Global Voices Online

Jamie from Two Koreas blogs about the background, debating points in the most recent Korea US FTA negotiation.

James from Japan Probe blogs about the anti-whaling action with a youtube video taken from the perspectives of Japanese whalers.

Chiao blogs a photo taken outside a Beijing bar which listed out various regulations, including: don't shit in our tiolet but U can pee…

Li Yinhe comments that the word “自由” (liberal and freedom) is too negative in China because of various political campaign agains “liberalism”. She hopes people can slowly make it a positive term (zh).

Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi has a post on Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung participating in an online chat with the public. The primeminister took on questions on topics such as press freedom, the Vietnam War and government seizure of farmers' land for development.”

A new Arabic version of Richard III is being staged by a Kuwaiti troupe at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from 8 - 17 February 2007, says Kuwait blogger Mama Fusla. Set in the contemporary Arab world, this production of Richard III unfolds within the hothouse, feudal atmosphere of desert palaces in an oil-rich kingdom, she writes.

Kuwaiti blogger Desert Girl tells us how men are afraid of her because of her strong personality, her sense of loss at the death of Anna Nicole Smith and her favourite holiday - Valentine.

Lebanese blogger Ms Levantine gives us a brief outline of the history of Shia in Lebanon here.

Lebanese blogger EDB wants to know the truth and is calling for an international tribunal to “try the drug dealers who supplied Anna Nicole (Smith) with a lethal overdose.”

Want to learn more about the relationship between hip hop and public diplomacy? Read what Lebanese blogger Abu Aardvark has to say about it here.

Macam Macam says former Thai prime minister Thaksin may be looking to make Sydney his new home.

Syrian blogger Bassam shares his experiences in renewing his passport. “Although I was offered to have an intelligence agent go with me to make things go “smooth”, but being stubborn and adventurous I figured I’d do it by myself,” he writes.

Syrian blogger Mustafa Hamido briefly sums up the similarities and differences between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The Center for Regional Development/Transparency International Armenia Election Monitor 2007 blog announces plans to spur election blogging in Armenia.

A workshop on blogging took place in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan last weekend, and Leila Tanayeva summarizes the posts the participants wrote at neweurasia.

News From The Caravan profiles Serzhan Bashirov, a Kazakh silversmith who is currently in the United States to exhibit his work.

Though Turkmenistan voted yesterday, Sean Roberts says that the transition is far from finished and he outlines some of the problems facing the president.

The Private Sector Development Blog reports on Central Asia's dynamic microfinance industry.

Kyiv's mayor will not profit as much as he must have been expecting, reports Ukrainiana: “Kyivites’ utility bills will double, the Kyiv City Council ruled Thursday, overturning the 340 percent hike championed by Mayor Chernovetsky.”

Scenes from the Sidewalk writes about Ukraine's approximately 200,000 street children: how they become what they are and where they live.

Estavisti writes about Kosovo - as well as the U.S.: “It’s important to realise that the bombing of Serbia set the stage for the present US doctrine - ‘we can do whatever the fuck we like, whenever the fuck we like, to whomsoever we fucking choose'.”

Belgrade 2.0 writes about Emir Kusturica, the Serbian filmmaker who has been awarded with France’s Order of the Knight of Arts and Literature of the first degree. Kusturica's name, by the way, is no longer Emir, but Nemanja: the name change occured after his baptism.

Pestcentric reports: “The big news now in Hungary is that there may be a big terror plot being planned against the parliament building, which is why the fence […] needs to be kept in place until March 15th. March 16th is apparently the day when terrorists hibernate for the summer, so after that things will be okay.”

Pestcentric wishes good luck to a village in Serbia that hopes to solve its (many) problems by erecting a statue of Rocky Balboa.

Marginalia continues to muse over the issues inherent in Latvia's border dispute with Russia.

Copydude reports on the plans to rebuild Kaliningrad's old Prussian castle, which was “firebombed by the RAF in 1944″ and “then levelled in 1969 to build the ill-conceived ‘House Of Soviets‘.”

A Step At A Time reports on the beating of an ethnic rights activist in Russia’s Mari El Republic.

Amin Rasooli,a creative blogger and musician, has composed “The future of ground”, a piece of music for peace.

Forever Under Construction talks about an exhibition of images partly inspired by Emily Johns, British artist and publisher, recent peace delegation to Iran, in May 2006.According to the blogger, images dealing with the complex relationship between Iran, oil, and Britain. The work weaves together the larger international dynamics, the mutual cultural influence, and more intimate personal connections of Iranian-British relations.

