Global Voices Online

Vietnamese God takes us on a trip through the pavements in Hanoi and posts pictures of the attractions.

Kway Teow Man has a balanced look at what Singaporeans call the Wee Shu Min fiasco. Wee Shu Min, a teenager wrote a sharp response to another Singaporean blogger's post about government assistance to help ease life in an increasingly globalised world. The teenager was ridiculed for her “elitist” views on several Singaporean blogs. Kway Teow Man urges restrain “However, people may wish to remember that at the end of the day, we're talking about an 18-year-old girl. If her birthdate falls in December, even if she commits murder, we cannot hang her.”

On the occasion of Dominica's independence, Kenny Green affirms the strength of the island's culture while sounding a warning: “Dominica has some major questions to ask itself about independence. Most of our income was from a protected relationship with Europe which we scream to regain, brokered by England. Our current dependence is on Cuba, China and venezuela. Our macro economy is being run by the IMF and World Bank. And our major export is people.”

Adam's Gecko in Bangkok looks at the rise of democracy and de-centralisation of power in Indonesia. The blogger has interesting perspectives from a trip to Indonesia in 1992, just after a pro-democracy movement in Thailand.

Christopher Yee Mon reports that Trinidadian rock band Tripped and Fallen is offering their latest album as a free download.

Robert Koehler at Marmot Hole introduces a film, “Expats”, in Pusan film festival. The director Wonsuk Chin's goal is to introduce Korea to Amercian audience: Korean Wave films are doing well in Asia, but there hasn’t been a substantial American movie filmed here in decades.

Marie Mockett poses a question in Japundit: Is it true that every American celebrity can find instant success (in Japan)?

There'll be “Firefox parties” taking place throughout the world this weekend, reports Leon Robinson, including Jamaica.

Ria Bacon offers an update to an earlier post in which she discussed the matter of a close-up photograph of the Prime Minister's notepad taken during a debate on a no-confidence motion, and run on the front page of one of Jamaica's news dailies: “The upshot is that journalists will no longer be allowed to sit in the gallery above the members, but will be limited to a 6 x 6 foot press box.“

Blada.com posts (Fr) a reminder of a day of protest taking place in Kourou tomorrow October 27th to force the town's authorities to address crime.

Sanaga Peregrinations writes (Fr): “A $5 million prize for the best African head of state. The prize was created by Sudanese billionaire Mo Ibrahim … The winning head of state will have to leave power democratically, will have to have managed his country properly when it comes to security, health, education and economic development … Some [including Transparency International] criticize the measure for resting responsibility for the bad governance of a country on the shoulders of a single man.”

Blogin'i Harinjaka writes (Fr): ” Madagascar is 66th in the global ranking of freedom of the press established by international non-governmental organization Reporters without Borders. … 66th is not among the very first but it is not bad considering the country iis ranked in the first third.”

Sanjar Qiam writes about crossing over from Afghanistan to Tajikistan.

Vadim notes that Tajikistan is ranked the most favorable environment for journalists in Central Asia by Reporters Without Borders, though he says he does not agree with that determination.

The Atyrau Informant explains the sources of anger in the recent outburst of violence between Kazakh and Turkish workers in Atyrau, Kazakhstan.

KZBlog notes that a couple articles on the the Palace of World Peace, a pyramid designed by UK architect Lord Foster, in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Featured in these stories, the blogger says, is the story of the country's new capital itself.

After discovering several old black and white photographs of Monterrey, Mexico, Hipocratico of RegioBlogs took to the streets with his camera and photographed those same locations. Here are the side-by-side comparisons. Several Regio Bloggers also made their way into the El Norte newspaper [ES] for their participation in “Blog to be Wild.“

Copydude writes about tap water in Russia: “As everyone knows, if you invite a plumber to your Soviet apartment, he will invariably ask you to close either the brown or white tap, depending where the problem lies. Hot water is always brown in Russia while cold water is an opaque, high chlorine white - actually perfect for the indoor swimming pools many Russians have. Tak. Red and blue taps are a confusing irrelevance for Russians.”

Russian Marketing Blog writes about Anastas Mikoyam, “the People's Commissar for external and internal trade from 1926 till 1939″ - and the man who “wanted hamburgers to become popular Russian fast food.”

