Global Voices Online

KZBlog summarizes Kazakhstan's president's address to the nation, a speech outlining the government's goals for the next year.

Blog Politique du Sénégal quotes candidate Moudou Dia's declaration that at the voting center where he, his wife and two friends voted for him, he officially received no votes. The blog humorously adds (Fr): “To take 3 to 4 votes from a man who barely got .13% of the vote is a bit mean” and wonders whether Dia's decision not to contest the results isn't motivated by his desire for a minister post.

Mirsulzhan Namazaliev reports on rumors that Kyrgyzstan's opposition is planning large, well-organized protests against the president for later this month.

Kamneed's Friday photos from Kazakhstan feature Almaty residents at work (RUS).

EspaceMaroc announces (Fr) the 4th International Magic Festival to take place in Marrakech mid-March and adds :”Having become one of the most marking events of the city, the festival seeks to promote magician arts by offering a popular attraction, democratizing magic shows by offering them to the public… [and] by offering free magic shows to orphan children of the region. “

InternetRapide.com writes (Fr): “The Sytek Gwadloup Company, in partnership with the Guadeloupean Region and ANPE Art, Culture et Spectacles are initiating the First Cinema and A/V Technology conference on March 1st and 2nd, 2007.” The conference seeks to present the latest A/V technologies to A/V professionals and to provide them an opportunity to network with each other.

Bangkok Pundit translates Thai a news story that talks about senior military leaders meeting to discuss rumors of terrorist attacks in Bangkok coinciding with holidays.

Jotman writes about one of the conditions that Vietnam has to fulfill in order to enter WTO - slash taxes on automobile purchases. “That's a pretty stark example of how a trade agreement can undermine the the quality of life in an urban center, and comprimise the ability of a state to manage its own transportation infrastructure.” The blogger suggests a possible solution in his post.

Luis M. Garcia reports briefly on a survey conducted by a meetings and conventions industry newsletter to determine whether event planners would consider Cuba a potential meeting destination if the US lifted the current travel ban.

The hoops he's being made to jump through by the two large multinational banks where he's trying to open accounts, reminds Trinidadian blogger Seldo (who recently relocated to San Francisco from London) why he doesn't worry too much about globalisation: “Humanity is a lot more resistant to homogenization than we think. McDonald's has to serve salads in the UK and can't serve beef in India. Multinationals that ship their call centres to India discover that cultural and linguistic problems cause customer satisfaction rates to plummet. Coca-Cola has to change its recipe in every nation it goes to. Globalization is self-limiting.“

Sanjaghak writes that according to new law, women can not have makeup or carry jewlrey or necklace inside her university[Fa].

Jordanian blogger The Black Iris was in for a treat during the Canadian Film Festival, held in Jordan. “It’s been a pretty enjoyable experience getting to watch a handful of Canadian films at the Balad Theater these past few days. I hope they’ll get to host another one come next year,” he writes.

“Estonia is the first country in the world to hold such a parliamentary election by a web-based system in which voters can cast ballots online,” reports A Step At A Time.

Watch a satirical Moldovan cartoon and read more about the country at Scraps of Moscow.

A campaign spear-headed by Jordanian bloggers to preserve the Dibben Forest has been declared a success, announced Jordanian blogger The Black Iris.

Polonium-210 poisoning is a central theme of the latest episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, reports Scraps of Moscow.

Zeid Nassar posts a video link for a commercial featuring Egyptian heart-throb Amr Diab as well as American divas Beyonce and J Lo. “I’m not sure if this is a fancy special effects/post-production job or if Amr Diab was actually on a set with Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce for this Pepsi commercial.
WOW! It’s another East pop-star meets West pop-star from Pepsi,” he writes.

Sochi Travel Info blog reports on yet another recent energy accident that took place in the city that aspires to host the 2014 Olympics.

Russian Spy writes about a surprisingly “democratic” new caviar bar in St. Petersburg.

Russian Kafe posts pictures from the Vodka Museum, based in Verkhnie Mandrogi, a village near St. Petersburg.

Darkness at Noon describes his complex relationship with ukha: “I've spent most of the past week evading the ukha. No, the ukha isn't a branch or directorate of the FSB (KGB for those of you still keeping time with the old calendar). It's the pot of fish soup that lives out on host fam's balcony.”

Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al Yousif says the King's vow to protect freedom of speech is his country might be ignored.
“No sooner than our king vowing to protect the freedoms of expression in Bahrain, than we get yet another journalist dragged in for questioning by the public prosecutor!” he writes.

Moscow-based Darkness at Noon fears he lives in an unsafe neighborhood, but then makes quite a discovery about the nature of the neverending sound of sirens outside his window: “It turns out that Putin himself passes my apartment every day on the way to and from work. Imagine that!”

Foreign Notes translates parts of an article on “Ukrainian commerical enterprises controlled by Russian businessmen,” whose main point is that “the high competitive ability [konkurentosposobnost'] of Russian business in comparison with its Ukrainian counterparts is a myth.”

Olechko writes about the delights and disappointments that Kyiv has to offer to a bread-lover.

Issandr El Amrani, writing in The Arabist,says the German authorities refusal to register a child's name as Jihad - a common Arab name - is ridiculous. “Utterly ridiculous: German authorities are trying to get courts to back them in preventing a baby being named “Jihad” — even though it is a completely common name in the Arab world,” he writes.

