Global Voices Online

Blog Politique du Senegal is worried (Fr)about imports from China “flooding” local markets: “China has extremely low production costs … By opening its doors wide to Chinese products, Senegal is preventing itself from developing a national production. Meanwhile, the country's industrialization is the only means of providing work to thousands of under- or unemployed youth.”

Says L'Odyssee de Tattum (Fr): “Our national webmaster, Hery, has struck again! And it's all for the better! He redid and finalized the Wordpress in Malagasy project begun by [blogger] Many to come up with: Blaogy.org, a new blogging platform powered by Wordpress.”

Puerto Rican writer Elidio La Torre-Lagares posts two interesting poems in English.

Melody at the Belize News Blog encourages readers to download the latest issue of the recently launched Belize Independent Newspaper, which is devoted to the emergence of new political parties in Belize and the challenge they represent for the two-party status quo.

Kenny Sia is asking his readers to assist in the flood relief efforts in Southern Malaysia. “Getting hit by the flood is bad, but getting hit by the flood twice in a week is even more suay. While we're wondering where to go for a night out drinking, those kids affected by the flood are wondering how they're gonna even go to school when all their belongings are washed away.”

Robert Frische at Cricketwukup.com remembers a calypso written by a Barbadian singer in honour of great West Indies cricketer Desmond Haynes, who, near the end of his career, was both passed up for the captaincy and dropped from the team. You can hear the song as well — an MP3 is attached to the post.

The New Mandala links to a story from from the Boston Phoenix about the conflict in Lao between the US backed Lao Army forces and North Vietnamese backed Phathet Lao. The story was first published in 1972 and features a Lao Army officer talking about the lack of morale in the army to fight fellow Laotians.

Attillah Springer confesses to a sense of unease as the organiser of today's national shutdown in Trinidad and Tobago is charged under the country's anti-terrorism act.

The Arabist reported today a Human Rights Watch plea to the Saudi monarch urging him to stop presecuting Ahmadis. According to the letter, “Saudi Arabia has so far arrested 56 non-Saudi followers of the Ahmadi faith, including infants and young children, and deported at least 8 to India and Pakistan.”

Bahraini Rants was appointed official Update Man for a day - while his friend's wife was in labour. He was charged with updating colleages and friends with the birth progress, which lasted about 12 hours.

Head over to La Gringa's Blogicito guess what she has posted a photo of, and win something nice.

Bahrain's top CID chief Farooq Al Maawda issued a warning against an Asian woman thought to be inflicted with Aids who may have sneaked back into the kingdom, wrote Mahmood Al Yousif.
In a racial slur, the CID official said it was be difficult to find the woman as “people of this nationality all look approximately the same!”

Jim Shultz on the violent protests that broke out in Cochabamba two weeks ago: “Since then I have also spoken to a half dozen people who were eyewitnesses to those events. One of those accounts, from a non-participant, Jonas Brown, a US citizen who lives in the exact spot where the fighting began, stands out. I asked him to write it up for our readers and he agreed to do so. I post it here, unedited. I think it is an important contribution to the record of what happened here two weeks ago today.”

Miguel Octavio of The Devil's Excrement compares the relative successes and failures of telecommunications giant CANTV both as a state run and private company.

Kamla Bhatt, a resident of Bangalore herself, is intrigued by an argument set forth by Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer who calls the Indian tech metropolis a “role model for Latin America.” Boli-Nica, who usually writes in English, this time addressed [ES] his Spanish-speaking readers with a comparison of Oppenheimer's pro-market stance and Hugo Chavez's recent rhetoric in favor of nationalization.

Unspun posts a part of Malaysian prime minister Abdullah Badawi's recent speech where the prime minister stressed that the bloggers are subject to the laws of the country.

Robert Amsterdam scans and posts a 14-page New Yorker article on Russia, which is not yet available online (”Kremlin, Inc.: Why are Vladimir Putin's Opponents Dying“).

Nikahang writes that Akbar Ganji, journalist and dissident,Thursday, will accept the prestigious International Press Freedom award from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) awarded to him in 2000.He could not take award sooner because he was in prison.

Marginalia writes about Latvia's border dispute with Russia and about “putting things in order”: “When a state “puts things in order,” it has a sad tendency to forget real people and real places, methinks.”

The beatroot writes on John Paul II, retirement and miracles.

The beatroot writes about the politics surrounding the case of the African refugee infecting women with HIV: “This time it's not AIDS and gays, however, it’s AIDS and Africans.”

White Sun of the Desert offers a Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk perspective on the city of Vladivostok.

Russian Marketing Blog writes about cockroaches and life in the former Soviet Union: “I don’t know if there’s any other country outside the Soviet block where doctors, drunks and mad babushkas live side by side.”

Russia Blog writes about the new law banning migalki and posts pictures taken in Moscow during a recent visit.

Ruminations on Russia contributes to the 42 “you know when you've been in Russia too long when.”

From Russia With Blog posts image videos from Siberia and Vladimir.

David McDuff of A Step At A Time translates the fifth installment of the Russian-language interview with Aleksandr Litvinenko’s widow Marina.

Engasado, in a post titled “Guatemala, soul of the earth”, posts a video of the country's many attractions.

