Global Voices Online

Mr. Fuji in Manila describes the situation in downtown Manila in the wake of Typhoon Xangsane. “looking out from my manila hotel room, makati is dark, right to the horizon. it’s eerie to see a city that was full of lights now sleeping. there a little flecks of light here and there, but it still seems so odd. it also makes things very dangerous (especially at night) in a city where traffic is so chaotic. in a ride through the city this evening, it still appears that power will be at least a few days away.”

Cafe Creole is upset (Fr) that people are eating iguana stews in French Guiana and posts a picture of live iguanas destined to end on someone's plate. The author goes on to explain that while consumption of wild animals was understandable in the past, modern access to alternative sources of food should preclude the need for it in today's Guyane.

Generation Consciente, Un Autre Afrique explains that (Fr) after a 5-year negotiation between Senegal, Belgium and the African Union on which of the two countries should host the trial of former Chadian leader Hissene Habre, “Abdoulaye Wade has decided at the African Union summit in Banjul that former Chadian leader should be judged on African soil.”

On UDPS Liege, Florent Mukonkole writes(Fr): “Any Congolese with any sense of nationalism should rally around Mbemba [in the upcoming runoff against Kabila]to save the nation.” He then asks Etienne Tshisekedi, leader of opposition party UDPS, to do the same and implies that a recent press release by the leader indicates that he does not plan to to so.

The San people of Botswana would like you to boycott Botswana diamonds until they are allowed back into their ancestral land, writes Ethnicloft, quoting an advocacy group supporting the San’s opposition of their eviction.

African technology firm, Incubeta, has built a web-based application,which allows you to build websites without having to know HTML, reports My Africa: “I’m glad to see that they were able to get such great exposure early in their beta, since it will bring a lot of eyeballs to their site(s) and help them hone the focus of their application from the feedback they receive.”

At neweurasia, Adam says that if Kazakhstan is to reach its goal of being one of the 50 most competitive economies, it must do more than “polishing” its macroeconomic indicators and relying on high oil prices.

Christian Garbis says that a Soviet era song still played occasionally on Armenian radio, “Clean Yerevan,” is totally removed from reality, that not only is there lots of litter, but that Yerevan is plagued by dust.

Nicolette Bethel has a series of posts (1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5), reporting on the experiences of the Bahamas contingent at Carifesta, the Caribbean arts festival taking place in Trinidad and Tobago this week. She posts some nice photos as well.

Vadim of neweurasia writes about the ill-fated Dushanbe-Moscow train and the hardships faced by those who take the journey.

Registan.net looks at media, editorial, and blog coverage of today's visit to the White House by Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbaev.

KZBlog says that comedian Sasha Baron Cohen has crossed the line in his latest stunt as the character Borat by directly mocking the president and government of Kazakhstan in his phony press conference in front of the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington D.C.

The beatroot reports on Poland's government crisis: “So even the Peasants don’t want to get into bed with PiS, it appears. Which shows how bad the image of the government has become: in the past 17 years since parliamentary democracy began in Poland PSL have been known to get into bed with just about anyone if it meant a place in the coalition.”

Boo writes about an anti-Semitic graffiti in a Polish elevator that was later replaced with a message of tolerance.

Ivan Lenin of Rush-Mush reports that the online diaries of a Belarusian protester Dasha Kostenko have been published in Moscow. He also criticizes the opposition leader Milinkevich: “It's a big shame that the brave Belarusians who were risking their health, their freedom, and their very lives didn't have a better leader than this guy […]. It is obvious Milinkevich and Co weren't planning to take power. It is obvious that he's not planning it now, and even if he were, it wouldn't matter: nobody will follow him anymore. Neither him nor other professional “oppositioners”, who make a living out of pretending to fight the regime.”

Wu Wei observes the changes that are taking place in Kosovo and those that aren't.

Balkan Ghost of Finding Karadzic has found out that a heartbreaking story about “the Sri Lankan-American Buddhist who was tortured by her Serb captors while on an aid mission during the Bosnian war, [was] fictional“: “I regret posting the story when my verification was incomplete. But I also believe that one of the important functions of this blog is as a truth-seeking forum, where rumors are taken and face value and dispelled or confirmed by various readers. […] If I applied journalistic standards to my Karadzic writing, I would have very little to write about, as it is tough to investigate and verify wide-ranging rumors from behind a computer screen. For me, this blog about the complex Karadzic problem is underpinned by a spirit of truthseeking and inquiry.”

Russia Blog posts an open letter from an American mother of three adopted Russian children: “While looking for articles about the orphanage abuse that occurred in late July, 2006 in Krasnoyarsk, I came across your story about the “Boys for Sale“. It has had a profound affect on me. Thank you VERY MUCH for doing the research, then reporting your findings. I view the article differently than most of the folks who replied, I view it as a mom who realizes that the abused boys could have been my sons, and still could be.”

imperfect world 2006 points out to a review of theatre in Bangladesh. “He discusses, amongst other things, theatre as a tool of protest and theatre as an expression of resistance. He also touches on the great diversity of plays being performed - many of which are of overseas origin.”

Even as Child Marriage is illegal in India, parts of India continue the practice of child marriage. Especially on certain auspicious days when the practice intensifies. A flickr photo set by John and Sarah on the same.