Sean's Russia Blog writes about Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian and US media, the war in Iraq and Condoleezza Rice's visit to Moscow.

Petro Rondiak of Petro's Jotter posts an update on the ongoing effort to save a Ukrainian teenager diagnosed with leukemia.

Csikszereda Musings writes about the events of 1956 in a Romanian town with a sizable Hungarian community.

To Each Its Own on the Domestic Violence Act in India. “The highlighting point of this Act is that it not only provides protection to women who are legally married but also those who are in live-in relationship, women who are sisters, widows or mother. The new law also addresses sexual abuse of children, or forcing girls to marry against their wishes as well. This certainly proves that the new Act has been formed keeping the current relationship culture in India and the irregularities in previous Domestic Violence Laws, in mind.” Together We Bond has more.

Lankawatch on a reality check on the peace process and talks. “If you stop kidding around and analyze the true underlining agendas of the warring parties in the ethnic conflict, you can determine the outcome of the peace talks.”

We read in Sos Sanjari blog that Mehdi ( Kianoosh) Sanjari, blogger and human rights activist was arrested during disturbances in Tehran. He was there to report about the event. There is also an online petition in English to demand his urgent release.

The Glasshouse on Pakistan's rank in the RSF Press Freedom Index. “At times the regime moves swiftly to prevent ‘harmful’ news from spreading, as was the case in late 2005 when it closed a local FM Radio relaying a BBC World Service Programme, which began providing independent news on the earthquake relief efforts.”

United We Blog! on misplaced optimism in Nepal “The behavior of neo-libertarians often suggests ‘their-way-or-no-way’ mentality which is against the principle of democracy they aver about. Trying to silence dissident voices and smearing any person or any idea that does not match with own perception is not known democratic virtue.”

“In honor of the next-to-last stage in DR Congo's efforts to elect a new president (Inauguration of the president-elect is scheduled for early December), I bring you three photos from my time tooling around Kinshasa in my friend's car,” writes Congo Girl.

The more Shobrawy hear about Australia and their attitude towards Islamic extremism the more he wants to move there. Find out why!

UAE students are now receiving their curriculums in e-books saved on a flash memory disk usable in any laptop or computer. The student can order any number of subjects taught in public schools to be included in the hand-held device. The current product includes only the Grade 12 curriculum of public schools. The objective is to ease the burden of carrying heavy books to school and to develop the e-project to widen its scope to include other curricula, Fahad reports.

Abu Kais says that Serge Brammertz will submit his report to Kofi Annan today, and in it, he will implicate the Assad regime for the first time since he took over investigation of the Hariri murder. Abu Kais has put together an archive of posts related to the Hariri investigation.

Mark links to a video which he said it shows how some Kuwaiti teenagers are different and have different interests.

Getting married soon? Khalidah has 48 tips for a happy marriage. Don't miss them!

Mark Carey announces a Bermuda-specific search engine that he built using Google's new Co-op platform.

The Sub-Saharan Africa Roundtable declares, “This was a massacre,”: “Ethiopia struck me as a story of crucial importance. Parliamentary elections had just been held on May 15, and the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy charged fraud upon the announcement of the results. Anti-government demonstrations transformed into riots, which Ethiopian security forces used live fire to quash.”

Ethiopian Life, Politics, Culture and Arts writes about comedy in the Ethiopian parliament and reports that the family of the jailed human rights lawyer, Yalemzewd Bekele, has been denied access to him.

African Architecture believes that there is a need to standardize the mud-brick building in Africa, “The abundance of this material “Clay” makes it very popular and affordable for low income people living in hot dry climates of Africa to use as versatile building material, Hence there is a need to have accurate building standards when building with this material.”

White African writes about five interesting blogs from Uganda, “For some reason I got on a kick looking into different blogs from around Africa. I was looking into Uganda recently… not for any particular reason. I don’t know any of these bloggers, but found them all compelling reads in their own way.”

Mental Acrobatics announces that there is a site dedicated to the Kenyan political and social activist, Dr. Wanjiru Kihoro, who passed away recently, “The tribute website for Dr. Wanjiru Kihoro is now up. Thanks to Mshairi and Mich.”

Africabeat on India's investment in Africa,”Well it may not be as big of a story (India is democratic and English-speaking. China is everyone's favorite whipping boy), India is clearly looking to expand its business presence in Africa.”