Taran Rampersad, Roslyn and Hassan Voyeau weigh in on the national shutdown which is supposed to be taking place in Trinidad and Tobago today. Taran has also posted a photo of the promotional flyer on Flickr.

Jordanian blogger Khalidah Mufleh is just back from a segregated wedding in Jordan, where the women and men attend separate parties.
“I am against these kinds of parties because chaos conquers in them. I believe that it is tidier and classier for the whole family to be seated on the table rather than the man sitting in a room and the woman and kids in a different one,” she writes.

Lebanon is at the brink of a civil war, writes Jordanian blogger Tololy.
To add insult to injury, she adds: “There is occupation and civil war in Iraq, occupation and apartheid in Palestine, internal turmoil in Egypt, war in Somalia, multiple problems in Jordan, backwardness in Saudi Arabia, armed division in Sudan, separatism in Algeria, estrangement in Morocco and Tunisia, painful neutrality in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states, and now — what seems to be a hideous incarnation of civil war in Lebanon.”

Metroblogging Chennai has notes from Mylapore Festival 2007. “Outside, once you cross the archway that proclaims the Mylapore Festival, the city follows the usual Mylapore routine: rickshaw and cycles tinkle along the roads pedestrians squeeze by after office hours and harried home-makers and office-goers alike stop by the pavement to stock on their quota of vegetables.”

The advertisements for the India-West Indies cricket series don't quite do the trick. Almost As Good As Chocolate on all that is wrong with the advert. “At worst, these ads are racist. At best, they shout out a message that Indians are not hospitable and treat our guests terribly.”

A separatist armed outfit in India causes trouble for Bangladesh. Rezwan on how the government needs to make it's position clear. “With their involvement in the terrorist attacks in Bangladesh or the killing of the poor Biharis in Assam, ULFA is proving that they are just a mercenary group quite deviated from their agenda of liberating Assam.”

All Things Pakistan hopes that Edhi gets a Nobel Prize and urges his readers to contribute to an ongoing initiative. “Irrespective of whether Abdul Sattar Edhi is a Pakistani or not, irrespective of how much most Pakistanis hold his selfless zeal in reverence - and irrespective also of all the ways in which a few have tried to malign him - I believe that Abdul Sattar Edhi deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. I need your help in putting together a nominations package.”

Salam Dhaka on the gaps observed in Bangladesh. “There is a huge gap between what the political circles, elites and “intellectuals” want to talk about and what the middle and lower middle class care about. If you talk to people in the lower middle class then the disconnect gets worse.”

Zarchka writes about the astonishment and admiration in Armenia prompted by the number of Turks who came out to mourn Hrant Dink. She hopes that Dink's final legacy will be reconciliation between Turks and Armenians.

Tirami Su explains how Yerevan ended up with a neighborhood called Bangladesh.

At neweurasia, Peter says that Turkmenistan's acting president is continuing to push liberalizing reforms.

Registan.net writes about German proposals for a new European Union policy on Central Asia, and neweurasia responds, wondering why we don't hear more on Europe's efforts to renew ties with the region.

Diana at Cambodia Calling compares her life in her former home Singapore to her current home Cambodia. The blogger also describes why her company, a garment manufacturing unit, believes in paying fare wages to the workers.

This is probably the beginning of the future of online media industry in Africa, “Since December I have been in the trenches at the Mail & Guardian Online, looking for new ways to leverage the huge audience and vast amounts of content that the site has. My goal is simple: forge something spectacular for the end-user and then hand it over to our business team for monetization.”

Bella Naija blogs about Nigeria's top models, “Years after veterans like Linda Ikeji and Uri Jones paved the way, the modelling industry in Nigeria is booming. Yes, there are Nigerian models repping us in South Africa, Europe and New York but there are some top notch Nigerian models who are choosing to stay in Nigeria and are enjoying lucrative careers. With companies like MTN and Celtel willing to pay top-dollar (or should I say top-naira) to models who feature in their advertising campaigns. I am sure this is enough motivation to keep these models in Nigeria.”

From Pambazuka News at the World Social Forum, “As part of our special reports from the World Social Forum, conscious musicians Hope Raisers speak to Robtel Pailey from Pambazuka News about their music, justice and the obstacles they face being political artists living in the slums of Nairobi.”

Jackfruity writes about the importance of blogging in Africa, “My thoughts on the impact of blogging in Africa? Many of the blogs that do exist are shaping the way people think and contributing to major debates in their countries — just look at Sub-Saharan African Roundtable or Weichegud. The reason blogging isn't as popular as it is in North America is simple — in a country where fewer than 2% of the population has access to internet and only 70% is literate, creating and sustaining a thriving blogosphere is difficult.”

An interview on Kenyan Pundit highlighting the challenges of being a young entrepreneur in Kenya.

An update from the World Social Forum, “Sometimes a little action can go a long away. The youth groups’ protest to the WSF Organising Committee has generated a positive change in policy. Yesterday, the gates were open to Kenyans for free. As the word had not spread not too many people took advantage of the offer. However the youth groups came with their members/friends/neighbours and all got in for free.”

Recently a policewoman in Xian was forced to resign because the police unit (Danwei) found out that she had practiced sexual partner exchange activities. Li Yin-he criticizes that Danwei shouldn't interfere into a person's private life (zh).

Joel Martinsen from DANWEI blogs about the political culture of slogan banners in China.