The Supreme Court in Nepal just got a bit more gender neutral according to Legal News from Nepal. “The spouses of female judges of the Supreme Court can now go with their wives when they go abroad on official duty and enjoy government allowances and facilities during such visits.”

A history tour at Metroblogging Lahore. “Hathi Pol was built by Shah Jahan in 1632. It was meant to be exclusively used by elephants carrying the royalty. From this splendid gateway begins the renowned picture wall of Lahore Fort.”

Online fundraising can be rather creative. Ammani invites readers to give her three random words, so she can weave a tale out of it and the reader can donate to a project.

Colin Brayton translates a letter to Globo from Lula politely declining to participate in last night's debate.

Aba Boy argues that the Nigerian Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, is in self denial: “His fight to clear his name has led a few to believe that his denial is taking the form of spreading outright falsehood, and by implication refusing to address the facts. Reading his letter, one could easily come to the conclusion that he is tailoring his story and thereby leaving out certain details that need to be addressed.”

More fascinating numbers from throughout Latin America in Boz's Friday poll numbers.

Nim Negah has published an excerpt of Akbar Ganji's, Iranian journalist and human rights activist, “Letter to America” in Washington Post. Ganji asked for a direct and transparent talk between US and Iran.The blogger published following part of the letter :” It is both possible and desirable to solve the problems between the United States and Iran through direct talks. Such diplomacy will best serve the interests of the American and Iranian people if it is conducted in a transparent fashion.”

The man who wants to become the next president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, believes that gay marriages are ungodly and unAfrican, via Reluctant Nomad.

In an African Minute writes about the Homeless World Cup in South Africa: The Homeless World Cup ‘is an international street soccer tournament. Teams from 48 countries, comprising homeless, vulnerably sheltered and other marginalised men and women, are taking part in the tournament.

Africa Media uses number of links and comments to figure out whose voices were heard during the digital indaba controversy: “Importantly, it seems to me, is that bloggers such as Black Looks and AH&B were heard. Imagine pre-blogging and a group was holding a conference in South Africa on some other issue — health care, maybe. If Black Looks or AH&B or any other African had some criticisms, how would those have been circulated around the continent, much less the world? So maybe blogging is doing what we all hope, giving space to other voices besides those with the most resources. God knows, it's imperfect, but . . .”

Barbados Free Press employs a bit of allegory to highlight possible flaws in the logic behind the government's decision to sell the island's lands to foreign investors.

Chhay Vet blogging at Khmer440 remember the time immidiately after the fall of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The blogger has respect for the first batch of Vietnamese troops who helped end Khmer rouge rule. “The Vietnamese finally established their headquarters in the pagoda at the top of Phnom Sampheou but often they’d come down and eat noodles or drink tea at my mother’s stall. As I said before, the first troops – the assault soldiers – were very disciplined and were almost all from the North Vietnamese Army that had beaten the Americans but they moved on to fight the Khmer Rouge near Pailin. These were really tough guys and I remember one of them saying to me, ‘If they let us fight the Thai’s we’d be in Bangkok in a month.’ I believed him.”

Virtual Doug in a post titled Filial Piety talks about the differences in parent child relationship in Vietnam and the US. “The American and Asian cultures are very, very different in the ways they look at honoring Mom and Dad. My Vietnamese students made it very clear that merely sending money to their parents was not considered to be caring for them. To my students (mostly female) “caring” for one’s parents meant cooking for them and being physically with them at all times. Of course, the concept of a nursing home is almost unheard of in Việt Nam.”

Indonesia Matters lists newly registerd political parties in Indonesia. The blogger also taks about how the explosion in the number of parties is causing parties to come up with similar sounding names.

Manuel Quezon in Philippines rounds up the typhoon Milenyo stories from the papers and the blogs. The typhoon, knows as Xangsane internationally struck the Philippines on wednesday and is now moving north towards China.

Ivan Henaras visits the town of San Agustin and attends a fiesta there. The blogger is surprised to find a lost tradition still being practised in San Agustin/ “I was surprised that an old pre-war tradition was still being done in San Agustin. Unlike the current fiestas were we hold beauty pageants, San Agustin still organizes a carnival queen or popularity contest. Jules and I were kidding about it since they reverted back to the “dark ages.” Haha! The winner of the competition was the candidate who got the most number of votes, with each vote being purchased.”

The poet Zhao Lihua has been spoofed by netizen in the past few weeks. Joel Martinsen from DAWEI summarizes the debate and translates the reply of the poet: Let's all write poetry!

The Far Eastern Economic Review's editor blogs about the decision of singapore government to ban the magazine: “It has explicitly warned that not only is the Review Publishing Company forbidden from importing or distributing the Hong Kong-based monthly, but Singaporeans will also commit a criminal offense if they import or reproduce the magazine for distribution.”

Simon world gives his readers more background.

Robert Neff writes in detail about the history of prostitution in Korea (Chosun), it is one of the oldest profession.

Chong at interlocals.net translates a citizen report on a urban renewal project in a poor district in Hong Kong: “There are more poor people than the rich in Hong Kong. But why the rich need to come to Kwun Tong downtown, even though they already have the whole Hong Kong island and Tsim Shu Tsui for fun!?”