Global Voices Online

Blueheeler goes in search of archives of a newspaper in East Malaysian province of Sarawak and finds that the city does not care about its history.So, in short, the Sarawak Tribune, the most important English newspaper on Sarawak/Bornean issues, with its 60 years of reporting the going-ons in Sarawak, cannot be accessed in Sarawak.When I told this to an academic working at UNIMAS, he said “Don't you know? For Sarawak, history is not important. Not only can you not find the Tribune, there's no history department at the University!”.

Jamaican writer Pam Mordecai is the subject of the second installment in Geoffrey Philp's “In My Words” series.

Kenny Green of Dominica isn't put off by reports that the Cricket World Cup, which is set to take place next year in the Caribbean, may be moved instead to South Africa: “Hosting any WC is like having a house party for someone else at your home, who pays you to get the place ready, and then proceeds to tear it up and leave you to clean up. The Caribbean needs to improve for itself, not to host some event where the real beneficiaries are already some of the best off people in the region. . . . So help yourselves to South Africa, ICC.“

“Following on the heels of Madonna’s adoption of a little Malawian boy, eccentric actress Renee Zellwegger has announced her intentions to adopt a Caymanian,” writes Cayblogger.

Belizean canine blogger Nurse Melly reports on the progress of an animal shelter being build on Caye Ambergris and admonishes humans for feeding crocodiles.

Pondering stereotypes of the French, Martiniquan Le Blog de Moi writes (Fr): “When I arrived in the States with a group of people from all over France, … our recruiter explained to us very seriously that because of complaints by American students, he encouraged us to bathe and to change clothes regularly i.e. every two days on average! Faced with the shocked expression of the DOM-TOMers [i.e. people from the French Overseas departments of the Americas and Oceania] in the group, he then proceeded to explain that the remark was for the benefit of the “French from France” who werle ess used to live in tropical climates.”

A new book about the failed West Indies Federation describes Sir Grantley Adams, Barbados's first premier and national hero, as “lazy, lethargic” — sets Barbados Free Press wondering if this could have been true.

A British letter-writer suggests that the Concorde aircraft that Barbados was given by British Airways be relocated to a location where it would receive better treatment, but Titilayo finds evidence to suggest that Barbados's Concorde isn't the only one being housed under less-than-desirable conditions.

Daniel Duquenal interviews Alek Boyd, who left his career and political activism in the UK to follow Manuel Rosales' opposition campaign and cover its daily progress at Vcrisis.

Fernando Casale links to the can't-be-missed music video from the Argentine band El Robot Bajo El Agua.

Cristian Espinosa shows how journalist Carlos Vera of Ecuavisa is taking advantage of YouTube [ES] to draw attention to video clips that might have been otherwise missed by voters in next month's second round elections. The first video [ES], which shows millionaire candidate Alvaro Noboa paying off a supporter run over by his caravan, has already been watched nearly 5,000 times. His competitor, Rafael Correa, doesn't get off the hook easy, however, as Vera produces a video clip [ES] in which Correa seemingly defends the economic model of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Debby Novitz says that just eight hours after her blog was mentioned in the daily Clarín, she received “1700 hits, 4 marriage proposals, and many, many emails.”

Klephblog explains the importance and history of Peru's El Señor de los Milagros: “There is, perhaps, nothing more Peruvian than The Lord of Miracles. For almost the whole month of October is devoted to this unique religious icon and it is venerated by Peruvians across the globe.”

Wordsbody announces the call for Fela centred short stories from Reputations Consulting, “Call for Fela centred, fictional short stories,features articles and biographical sketches on “FELA The Folklore: A Peoples’ Biography for all categories of prose writers.”

Latest on the Nigerian stock exchange from StockMarketNigeria, “Last week was not a too impressive week as the all share index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange dipped by 2 percent. This was as a result of declines in share prices of some leading blue chip companies.”

