Global Voices Online

Urbano dela Cruz writes about South Korean capital Seoul's bold restoration of a river and a park by demolishing a highway in the city centre. The blogger says that Manila city should learn from Seoul's example.

Cakap Tak Serupa Bikin asks couple of questions after reading about the proposed introduction of sex education in Malaysian schools. “Since the education minister is adamant that sex education will be incorporated into these subjects and will begin by January 2007, would the teachers have sufficient time to digest the knowledge and skills to impart them to the pupils who are school children?”

Sopheak blogs about the former Cambodian police chief Heng Pov who was brought back to Cambodia from Malaysia to serve his 18 years sentence for the murder of a judge. Heng Pov denies his role in the murder and was seeking to leave Malaysia for Finland where he was granted asylum.

The Daily Brunei Resources blog looks at the ills of credit card economy.

GuyanaGyal's nephew has his priorities straight.

As the Bermudan government forges ahead with plans to open its own television station, A Limey in Bermuda maintains that “watching TV to find out about Government services makes about as much sense as entering the Tour de France on a unicycle.”

Russia From The Inside tells of the “strange things” that began to happen to the mayor of Arkhangelsk after he decided to run for president of Russia in 2008.

According to FreeKeyboard the word “women” is not any more filtered in Iran [Fa].

A blogger from Hamedan is among the elected ones in City and Village Councils election.Mrs.Mehrnoush Najafi wrote a post on her election story with “kind hands of people” as its title [Fa].

A Step At A Time links to Estonica, “a web encyclopedia about Estonia, in English and Estonian.”

United We Blog! on the return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Nepal. “However, most of the IDPs were disappointed over the government’s indifference. Following the beginning of the peace process, a total of 500 IDPs from the Rajhena camps have returned home.”

Traveling Life writes about the man with no relevant experience who has been appointed to run Poland's main banking group.

Pestcentric writes about Hungary's “peaceful majority”: “Although I think this whole “I’m the peaceful majority” postcard thing is a nice gesture, it’s empty. Firstly, because those against whom it is addressed obviously don’t care. Second, because the majority of the peaceful majority is an angry majority within the majority, (got that?). They’re mad they’ve been lied to, that they keep being lied to, and how this country now has a government that acts as if it has a mandate when the opposite is clearly the case.”

Neretva River writes about the EU's “unwelcome newest members”: “Romania and Bulgaria will join the EU on January 1st with less fanfare than any other previous EU enlargement.”

“T&T Carnival has become a celebrity thing and mas’, in its purest sense, is not about celebrity. In fact, it’s the antithesis of it,” writes Francomenz, as she reports on Peter Minshall's vision for the festival.

Both Jamaican View and Leon Robinson remember Neville Willoughby, veteran broadcaster and radio icon, who died from injuries sustained in a recent car crash.

On the heels of Bermuda's Premier aiming racial slurs at former Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons in Parliament, a chef makes a joke and is subsequently fired and deported, leaving Christian Dunleavy to shake his head “at the silliness of it all”.

Gallimaufry reports on an article from Caribbean Net News about the government of Grenada's plans to sell an entire national park to make way for a resort development.

The behaviour of parliamentarians quells any political aspirations Arubagirl may have been nurturing…

Corruption-free Anguilla republishes an article by Indra Jeet Mistry, which calls for Caribbean governments to sign the UN Convention against Corruption - “the first legally binding, global anti-corruption agreement, marking an historic milestone in the fight against corruption. One year on…in the Caribbean, only Trinidad and Tobago and Antigua and Barbuda can count themselves as signatories…”

El Sono Mondial announces that (Fr): “A seminar about financial management of cultural enterprises specializing in music (organized by the International Organization of La Francophonie) took place last week [in Madagascar] … The participants discussed creating the first Indian Ocean musical and cultural network.“

At Le Blog de PKJ Agency, Frederic Kingue Johnson reports (Fr) the thoughts of Cameroonian Jacques Bonjawo, a former senior manager at Microsoft and CEO of Genesis Futuristic Technologies: “Bonjawo is convinced that there are lots of similarities between India and Africa and that it is imperative that the black continent not just be a consumer of software but also and mostly a producer.”

Panamanian songwriter Gonzalo Horna has a review about the first Festival Internacional de la Canción de Autor in which he participated as the opening artist. Read more about this event.

With English lyrics and “melodies that combine pop, rock, folk, and dub” the latest Holy production, Cascarana, has been released under a 2.0 Creative Commons License. Fernando Casale has all the tracks available for download.

Justin Oberman describes how were able to find out information about their polling stations via SMS with their cell phones.

Granitestudio comments on the recent call by PhD students in China on boycotting Christmas celebration.

An online test (zh) about blogger's gender by analyising the language in the blogpost.

Holly blogs about her frustration in learning Chinese in Taiwan, and she hopes that her Chinese friends can speak Chinese to her.

Alexpappas from Japundit gives the readers some tips on how to survive a Japanese style year end party - Bonenkai.

Some bloggers in Hong Kong started an alliance against the demolition of Star Ferry and Queen's Pier. Anson Mak collects all the posts and newspapers reports together at beyond the stars (zh).