Global Voices Online

Jeremy Goldkorn from danwei describes the blogsphere discussion on Beijing earthquake, it also brings out the issue of the current draft bill which intends to make breaking news illegal: “Any law that hinders the process of sorting the facts from the rumors is a bad law. The law is a lost cause anyway. The information floodgates are already open.“

Li yin-he is discussing a criminal case in Shanghai in her blog. The court charged a homosexual person for three years imprisonment in 1984 under Hoodlum crime and rejected the appeal in 2006 by referring to the defendant's sodomy behaviour. However, sodomy has never been a crime in China's criminal law (zh).

Living in Peru has first-hand account of recent protests against the US-Peru free trade agreement in Arequipa and Lima.

Neither Afrael nor his readers can understand how El Universal listed Caracas as one of the world's most affordable cities (ES).

Michael Fox has an informative summary of the 6th Annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade in Venezuela.

Christian Espinosa links to a new blog by the newspaper El Diario (ES) from the province of Manabí. So far the weblog has been embraced mostly by migrants living outside of their home state. El Telégrafo and La Noticia are the two other Ecuadorean papers with official weblogs.

Incredible, now it is Lopez Obrador who has taken the lead. Michelle Dion, Matthew Shugart, and A.M. Mora y Leon are all updating on the hour in English. With 85% of the votes in, Lopez Obrador has more than a one percent lead over Calderon, but as Dion explains, “Calderon has more support in the North, so the lead Lopez Obrador currently enjoys is likely to shrink even more.” A number of bloggers are chatting about the recount (in Spanish) at Hipertextual.

Lessons drawn by Le Pangolin from the recent acquisition by Indian-owned steel company Mittal Steel of European-owned Arcelor (Fr): ” Economic actors of developing countries can really change the world if they are so inclined. (…) The West is not invincible.”

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo translated an article by Mexican intellectual Elena Poniatowska who was among the many to observe voting irregularities on election Sunday. Michelle Dion explains that “the real voting begins today.” Goleech describes the situation (ES) as “hardly expected and nothing desired.”

Registan.net reports bad news from Uzbekistan, while neweurasia reports some good news.

Yulia reports that there are fears in Kyrgyzstan that ethnic Russians may leave for Russia in response to Vladimir Putin's call for Russians living outside of Russia to move back. She also notes that many ethnic Kyrgyz continue to leave for Russia in hopes of finding work and wonders how long it will be before the country's population consists solely of the bureaucrats who seems unable to keep people from leaving.

Tom Terry responds to an attack on him and Eagle TV, the station he manages in Mongolia, made during a session of parliament by the Speaker of the body.

Will Turkmenistan's next ruler be the current president's son? Peter of neweurasia examines the speculation that this will be the case.

Onnik Krikorian writes about contemporary music in Armenia. He compares the situation as it was about seven years ago, and notes some slight improvement in the ability of artists to find success without connections and rich sponsors.

Vadim surveys blogs about or posting on travel in Tajikstan.

Geoffrey Philp remembers the day Bob Marley died.

Matthew Hunte attends a meeting launching the campaign of a political candidate in Choiseul in rural St. Lucia.

Vanessa Decort publishes a series of recent photos from Suriname on Flickr.

The Greenlight Network announces its next “simple, symbolic, creative event”, which takes place on the first Saturday in August and involves asking random people in the street to commit to caring for the environment by wearing a green band around their wrists.

Marina Litvinovich (LJ user abstract2001, founder of the PravdaBeslana.ru site) has posted a link (RUS) to the 28 questions on Beslan, posed to Vladimir Putin by Russian internet users who hope the president will answer them during an online conference Thursday. Here's one question, translated from Russian: “Dear [Vladimir Vladimirovich]. In spring 2004 we decided to return to our Motherland, to Beslan, after living “abroad” for six years. We sent our daughter to school, found a job. Several months later, Beslan happened. Our daughter was in a different school, thank God. We left again. If you were us, would you have stayed?..”

LJ user oldmah has asked (BEL) his online friend from Taiwan to write the words “Belarus” and “Zhyve Belarus” in Chinese script. (The latter means “Long live Belarus” and was the trademark slogan of this year's protests in Minsk.) The results of this “cultural exchange” are posted on oldmah's blog.

EM of TOL's Belarus Blog writes that 300 Belarusian students will receive scholarships to attend Polish universities this year, but - a lot more could (and should, according to the blogger) be done by the EU: “Why is it so hard to find an extra 100,000 Euros and actually provide scholarships for a hundred of Belarusians to study those languages inside the EU? Instead, the EU will slash this money to translate its documents into Latin–this is the sort of creative stupidity, which seems to preoccupy people in Brussels.”

