Global Voices Online

Kyrgyz Report says that the shooting of a citizen of Kyrgyzstan by a guard at the US airbase in the country has prompted the country's president to call for a revision of the legal status of the US troops there so they can be tried in Kyrgyz courts.

How happy are Uzbeks? Not nearly as happy as a new opinion poll claims they are says Registan.net.

Using an experience from a hotel in Beijing, Tom Terry discusses how Mongolian authorities could have combined realism and respect for the public in their bungled recent hijacking drill.

Ukraine List writes about the country's very old trees - so old they are protected by the state.

Orange Ukraine posts a long-awaited political news roundup.

It doesn't look like Ukrainian legislators are going to be as poor as the rest of the citizens when they retire: Foreign Notes reports on the new budget.

A Macedonian Roma singer plans to sue Borat, reports Illyrian Gazette.

London Sevdah performers need “mindset training“: “To put it into context, many people from Bosnia have suffered badly during the war (and the same goes for some of London Sevdah members) and some of the biggest suffering has come in the form of long term (subtle) mental damage. This means that many Bosnian people have lost their ‘mental bearings' to an extent and are unable to recognise positive facts as much as they previously were able to do (i.e. before war or when they were younger).”

CNN is no longer available in Belarus, writes TOL's Belarus Blog, but “as long as Internet spreads through the country, blocking news channels would be useless…”

Wu Wei links to “the most detailed and authoritative prediction of what Martti Ahtisaari is going to say about Kosovo's status.” Neretva River wonders whether Russia's veto would plunge Kosovo into violence.

Neretva River offers a glimpse into the history of Croatian-Japanese relationship.

Balkan Baby posts a lengthy Albania travel report.

Music and Life - Everywhere! almost becomes victim of a popular scam in Kyiv - and doesn't realize it until much later!

Declan Butler writes about the new scientific evidence in the Tripoli Six case.

Mexican blogger Eduardo Arcos comments on the incredible web influence of Britney Spears [ES] and her lack of certain clothing garments: “she slipped into the top five most-searched keywords among a total of 1.3 million.

Liz Henry adds to the coverage of coverage of elections in Venezuela and Ecuador on BlogHer.

Some required reading for label lovers and regional political theorists alike: Maxwell Cameron's “Pink tide rising” and Boz's “Here's your scorecard.”

Mark in Mexico has four updates on the arrest of APPO leader Flavio Sosa in Mexico City. Juan Trujillo is far less enthusiastic about the detention and notes that “the spokesperson for the APPO, Florentino López, announced from hiding the start of a series of protests nationally and internationally to demand the liberation of these APPO leaders that were arrested Monday in Mexico City.” Ricardo Carreón wonders if the detention signals a stronger presidency. Ana Maria Salazar says yes: “this detention will be interpreted as the new policy of cero tolerance by the Calderón administration. Hit and then negotiate.”

Great Bong writes on the Bengali culture and passion, with some very sharp words on the Bengali attitude. “Her weapons are rhetoric, theatrics, bandhs, disruption and vandalism. In that she mirrors a vocal section of the Bengali bhadralok of today whose lack of substance is covered by a smokescreen of passionate iconization and self-congratulatory bluster.”

A kiss in a movie between two stars causes quite a row. Jabberwock reflects on kissing and Bollywood. “What the self-appointed morality-keepers are objecting to, dear and earnest HT City, is the fact that a human male and a human female are locking lips on a big screen, and that the giant edifice of Indian Culture will quickly dissipate if enough people watch this.”

indi.ca on which who the LTTE represents, along with a background on the diversity within the group of people who speak in Tamil. “The highest concentration of Tamils is in India (Tamil Nadu) and I know Tamils from Singapore, Malaysia etc who don’t identify with Sri Lanka or the Wanni at all. They’re definitely Tamil, but the “Tamil people” are united more by language and culture than any particular land.”

Poor But Happy forum user “webmanco” posts an excerpt of an article about Colombian General Luis Alberto Moore Perea and adds: “Here is another successful black Colombian, for those who think, blacks got no opportunities in Colombia.” A commenter from Cali, however, responds, “I would be happy to see how many black employees are employed besides the ones who are cleaning or cooking. (Hint: Not many if any).”