Timbuktu Chronicles writes about Osafa, open source African architecture, “Osafa will be a Wikipedia-like platform where the 'source code' of construction projects, i.e. floor plans, building descriptions, drafts/photos and commercials calculations are being shared under an open licence, ready to be reused or adapted, without licence fees. We want to apply the success factors of Open Source Software to the intellectual wisdom of African architecture. Osafa is to be used by all stakeholders of construction projects in Africa, professionals and hobbyists, Africans and non-Africans, world changers and business people alike…”

Collaboration between Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry, and Cameroon's English language film industry has produced a new film, Before the Sunrise. Scribbles from the Den writes about it: “Before the Sunrise, the first major collaboration between Nollywood and Cameroon’s budding English language film industry is now available online. The movie can be viewed or purchased from the inollywood or izognmovies websites. Filmed in Buea and Limbe, in Cameroon, Before Sunrise was launched amidst great fanfare at the Yaounde Hilton in July 2005.”

Madonna and little David: the debate continues, “Then again, my concern remains with this little boy who has been thrown in a mix of affairs between a poor father with no means and a foreigner with more than enough to offer. There is nothing wrong with adoption so long as the intentions and methods are genuine. On the other hand, there are plenty of children to “choose” from here in the U.S. and in the U.K. that need homes and a family. But…it seems that in the current “aid” times we are living in, your level of compassion depends on the region and place you adopt from in third-world countries, as well as your number of charities.”

TOL's Belarus Blog writes about an underreported church protest rally that took place in Minsk last Saturday.

Florian Bieber of East Ethnia has an idea about national flags. Also, he knows the word count of Serbia's new constitution.

Declan Butler posts an audio of himself and vice president of Amnesty International USA on the NY Public Radio's show on the Tripoli Six.

Orange Ukraine and Foreign Notes both discuss president Yushchenko's relationship with his own party. Foreign Notes also re-posts two newspaper stories from eastern Ukraine: on the ongoing rallies against high utility tariffs and the position on joining NATO.

Two-Zero, an expat in Moscow, explains why blogging is so popular in Russia and why many bloggers are concerned about losing their freedom to blog.

~Kashmir~ on the Indian Army. “Does a 19 year old boy deserve to be tortured with hot iron rods? Does the brother of a 10 year sister old deserve to be burned? Does the only bread winner of a family deserve death at the hands of an occupational army for the sole crime of being a Kashmiri?”

Govindraj on the Tata-Corus deal that's doing the rounds and India Inc. “Increasingly, when I am asked by people about what’s happening in India, I say there are two India’s, India and India Inc. There were always two Indias or maybe more but the other India earlier was just educated, aware and ranged in income levels from the middle class to the affluent.”

iFaqeer has a podcast. “This program congratulates celebrants on Ramzan, Eid and Diwali, with some thoughts on the spirit of the season; discusses the first anniversary of the earthquake in South Asia and the role of the blogosphere in helping remember those in need; and throws out some political thoughts on matters of social concern, also discussing the
recent exchange between a seminarian (madarasa student) and Gen. Pervez Musharraf that made the rounds on the Internet.”

United We Blog! on Peoplocracy in Nepal. “It would not be incorrect to state that we may have taken a step forward, only to return to the crossroad again taking two steps backward. It is even more likely that we would never be able to move away from the crossroad, making it a permanent feature.”

Yulia looks at the Civil Society Forum's demands to the Kyrgyz government for reforms and finds some commendable points. Ultimately though, she says, the fact that the group put their demands in the form of an ultimatum shows that they are more interested in the fight than solutions.

Sean Roberts explains the political psychology of the Borat-Kazakhstan relationship.

Peter of neweurasia notes that Turkmenistan's president has publicly admitted that he has health problems and he discusses what this might mean for Turkmen politics.

Onnik Krikorian rounds up the Armenian blogosphere.

Leila rounds up some of the blogosphere discussion of the recent violence in Atyrau between Turkish and Kazakh workers.

African Architecture and Design writes about the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy:”One of the 2006 finalists for using agricultural residues to fire high-quality bricks for low-cost housing is the Mwanza Rural Housing Programme (MRHP), Tanzania.”

At ArmYouth Blog, akhtamar reports on October 22nd's Critical Mass in Yerevan.

