Global Voices Online

Blogger Pierrot Dupuy laments (Fr) that Reunion will be represented by a Reunion-based Guadeloupean professor at an International Creole Festival taking place in Mauritius from December 1st to 3rd. Adds the blogger, the Festival will feature: “a culinary festival, a conference on Creolity and a mega concert featuring Zouk Machine, Francky Vincent, Kaoma and Kassav' alongside Mauritian artists.”

France-based Togolese blogger Kangni Alem recounts (Fr) with much enthusiasm his recent experience at a televised literary competition in Benin which attracted aspiring writers of all ages. The competition was organized by beninoise Djamila Idrissa Souler and took place November 6. Says the blogger: “This contest illustrates, in a bold bet, [the desire to] train tomorrow's readers … Literary events of this magnitude are sorely needed on the continent.” He posts pictures of the organizers and winners.

France-based Togolese blogger Kangni Alem says (Fr) he will be interviewed by Paula Jacques on radio station France Inter this sunday from 2 to 4 pm. Click here for the show's website.

Writing for Kyrgyz Report, David Mikosz, the head of IFES in Kyrgyzstan, writes that Kyrgyzstan's electoral code will have to be overhauled now that the country's new constitution changes the composition of parliament.

KZ Blog has a lengthy report on the Kazakhstani government's Kazakh language promotion policies and the anxieties felt by the large population that only uses Russian.

Onnik Krikorian reports on and has photos from a protest against racism that took place in Yerevan.

Sean Roberts looks at some recent policy decisions of the Kazakh government and notices an active middle class making its voice heard.

Dan O'Huiginn looks at why Georgia's new economy minister has resigned a week after being demoted to the post from defense minister. Dan also rounds up some of Russian media and blog reaction.

At Blogrel, Burnell argues that Armenia must cultivate economic ties with more countries than just Russia.

J. Otto Pohl writes about the 1944 deportation of the Meskhetian Turks.

Wu Wei and East Ethnia write about Kosovo in limbo.

People light candles in Prague to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, notes My Czech Republic Blog.

As Serbia marks the 10th anniversary of the 1996 election fraud protests, Belgrade 2.0 reports on protests taking place in the capital now: residents of the town of Pancevo are rallying against the local filterless petrochemical plant.

The Glory of Carniola writes about Slovenia's new logo and its new slogan, I feel sLOVEnia.

Copydude writes about Novgorod's architecture, infrastructure and real estate: “‘German built’ is now becoming a buzzphrase amongst Russian real estate agents - particularly in places like Moscow, Novgorod and Kaliningrad. It adds value to property prices. (They are careful not to mention prisoners or slave labour.)”

Trinidad blogger Jeremy Taylor on the launch of Al-Jazeera's English channel: “Outside the west and beyond its influence, western assumptions implode. Different peoples have entirely different ways of seeing the world. Watch CNN or the BBC in a non-western environment (let alone Fox, heaven help us): suddenly they seem alien, biased, prejudiced, parochial, blind, missing the point.“

Wolfy Becker has been living in Lima for nearly two years now. Here's an insightful look back at how he got there and what life in Lima has been like.

Bob Glass writes: “Due to critical renewal lag times at Immigration, the government will renew 55,000 residencies automatically.  The lucky foreingners are those whose residency cards expire from December 1st and July 1st of 2007.”

Complaining about Costa Rica's government infrastructure and services, Uri Ridelman reveals a clever bit of citizen safety engineering.

Bolivia Rising translates a piece from La Razon about the political forces seeking consensus to resolve regulations for the Constituent Assembly which will rewrite the nation's constitution.

Erwin Cifuentes describes Tuesday's demonstration at a Wal-Mart store on the outskirts of Mexico City. Colin Brayton adds that “Wal-Mart is accused of having violated Mexican election laws with impunity in 2006 and so has been the target of disruptions by the “vote by vote” social movement lead by López Obrador.”

Martin Varsavsky confirms [ES] that Technorati will soon be available in Spanish. Argentine blogger Mariano Amartino notes [ES], “what's interesting is that, despite the fact that we're just 2% of the worldwide blogosphere, we're recognized as “the most global language” of all [the blogs] that are tracked on the site. And that should be another reason to integrate ourselves with the rest of the Spanish-language blogs around the world … we have the advantage of being able to read other voices, other cultures, other points of view about topics that we mostly share.”

On top of Boz's weekly poll numbers he also ventures into the controversial territory of the Venezuela polling wars and predicts that neither Chavez nor Rosales will win over 54% of the vote. Daniel Duquenal concentrates on Venezuela's state elections and Oil Wars is skeptical of a recent poll that put Chavez and Rosales neck to neck.

In order to fight corruption effectively, Tanzanians need to have free access to public information, argues Jaduong Metty

According to Iraniantruth, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, was repeatedly stunned with a Taser and then taken into custody when he did not exit the CLICC Lab in Powell Library in a timely manner. Community Service Officers had asked Tabatabainejad to leave after he failed to produce his BruinCard during a random check at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Chhay Vet continues his series of memoirs on the recent history of Cambodia. In this episode he recalls the years immidiately after the Vietnamese left Cambodia. The Vietnamse initially attacked Cambodia in 1978 and got rid of the infamous Khmer Rouge regime but stayed on till the early 90s.

Mike Abundo writes about the falling profits of mainstream television stations in Philippines.”t’s about time Filipinos connected with each other and the rest of the world, instead of the cheap outdated shit local networks try to shovel down the throats of the masses. Philippine TV networks should either get on YouTube, or go off the air.”

Blueheeler in Singapore applauds the newly lauched compensation scheme for retrenched workers in Malaysia and says that Singapore should implement similar policies.

Bangkok Pundit discusses a newspaper story on the reasons that might have prompted the Thai military to stage the coup.

The Indian Social Forum in words and pictures from a Kenyan blogger.

Africabeat's fascination with China-Africa relationship: a partial explanation.