Global Voices Online

Metroblogging Bangkok describes the event that caused the latest sporting rift between Thailand and Singapore.

Algerian blogger Lameen Souag examines the definition of the word black in the Songhay language, which is spoken in and around Timbuktu and in the Sahara.
“It would be interesting to examine the connotations of “black” in more languages,” he writes.

Arabist writer Issandr El Amrani links a story about the trial of two policemen charged with attempting to rape a woman.

Bahrain Rants encourages readers to spend their weekend slipping in new words into their conversations. This weekends gems are: Flummery, Maven and Vamoose.

Tim's El Salvador Blog takes a look at a variety of economic news stories focused on El Salvador including the rise in corn prices. That rise is also affecting Mexico, writes radio host Ana Maria Salazar: “The Governor of the Bank of Mexico, Guillermo Ortiz Martínez, said that an emergency salary rise and controlling prices do NOT solve the problem of the price hikes on basic foodstuffs. On the contrary, that would create a battle between prices and salaries.”

Ricardo Carreón laments the recent comment by Sao Paulo Mayor Gilberto Kassab which he says “poked fun” at a recent tunnel collapse which killed seven people.

Mark in Mexico, who was hospitalized himself recently for “some type of infection”, tells readers of a recent report from El Universal in which Mexico City prostitutes drug and rob their clients.

Miguel Octavio, who is now also publishing selected posts in Spanish, writes gloomily of the so-called “enabling law”: “Two days ago the Deputies of the National Assembly simply gave up their jobs and their own mandate in order to enable Hugo Chavez to rule by decree for an unheard of period of 18 months in areas that not even the Deputies knew about in detail the day they voted on it. It was indeed a sad day for democracy and freedom in Venezuela.” Fellow opposition blogger Daniel Duquenal adds, “As of today no man in Venezuelan history will have had as much power, as much discretionary power that is, with the possible exception of Juan Vicente Gomez.” Oil Wars, on the other hand, inspires a novel-length comment thread with his post “Why Chavez is so loved.” And finally, Richard Gott's argument that “Venezeula's ‘enabling' legislation is more likely to prove a path to reform than a road to dictatorship.”

Jeremy Taylor gets to the bottom of the idea being voiced by many in Trinidad and Tobago that capital punishment is a solution to the country's ills — and explains why it's not.