Global Voices Online

Taran Rampersad makes the case for a Caribbean sim in Second Life.

Registan.net discusses Russian and Georgian foreign policy goals in the North Caucasus.

Yulia of neweurasia translates a Russian post about Ukraine's declaration that it has no debt to Kyrgyzstan, a claim that a Kyrgyz official actually backed up. The author of the post says that this act again confirms that there are no professionals in power in Kyrgyzstan.

Jamaican writer Geoffrey Philp traces his evolution from reader of Joyce to embracer of reggae aesthetics: “For the reggae influenced writer, Rastafari legitimized the experiences of Black people in the Americas and became the means to overstanding power and the privileging of one text or dialect over another. Drawing on these vast resources, s/he could champion the plight of the sufferers and use the archetypes, landscapes, images and characters of Plantation America to be authentic to the experience of the lives of Caribbean peoples.”

The Latin Americanist posted another list of links to various news sources commenting on the Cuba situation early this afternoon.

Tim Muth publishes some recent economic statistics from the IMF, but observes that “noticeably absent is any mention of plans by the government to make any significant improvement in spending on health, education, or poverty reduction.”

Writing from Medellín, Adam Isacson notes that “last year, Medellín's murder rate totaled 37 killings for every 100,000 inhabitants. Suddenly this city - long considered one of the world's most violent - has come to suffer fewer homicides than U.S. cities like Washington (45), Detroit (42) and Baltimore (42). Medellín today is about as violent as Atlanta.”

Scott W. Clark of Foreign Notes explains why president Yushchenko has become irrelevant and how freedom of the press and freedom of business are nothing but illusion now: “So is the Orange Revolution dead? It's a funny thing that now people are down to saying that it isn't dead because there's freedom of the press and freedom of business. (Some others would add free elections to that.) Those are important but they're pretty meager fare. The problem is that none of these–not a one of them– is institutionalized so not one of them is permanent.”

Abdymok posts a mini-bio of Ukraine's newly-elected prime minister.

Dan Perlman on “the subject of finding a good hamburger in town.” Also described as “The Great Hamburguesa Roundup.”

Adrian J. Erlinger of Leopolis writes on how the Russian Gazprom has changed its position regarding Ukraine now that Yanukovych has become prime minister.

Jonathan Taylor of Publius Pundit lauds the election of Victor Yanukovych as Ukraine's prime minister: “Yanukovich’s premiership is an accurate reflection of the political situation in Ukraine and thus another victory for democracy.”

Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog distributes blame for Russia's abused children: “Today Russia is awash in oil and gas money, the nation’s cities are growing again, and the country produces more young billionaires per capita than any other nation in the world. It is a shame that such a depravity is of no concern to the government, society, or American media outlets, and that foreign NGOs fail to focus on the worst human rights abuses in favor of celebrity oligarch causes.”

Charlie Ganske of Russia Blog writes about the war in the Middle East and Russia's oil industry.

Owlspotting posts videos of and reviews Romanian “summer hits.”

Pestiside.hu writes about bridge-naming efforts in the Hungarian capital.

Miguel Centallas reviews Our Brand Is Crisis, “a documentary about the 2002 presidential campaign of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (aka Goni).”

Marc Masferrer posts a couple of links to further instances of mistreatment of journalists attempting to cover the situation in Havana and republishes an article demonstrating the existence of “internet apartheid” in Cuba.

South Asia Biz reports that a Bhutanese IT company failed to recruit required 80 people because only 39 out of almost 500 applied could pass the recruitment test, The test was mainly concentrated on English language skills. The firm dismissed the candidates' accusation that the test was tough quoting the need of world class standard employees to get a ‘medical transcription' outsourcing contract.

Most people think that Nepal is very cold. British expatriate Claire of Claire's Nepal refutes the presumption and discusses Nepal's weather from her own experience.

Voice of reason is critic of the current politics of violence in Sri Lanka which is pushing the minorities (Muslims, Tamils etc.) to extremist political groups.

Ihtisham Kabir writes in Back to Bangladesh about the dilapidated states of two of the Dhaka's oldest buildings. ‘Bara Katra' and ‘Chhoto Katra' are the monuments of the seventeenth century Mughal period.

Gaurav Mishra reviews in Desicritics a musical documentary on Rickshaws and posts some insightful background on the rickshaws. An auto rickshaw (aliases: auto/rickshaw/ tempo/tuk-tuk) is a three-wheeler vehicle for hire and is part of the unique ID of South Asia. It is one of the chief modes of transport in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Sumankumar's Yak Pad announces that Blogcamp 2006, India's biggest and most comprehensive blog event is going to be held in 9th and 10th September 2006 in the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai.

Raza in Metroblogging Lahore reports that the Panjub district government has banned popular stage actress Nargis for performing ‘vulgar dances' and bawdy dialogues. She faces imprisonment or fine or both under provisions of the century old Dramatic Performance Act 1876 if she ignores the ban.

Hu Yong, an experienced Mainland Chinese journalist, comments on his blog on an earlier blog post in Bingfeng teahouse: What prevent guys like Nicholas Kristof from understanding China correctly? He puts forward three principles (zh):

“If you want to research China outside China, your research starting point must begin from China, not the West. The meaning of 'starting point from China' has three implication: firstly, the focus of the research should be on the internal factors rather than external ones; secondly, the source of historical changes also comes from within; thirdly, to contextualize China issue within Chinese context.”

An experienced woman reporter writes in China time about her memory of a sexual harassment by the former President's security guard when she was reporting. She became the focus of the media after a few days and found herself being humilitated.

“Every reporter wants to become a watchdog.” However, in Taiwan, the sound of the reporters is like “dogs barking to a speed train”. Now the media industry is declining, “old dogs are dumped and become street dogs” (zh).

ESWN puts together Rebecca Mackinnon's recent move to Hong Kong and the selling of Hong Kong Economic Journal to Richard Li for an indepth discussion on Hong Kong media conditions. Then he continues to answer the question: “why blog?” -

“I am here to create and learn and re-create …Join me in the blog revolution …“