blogger, confirmed in his blog that his father, Ayatollah Abtahi, and his brother are in jail. The blogger says many asked me to know if this Mr. Abtahi who is in jail because of his ideas concerning Hidden Imam is my father or not!Yes he is my father and he had never approved my political ideas and writings (Persian). The blogger adds my father spent most of these 16 days of detention in hospital.

Over at BlogHer, Caribbean editor Karen Walrond encourages readers to explore the world of Caribbean literature.

The latest entry in the Limey's Open Mike series raises the issue of “zero-carbon housing” and its appropriateness for Bermuda.

The Limey doesn't hold out much hope for a new Bermudian classified ads site.

Barbados Free Press publishes what it believes to be the first “comprehensive listing of links to all official websites of Barbados political parties, elected representatives and candidates,” and invites others to copy or link to it.

“I feel the American church leadership is far more in tune with the spirit of love and acceptance than the churches in Africa and the Caribbean, or even the English church,” says Trinidad-based Jeremy Taylor, as he weighs in on the controversies threatening to divide the international Anglican Communion in the latest of his exchanges with his US friend “Roger”.

“Who says Africa is poor?” writes The Other Side of Africa, challenging Africans to “wake up” from their brainwashed state, into which they have been persuaded by the West.

Yebo Gogo disapproves of the move on the part of former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma to sue media outlets over coverage of a rape trial at which he was acquitted. This, the post says, could produce a “dangerous chilling effect that could scare some outlets — namely those without hefty budgets — to not pursue the wrongdoings (or alleged wrongdoings) of powerful public officials.”

African Bullets and Honey writes: “Politics in Kenya is nothing more than a long-running soap opera. In fact, if there is one thing that more democratic government and a free press have brought Kenyans it is a great improvement in the quality of entertainment,” in a post which asks the question: where does the real political power lie in Kenya?

Le Blog de [Moi] announces (Fr) that she will partake in Blog Day 2006 (August 31st), a day when participating bloggers promise to reference 5 bloggers from other cultures. She also celebrates the 500th comment to her blog and her own 100th post.

Jean-Claude Halley from Guadeloupe Attitude posts (Fr) an invitation to an upcoming convention on the issues of French overseas departments and territories (a.k.a. DOM/TOMs) organized by controversial French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and his UMP party. The invitation enumerates issues faced by the DOMs including unemployment, discrimination, social tensions, inadequate housing, discrepancies with continental France and Sarkozy's pet issue, immigration.

Via Black Looks, Joe Pollitt's African art blog showcases paintings by an artist from Burkina Faso whose work is challenging people to look at the reality of female genital mutilation.

Missionary blogger Keith at Under the Acacias introduces a day in the life of a taxi-driver in the capital, Ougadougou, asking: “If you as a rich tourist can easily afford the extra 10p that may help buy the driver's children's dinner, should you worry if he charges you extra just because you are white?”

UK-based music blogger Soul on Ice posts a link to a mix of Martin Luther King's “I have a dream” speech against a background of tabla drums in honor of Independence Day, commenting: “African America wouldn't be celebrating anything if not for this great man.”

According to Pouya temporary marriages ( Sigheh) in Iran has a 76% growth last year. The blogger says children who are born during this kind of marriage do not have an ordinary citizen's right (Persian). These children do not have an identity card and are deprived of their social rights from their birth day.

David McDuff of A Step At A Time compares two recent - and very different - English-language accounts of the 2004 Beslan tragedy: The School, an article by C.J. Chivers, published in the June 2006 issue of Esquire (bootleg version's at PravdaBeslana.ru site), and the book by a Hoover Institution's scholar John B. Dunlop, The 2002 Dubrovka and 2004 Hostage Crises.

Cristin of the Ukrainian Adoption Blog writes that due to heartless red tape, those willing to adopt Ukrainian children should better consider other countries: “If you aren't already completely committed to Ukraine, now is the time to look around. If you haven't even started the dossier process, do not start unless you know going in that it will likely be at least a year or longer before you travel. I'm crying inside for all the orphans in Ukraine. Their chance for a family is ticking away. The only hope now is political pressure.”

Giustino of Itching for Eestimaa writes about what it takes to become “just Estonian”: “I recall standing in Tallinn Central Hospital looking at the list of maternity doctors on the wall, and seeing either Russian surnames with Estonian last names (Olga Sepp) or Estonian first names with Russian lastnames (Pille Ivanova). I had to wonder, at what point will the established caste of non-mixed Estonians determine that these people - most of whom are bilingual - have become ‘just Estonian'?”

In addition to the countrywide shortage of imported wines, St. Petersburg is now experiencing the lack of pirated DVDs, CDs, etc., reports Megan Case: “Considering that Kostia's and my favorite way to spend an evening is to get a bottle of wine and a DVD, our lifestyle has been seriously cramped by Russia's recent attempts to stamp out counterfeit products.”

Viktor of Belgrade Blog posts a film by journalist Nadezda Milenkovic, which “consists of pictures by Goranka Matic, one of our best photographers, showing Serbia in the nineties, and the voice you hear is Slobodan Milosevic and his twisted view on the world (that's why i didn't bother translating). You will see scenes from the Belgrade streets during the demonstrations and protest against the regime, and some faces from Belgrade who in their fields contributed to the fight against the tyrant's rule.”

The beatroot posts again on the post-WWII relationship between Jews and Poles in Poland, this time reacting to Fear, the latest book of Jan Gross, an author who “will again become a bit of a hate figure here for dragging up an uncomfortable past once more.”

Wu Wei writes about what it was like to be a mobile phone consumer in Kosovo and reports that the situation may soon change for the better.

Fruss and Fuss is looking at the numbers of unemployed graduates and comments on where the real problem moght be.

Indonesia Anonymus might have answer to why corruption is so hard to root out.

Andy Brouwer in Cambodia is talking about an

East Asia

Sponsors

Korea content supported by

Japan content supported by