In the atmosphere of political change, United We Blog! comments on the a sought after job - that of an ambassador. “The ambassadorial positions have become such a job that there is no bar for anyone. We have seen former prime minister, former ministers, former chiefs of army staffs, and secretaries working as ambassadors in the past”

imperfect world 2006 on Bangladeshi migrant workers in South Korea. “There are around two hundred thousand undocumented workers not registered with the authorities, many of whom are unemployed. They provide cheap labour, often in dangerous conditions.”

Western Hemisphere Policy Watch links to the MSN user group of the Chilean faction of Autonomia Islamica Wayuu, the Latin America Hezbollah.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano gets a kick out of the fact that the New York Times has a travel guide for Cuba including an article titled “The Nicest Place You'll Never Go”.

Studio Film Club talks about Brazilian director Vicente Ferraz's documentary I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth, which chronicles the making of the 1960s film Soy Cuba: “Interspersing shots from the original film - many of which are justly famous for their power and complexity - with interviews, Mr. Ferraz has produced a welcome piece of historical explication.”

A Flickr photoset of beautiful shots from St. Lucia by Arnold Pouteau.

Experience Murphy's Law through the eyes of Guyana-Gyal…

Tanzania in focus writes the second part of his post, Was Kambona That Bad?, which questions the legacy of Mwalimu Nyerere, “It is my opinion that Tanzanians, in general, are wimpy folks. I can’t quite put my fingers on it, but belief is that it is all because of the Nyerere effect. I mean, we got so scared of the guy to the extent that even years after his departure, we are still afraid to question him.”

Christian S. Dunleavy at Politics.bm wonders whether money has any place in politics and calls for campaign finance reform.

Women are reshaping the African political landscape, “But African women's rising power is measured not just in numbers. In Liberia, the same women who bore the brunt of the country's more than two decades of war are the ones leading the struggle for peace and carving out a new economic and political path.”

“The Government of Barbados has announced another US$13 Million in your tax money and mine going to those few weeks of cricket that are called Cricket World Cup 2007″: Barbados Free Press suggests that the spending is “out of control”.

Grandiose Parlor the Niger Delta crisis, “Sixty-Five (65) Nobel laureates comprising the Commission of Nobel Laureates on Peace, Equity and Development in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria have proposed measures to prevent the spiral of deadly violence in the oil-rich yet impoverished Niger Delta region.”

Bahama Pundit features Larry Smith as he examines the issue of slavery and attempts to generate discussion on modern-day race relations.

Inspired by the movie, Blood Diamond, Electric Sphaghetti creates an ad showing the real price of diamond.

The Salon announces the beginning of Congo 3.0, “Joseph Kabila, and all the elected institutions of the country are embarking in a very long, and arduous journey, during which public scrutiny is going to be higher than it has ever been in the history of the country.”

Scribbles from the Den reviews a new album, Afrikan Guitarstrophy, by US-based Cameroonian artist, Wanaku, “In this album, Wanaku shuns the “World Music” genre with its the over-reliance on technology and heavy (in)fusion of Western pop sounds. Instead, he unapologetically uses the acoustic guitar as the main conduit for what he calls “Sweet Afrikan Kontry Muziki.”

Robert Koehler from Marmot's Hole reports about the recent debate concerning US military base selling illegal beef to Korean resturants.

Japan government has turned Japan Defense Agency into the “Ministry of Defense”. Adamu in Mutant frog discusses about the difference between minister and commissioner in Japan's politics.

ESWN translates an article about translation errors in putting “banning for personal reasons resulting in pregnancy or impregnating” into “banning sexual intercourse” concerning the working conditions of Chinese workers in Australia by a Chinese newspapers. The errors resulted in a lot of discussion concerning labour rights.

QQ is the most popular chatting device in Mainland China; some combination of QQ numbers have high market value. Virtual China blogs about the logic in the pricing.