Global Voices Online

TiToto says of President of Guadeloupean Regional Council Victorin Lurel (Fr): “Suffering from “poll-o-philiac opinionmania,” Lurel often attempts a real personalization of public opinion, a creation of a fictitious political and social image which claims to represent the Guadeloupean people. … He says “Guadeloupeans have said x” everytime he seeks to justify one of his demented actions.”

Collectif Haiti de Provence recently posted (Fr) a slideshow of important Haitian personalities and events of 2006.

Tim Muth has an entertaining link to photos of “the biggest pupusa in the world” from Olocuilta, El Salvador.

A breaking news update from Jim Shultz in Cochabamba: “As I write this the Center of Cochabamba has just become a war zone. Crowds of hundreds of, mostly young men, armed with heavy sticks, are in open conflict on the block below our office and throughout the Center of Cochabamba. Flying rocks fill the air. Several have come flying through our windows.”

Stay in Buenos Aires has a primer on the upcoming Buenos Aires Tango Festival.

Ukraine List writes about Ukrainian accordion musicians.

Orange Ukraine writes on the situation with land and real estate in Kyiv and the rest of the country.

Foreign Notes reports on the tariffs war fallout in Lugansk and other problems clogging Ukrainian politics.

White Sun of the Desert writes about Yuzhno-Sakhalinks dogs - and posts a photo of a pack of strays living in his backyard.

In a country that has just switched to a different currency - Slovenia - money seems to have become a really relative notion, writes The L Files.

Further Ramblings of a N.Irish Magyar on life in Hungary: “But adaptable guy that I am, I’ve been able to adjust to the fact that the “Customer Assistant” in the post-office would rather gun me down with an AK47, than to take the risk that her face may crack by delivering a smile in my direction. To some extent, I’d even say that I find such attitudes amusing rather than offensive now.”

Mdeii Life explains how a mainstream newspaper - The Hindu works the money factor out. “But Mr. Ram, we know is a proper Capitalist who researches, manufactures, and markets Communism. So he does the sensible thing, and discovers that the only way people will continue to buy his papers is if they actually make a profit (or break even, or at-least end up spending less than 50p net per copy) by getting good money from the recycling chap.”

Serbia's promo ads appear on CNN, and Belgrade 2.0 posts a review: “Honestly, it looks pretty boring and unimaginative. Lots of static pictures, not enough life and it doesn’t really strike you as something to remember. Hopefully we’ll get some odd naive tourist that falls for this kind of advertisement.”

Csikszereda Musings presents the Best of Romania Awards 2007.

Reflecting on the festivities for the 203rd anniversary of Haitian independence and the clan-like disputes that colored them, Ailleurs Vu d'Ici writes (Fr): “Everyone knows that our society's disease is the unlimited thirst for power. And this pathology … has adopted recurrent forms along our history. It is definitely one of the root causes of the chronic instability that has too often marred our political life.”

Wagle Street Journal celebrates wireless in Nepal. “Laptop owners lined up since yesterday in front of the Nepal Telecom stall as the Kathmandu Post had carried news about the card on front page.”

Mihai Moscovici writes about the history of Moldova as viewed by the country's embassy in the United States.

International eyes on developments in Nepal. More at Nepal Monitor. “The newly-appointed UN General Secretary BAN KI-MOON proposes a 12-month UN Mission in Nepal to monitor the peace process and the Constituent Assembly elections. The UNSC is expected to ratify his report soon.”

Further Ramblings of a N.Irish Magyar thinks that it's time for the Druzhba (”Friendship”) pipeline to be renamed.

Novala, Europa measures the Balkan states' popularity in centimeters.

Neretva River on democracy according to the Croatian government's spokesman: “…the poor should not be permitted to hold public office […], home ownership, possession of two cars and 50,000 Euros in a savings account should be a precondition for entering political life…”

Drishtipat Group Blog sums up the current political scenario in Bangaldesh. “The State Of Emergency that was declared today is a culmination of a year of continuous protests and battle between gov’t (BNP: Bangladesh Nationalist Party) and opposition (AL: Awami League), all centered on the coming Jan 22 national elections.”