Writing in The Arabist, Tim Seah links to Global Voices Online Co-founder Ethan Zuckerman's guide to blogging anonymously here.
“If you’re an anonymous blogger, remember: your pseudonym affords you no protection against anyone with even a little bit of determination and know-how,” he cautions.

In Sociologists Without Borders' blog, we read a petition:”war is not compatible with democracy. As Max Weber wrote, war means use of violence and force against civil society. Therefore,“War for Democracy” or, as Antonio Negri puts it, “ War for Peace!”is paradoxical. In democracy lies peace and, in fact, violence by the abuse of the term democracy will legitimize violence.”

Recursive Hypocrisy traces the history of the oldest unit in the Indian Army - the Madras Regiment . “In spite of being the vehicle with which the British conquered India, the Madras Regiment was mostly abandoned through the 1800s and later disbanded in 1928 — until World War II necessitated a revival. After the Vellore Mutiny in 1806, the British decided not to recruit Tamils as soldiers.”

Madhesh.com may find itself blocked in Nepal. “This site appears to be banned in Nepal. We are not sure if the site has been banned with ALL ISPs, but according to our LOG, we have no visitor at all recently from any of ISPs from Nepal.”

groundviews on the politics of hate and harm. “Most readers in Colombo would have seen the posters of the National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT) calling for the peace, media and leftist ‘Tigers’ to be identified and destroyed. This columnist was asked to comment on the poster by a newspaper and he along with other colleagues condemned the message conveyed by it.”

Light Within on the way we look back at Timurlane. “I wonder why and how governments choose and glorify a particular historical character and ignore others. Stalin valorised some of the cruellest figures in history as outstanding statesmen, including Ivan the Terrible. In 1937 he added Timur’s name to his list of esteemed military commanders. Soviet history books were immediately rewritten to depict Timur as the saviour from the Mongol-Tatar yoke.”

Myat Thura posted a video of dancers from Chin state in Myanmar celebrating the Chin national day.

Laocook.com describes and posts a recipe for Laotian Pho (noodle dish). “I have never seen a dish that changes so much when it reaches the table. You could say that Pho is “Personal”. “

Egyptian blogger The Sphinx has decided to remove links to Digg on his blog because of the increasing attacks on Muslims and Islam. On Digg, The Sphinx says: “comments bashing Islam and calling for the genocide of all Muslims or the destruction of Islam as a whole started getting extremely positive ratings, while the comments saying that it's just a minority of extremists and not the religion got buried very quickly, along with the comments saying that not all Muslims are terrorists, and that the media is just biased and that Islam is in fact not a violent or hateful religion.”

Intelligentsiya blog is reporting that the general manager of the Fiji Daily Post newspaper was arrested by the military. “It could probably have been over a letter from a Fijian in Australia (titled ‘Defunct Police Force') criticising acting Police Commissioner Romanu Tikotikoca for shelving the investigation into army commander Voreqe Bainimarama in connection with his seditious remarks last year.” Bainimarama recently took over the power in Fiji in a coup.

Free Kareem posts a video allegedly showing jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Nabeel Sulaiman screaming after being hit by a police officer here.

Unheard Voices speculates on the political ways of Dr Yunus. “While enjoying a slew of publicity lately (both negative and positive) , Dr. Yunus now is pondering his next steps. Word from inside is that a new team is being formed to form campaign strategy and media relations for NS.”

Kitana blogs in response to a news story in Singapore that talked about a 9 year old girl getting pregnant. The blogger feels that objective sex education should be a must in schools. “I’m irritated at the lack of objective sex education in schools. There is all this moral talk about how this promotes undesirable moral values and promiscuity and so on, but seeing that the result is complacence, unsafe sex practices and the resulting harms that we need to prevent against, I consider the latter a much worse harm than the former, especially because pro-abstinence no longer is as effective culturally as it used to be.”

Jordanian blogger The Observer criticises a new Lebanese television station here , especially after it aired a programme featuring a male belly dancer.

Or Does it Explodes points out some abuses in human rights in Algeria here. The post contains updates on two arrested lawyers and a banned reconciliation conference.

Or Does it Explode reports that citizens critical of the Saudi government are banned from travelling outside their country here. Citing Human Rights Watch, the blogger says the move is “unsurprising.”

Egyptian blogger Whisper of Madness shares some traditional remedies to treat burns here!

Tunisia-based blogger Sub Zero Blue is angered by the amount of blood being spilled in the Holy Land. “Over 5,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army since 2000. Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada in September 2000, until late January 2007, the Israeli army has killed 5,050 Palestinian men, women and children, wounded 49,760 others and detained 10,4000 others…(f)or the same period, 704 Israeli civilians and 316 Israeli occupation forces were killed by the Palestinians,” says the blogger.

Mark, a Lebanese blogger in Kuwait, is apparently running high telephone bills, calling the numbers which appear in 24!

Dennis Matanda writes his last desperate call for the recolonization of Africa, “Look across the African continent today and see who is being villainous. I can, from over my shoulder, look down at Zimbabwe and see their octogenarian President, Mugabe going for another term and gluing himself to the seat of power while his people suffer. I can also see Uganda’s President Museveni abusing the constitution of Uganda by refusing to release treason suspects who have been bailed out. There is the case around Senegal where President Wade, 80, is going to win with more than a 50% majority over his 12 or so competitors – and if he had had his way, Olusegan Obasanjo of Nigeria would have gotten away with sacking his Vice President because the latter crossed to another political party.”

Brenda Zulu writes

Sub-Saharan Africa