An Iranian director has finally been allowed to stage a play by “one of Poland’s best contemporary writers,” the beatroot reports: “Now I get why it will be a great play to put on in Tehran. Dictatorship, false idols, weaklings who think they are heroes…”

My Czech Republic Blog reports on the new driving laws, badly needed in the country with “one of the worst accident rates in Europe.”

Samit Basu on South Asian diaspora and speculative fiction. “Many of the world’s most successful writers of Indian origin live outside the subcontinent yet set their books there, and many critics feel this harms the authenticity of their work. A lot of the criticism stems from the fact that a number of serious literary writers from India are also the most commercially successful writers from India, and “

Paavani on crafts, craftmanship and increasing its relevance in the contemporary world.

The balance of power in Nepal. Nepali Netbook points to the costs of capriciousness. “In any other place, such an act would have been the gravest admission of incompetence by a newly ascendant political class. But, then, few countries have averaged a constitution a decade without figuring out a clear political course.”

Drishtipat Group Blog on a response to the energy crisis in Bangladesh, that may have the answer. “Iqbal Quadir mostly known among the connoisseurs on global economy as the founder of Grameen Phone establishment has teamed up with the renowned inventor Dean Kamen to venture in to producing a high efficiency, environmental friendly machine that can generate enough power to sustain the needs of a small village.”

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying on being a Muslim Immigrant in America. “Even though I have spent most of my life in America I still carry the weight of being an immigrant and a Muslim in post 9/11 America. After 9/11 my loyalties were subject to question. Suddenly instead of my actions, it was my religion and the color of my skin that defined me.”

Ian Mount accuses the Argentine press of toothlessness in its coverage of popular ruling president, Nestor Kirchner.

Eddie Cross, guest-blogging at Zimpundit, lays into the leaders who met at the African Union summit in Banjul, Gambia, July 1-2. “We have the spectacle of the Heads of State rejecting the Democracy Charter, refusing to face up to the genocidal activities of the government of the Sudan and complete failure to come to grips with the crisis in Zimbabwe,” he writes.

Jenny's Journies blog introduces couple of popular Indonesian proverbs and links to a page where the reader can get a longer list.

Lucia Lai is taking the Malaysian Foreign Minister to task for not practising domestically the ideas he is preaching internationally. “wah!! can go overseas to have an interfaith dialogue while right here in our own homeland there are so many people objecting to the interfaith commission (IFC). IFC will be a good avenue for interfaith dialogue, so if our minister like syed hamid, can call for interfaith dialogue, then why object to IFC in our country?”

Sokwanele analyses the effects of inflation in Zimbabwe, using the example of a schoolteacher with children and a modest salary.

Video Journalist Africa shoots some video of an ancient-looking jet aircraft at Uganda's Entebbe Airport, which local people say is the Air France jet whose hijacking prompted the Israeli military raid and rescue operation there 30 years ago. But the tailplane appears to bear the faded letters: “Brit…”

What An African Woman Thinks bemoans the disappearance of non-European teams from the World Cup, but calculates that Kenya has a good chance of both hosting and winning the tournament by 2054.

Unspun is glad that the Indonesia's defence minister's blog is attracting global attention. The blogger links to couple of international blogs that are talking about the minister's blog. “At any rate I am glad that Juwono, if nothing else, is helping through his blog to help dispel an image that Indonesia is in the backwaters and its ministers are all banana republicans. Perhaps, in time, the World Bank would not be so easily “shocked” by an Indonesian minister taking to blogging.”

Yebo Gogo is ambivalent about the offer of amnesty being made to Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has already reported him to the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant. But, writes Fontaine, it would be hard to dismiss such an offer if it would end the cycle of violence, mostly against children.

Black Looks has a long essay on the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the eve of general elections there, sparking debate in the comments section. The current situation can be traced back to the exploitation of the country's resources–especially mining–by King Leopold of Belgium beginning in 1882. This, writes Sokari, led to the dispossession of all land by the indigenous people of the Congo. “Two regions, the Katanga and Kivu provinces most affected by the above distribution of land have also been the most affected by war and conflict throughout the history of Congo.”

Omid Habibinia, media researcher & blogger, shares with us his survey about radios in his blog. 300 Iranians (47% from Iran) participated in this survey and answered questions. One of the questions was: If you find yourself all alone on an island and you are given only one radio to listen, what will be your favourite radio (Persian). Radio Farda was chosen by about 37% of people and became the favourite one. BBC (about 27%) and Islamic Republic radios (about 10%) got second and third places on the list.

Etesab writes that Ministry of Employment & Social Affairs will hire 1200 Basij members as work inspectors. According to the blogger Ministry of Employment & Social Affairs pretends that there are not enough employees in its Ministry (Persian).

Sean Soares calls the $2,840.63 offered by the Bermuda government to the family of a young Canadian woman who was brutally raped and killed ten years ago “an insulting figure”, and reports that the Canadian goverment is keeping an eye on the case.