Adda on the escalating political crisis in Bangladesh. “At the end of three day siege organized by the 14th Party alliance turned very ugly when the Police used brutal force against the political activists on January 9th.”

Candide describes the gahvora, the cradle used in Tajikistan and other parts of Asia, which, the author says, is the mother's best friend because it has “everything the baby needs for a good, safe sleep.”

Ben Paarmann reports that German architects won a contract to build housing and community structures near Almaty. Judging from the designs, he wonders whether or not the contracts Kazakhstan gives out for new construction to Western firms are resulting in the realization of student projects.

The Roberts Report reports the results of the Kazakh government's reshuffle, which has resulted, Roberts says, in another balance of power between powerful groups, but one that appears to indicate the rising stock of a particular figure.

At Blogrel, Observer explains some of the problems in Armenian democracy.

Sanjar Qiam tells the story of Faqeer Ahmadi, a 34 year old man from the Kharwar district of Afghanistan's Wardak province who was held at Guantanamo Bay for a year over a misunderstanding.

Malayu Boleh is a popular slogan often used in Malaysia. The phrase is meant to encourage the malay people and it means “Malays Can”. People widely search for this phrase online. Several porn sites have optimised their sites in such a way that the search results for this phrase leads the searcher to their sites. Ah ok lah links to an effort by a Malaysian netpreneur to claim the slogan back from porn sites.

Mark Masferrer calls the fact that US anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan will not be meeting with the Cuban activist group “Damas de Blanco” (Ladies in White) nor visiting a Cuban prison, “the biggest non-suprise of the week“.

Did you know that Ethiopians celebrate Christmas in January? Read Meskel Square, “As everyone who reads this must know by now, Ethiopia has its own calendar and time system - 7am is 1am, 2007 is currently 1999, there are 13 months in the year and Christ was born on January 7.”

Congo Rangers blog has a post about the arrest of hippo poachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kenya Online Today has a post about Chinese cars making it big in Kenya, “Now the Chinese models are back and they are offer serious competition to trucks and pickups from Isuzu, Toyota and other Japanese models. Faw is a shiny model of a bus that has pleased the Kenyan armed forces where it is used as a commuter transport van.”

Life, Universe, and Everything writes about the preparations for the World Social Forum in Kenya,
“Apparently, they don't want to put up the attendees in hostels, since they want a certain minimum level of comfort for them. However, should these beds not be identified, then they will have to resort to hostels. A final solution should the hostels not be enough is to host them in tents. As Majonzi asks, where were the Kenyan authorities during all this time they knew the event would be here that they did not to go into action and make early preperations? It certainly boggles the mind.”

My Africa Today writes about Pete O'Neal, one of the last American exiles, “O’Neal fled the country, and has lived in Tanzania for over 30 years. He is one of the last American exiles from an era when activists considered themselves at war with the US government.”

Ethan Zuckerman writes about a visit to Ghana by a popular TV host, Anthony Bourdain, “His camera crew does an excellent job of capturing the chaos, color and rhythm of the place, introducing the host to street food and the wonders of akpeteshie, Ghanaian moonshine distilled from palm wine. He visits one of Ghana’s best loved chop bars - Asanka Local - where he starts his culinary journey with Omo Tuo, my single favorite Ghanaian meal (pounded rice balls served with palm or groundnut soup.)”

Goh Kun, a former prime minister of Korea, is proposing a Japan-Korea tunnel as part of his campaign for president. Joe from Multant Frog gives some historical background on the proposal.

Adamu from Multant frog gives his readers very good information on free English-language online sources on Japanese politics.

Ai Wei Wei puts up a flu alert on his blog: in Jan, among our dozen people working team, more than half of them got flu. Some of them are usually very strong and seldom have diseases before. Also, my colleague's friends and family members, including young guys from other countries. Everyday, more and more people got flu and the symptoms are very serious this time, most of they have high fever, body pain…(zh).

Recently some Mainland Chinese intellectuals suggest to use dragon as the Chinese cultural symbol and Chinese brand name. Xueyong disagrees and points out that the dragon symbol is related with ancient Chinese kingdom and masculine despotism (zh).

Raymond Zhou translates Wang Xiaofeng's self mocking post explaining how he became Time's person of the year.