You Missed This thinks the former Kenya's Attorney General, Charles Njonjo, should shut up!: “This was the kind of behaviour going on in Kenya when Charles Njonjo was the powerful AG and a member of Kenyatta’s kitchen cabinet. Njonjo more than anybody else promoted the propaganda politics against the Luo community that promoted tribalism and kept Raila Odinga’s father, the late jaramogi Oginga Odinga from making a political come back shortly after the death of Kenyatta.”

Akin writes about emblezzement of public money in Nigeria, “Strangely, none of the Nigerian blogs I visit daily seemed to have picked up on this issue that Nigerian leaders have ‘stolen’ $380 billion cumulatively since independence with the worst atrocities in the 80s and 90s.”

Black Looks takes us back to South Africa's Apartheid era with a post about Prison Number 4, where Ghandhi and Robert Sobukwe, the founder of the Pan-African Congress, were jailed: “TAUSER was the process of forcing black prisoners to strip naked, jump in the air in a scissor like move which would expose all parts of their bodies including the rectum. It was done in the open yard in front of all the other prisoners and the guards to check the prisoners were not hiding anything. Once political prisoners started entering the jail they began a protest to end the TAUSER.”

White Sun of the Desert writes about rape and Vladimir Putin's sense of humor: “Russian humour, often thought not to exist, is very dry and often exceptionally dark. In many cases, it cares little for the sensibilities of those who are easily offended. This is, after all, a country which within living memory deemed half of its citizens criminals and threw them into icy labour camps. So my take is that Putin was simply making an exceptionally crude joke which would not cause the same offence to the Russian men in his entourage as it would to western journalists.”

Two-Zero posts pictures and writes about a rush-hour on the Moscow subway experience.

To protect himself from becoming a victim of a “billfold scam” in downtown Moscow, Snowsquare stops for a drink at Cafe Pushkin.

Languor Management links to the site of Maciej Ceglowski and Peter V. Gadjokov, who are translating The Golden Calf, a 1930 Soviet classic by Ilya Ilf and Evgeniy Petrov: “Seventy years after its publication, The Golden Calf remains a cult classic among Russian readers, but it is out of print in English translation. This will be the first time in nearly forty years that The Golden Calf will be available to English speaking readers. This is a volunteer translation project, and we're making it available to readers free of charge.”

Copydude writes and posts pictures of the Russian balconies: “Balcony infill is not taught at any Russian technical school. Neither are there any known materials which bond easily with Soviet drill-resistant iron and concrete. Every unsuccessful attempt is therefore a triumph of individual creativity.”

Mutantfrog comments on the idea and argument on Washington Post that the US needs to allow Japan to arm themselves with nuclear weapons to protect against North Korea: I’m frankly surprised at how bad his reasoning is in this column, how much it sounds like the writing of an enthusiastic but narrowly informed freshman in Poly-sci class.

JP blogs about some recent right wing activities in Japan in Japundit.

Kaishin in Japundit blogs about the public opinions towards the new Japan first lady, Akie Abe.

The prosecution of a SMS political poem written by a local civil servant, Qin Zhongfei in Pang Shui in Chongqing city, has raised great concern from local journalists and bloggers. Li Tian Lun comments that the poem was a great political poem and local government should accept criticism by people.(zh) Zan Ai Zong points out the silencing effect of the case (zh).

Maryannodonell blogs about her experience in participating the second nanshan district writers federation council meeting on literary creativity in her Shenzhen fieldnotes.

Fons Tuinstra in China herald blogs about some background fact and fiction concerning the new labour law. Interlocals.net also have some more background information.

Shang Peijin in Shanghaiist has translated an interview with a Chinese historian Zhu Xueqin on Shanghai's new history text book, which gives more emphasis on people's history.

Lyn Jeffery in Virtual China suggests some sites to visit around the 70 years anniversary of Lu Xun's death. Lu Xun has been considered as the father of modern Chinese literature.

Joel Martinsen in DANWEI translates a discussion about water conservation in Beijing, one of the measure is a ID system for water consumption.