Dog's Own Country on conservativeness and Kerala. “The picture the media in Kerala, which I guess reflects the mentality of the people and what they like to read, gave any corruptible youth in Kerala (oh yeah they are so corruptible in Kerala, especially after their training in school and college for politicking and staging strikes) the impression that in the “West” people were all loose and without morals; and we are the only sane, moral and decent people in this world.”

Nepali Voices on anonymity in the Nepali blogosphere. “For SNS, anonymity provides sincerity. When Zade began blogging, she was afraid of revealing identity in the internet because she was a ‘girl’ but nevertheless for her also being anonymity gave the ‘total freedom’ in ‘expressing herself’.”

Indi.ca writes on the ethics of comment moderation. “There is some law of numbers in the world. In science you call it random error, in email it’s spam, in politics it’s terrorism, and in blogging it’s the combo of spam and trolls. For every 100 people you get 1 crazy.”

Drishtipat has Dr Yunus's open letter to the country. “Dr. Yunus sends an open letter to the public asking for their opinion on his entering politics. You can send the letter directly to him and also can post a copy at the comment section below for us to see.”

Prompted by a blog post which raised the question of why black actress Thandie Newton didn't get better roles, Geoffrey Philp considers the role of the Caribbean artist and his/her audience: “An artist needs time and space to think through a creative problem, which means a certain amount of aesthetic distance, but also needs the support of the community to eat, drink, be a part of, in order to draw the images and sounds that are a necessary part of creation in order to make his/her work relevant to the community.“

Roberto Hernandez contemplates the large question of Puerto Rico's future: “Obviously the solution is not to be found in any of the ones offered by the current agendas.“

Christian S. Dunleavy ponders the logic of re-establishing a black caucus within Bermuda's opposition party.

Egyptian blogger Sand Monkey is not dead.. but is stealing his neighour's wifi connection to blog! Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Slashdot.com is hosting a discussion on Indonesia's decision to sell the Avian Flu virus samples to a biotech company rather that passing it freely to the World Health Organization. Notes the original poster “They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines.”

“Goats are traditionally kept for their milk and meat and renowned for their cussedness and indiscriminate palate, but not in the tiny Tobago village of Buccoo,” writes Robert Frische, in his report on goat racing in Tobago.

“CARICOM countries would benefit more from a trade, aid and investment treaty with China that is collectively negotiated and that takes full account of the peculiar development needs of each of them,” writes Sir Ronald Sanders in an article continuing the discussion of the relative benefits, for Caribbean territories, of aligning themselves with Taiwan or China.

Sociolingo writes about solar powered internet shops in Gambia, “These multi-services shops, which are wireless and solar-powered, provide an affordable range of services for those at the lower end of the economic ladder.”

African must fix itself, China and the West wont do it, via Africa Unchained.

A thought-provoking piece at Black Looks on defining the African Diaspora, “Then there is the latter group, whose relationship, I am finding, is astonishingly schizophrenic. I talk here of a specific class of Africans living abroad. The educated ones who on the surface are proponents of a “pro-Africa” sort of image. We are the ones who want the world to know that Africa is not one country, that there’s more to it than you see on National Geographic etc. I think it’s fashionable in certain circles.”

A thought-provoking piece at Black Looks on defining the African Diaspora, “Then there is the latter group, whose relationship, I am finding, is astonishingly schizophrenic. I talk here of a specific class of Africans living abroad. The educated ones who on the surface are proponents of a “pro-Africa” sort of image. We are the ones who want the world to know that Africa is not one country, that there’s more to it than you see on National Geographic etc. I think it’s fashionable in certain circles.”

Ai wei wei blogs about a rescuing cats action in Tianjian. More than 400 cats were rescued from the hand of illegal cat trader (zh). Some of the photos can be found here.

Asia Sentinel has an article reporting about Asia’s richest tycoons Li Ka-Shing's business strategy in Hong Kong and China: His flagship companies Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong are big, top-tier and world famous, owned by investors around the globe… Less well-known is that the Hutch empire is also one of the cheapest outfits you’d ever want to do business with – but the secret is becoming increasingly less “best kept”.

James from Japan Probe blogs about the pollling result on Japanese's student's study and T.V time.

Matt from Occidentalism blogs about a newly launched cup noodle in South Korea: MSG-free, low-sodium and un-fried noodles.

In the weekend, some lawyers-bloggers got together for a joint letter to sina.com complaining about their editorial policy which has violated bloggers' freedom of speech. ESWN has translated the letter into English.