Global Voices Online

“I have a friend who had a wonderful idea: he wanted to have his right hand amputated. Very seriously. Went to see a surgeon, said, ‘How much does it cost, I'm ready to pay.' He wanted to have a porcelain hand made to replace it,” writes US-based Lebanese blogger JiJ here.

Lebanese blogger Asad Abukhalil gives us his two cents on what he thinks of Egypt's First Lady Suzanne Mubarak here.
‘She has such a natural and unaffected personality. She answered all the questions directly, intelligently, and informatively. In fact, watching the interviews make you realize more how annoying and artificial Khuri (and other Lebanonese TV personalities) are. And she gave a very sensible critique of the methodology of UNDP on surveys on “female genital mutilation”,' he wrote.

Lebanese blogger Asad Abu Khalil is amused that a 76-year-old Saudi has married a 15-year-old girl.

Joshua Kucera continues his user-submitted video tour of the Caucasus with the best of Armenia from YouTube.

Public Policy Watch writes about Martisor, “the celebration of beginning of spring, life and love in Moldova” by the Moldovan Diaspora in the United States.

Mongolia Matters notes that Mongolia will see a total eclipse of the sun in August, 2008, and says that travel companies are already offering tour to see the eclipse.

All About Latvia writes about the country's Eurovision Song Contest entry this year.

“Get ready world the former Yugoslav republics are taking over Eurovision!” writes bganon in a comment to a comprehensive review of this year's entries from the region posted at Belgrade 2.0.

London Sevdah writes about the Bosnian way of drinking coffee and other traditions: “In Bosnia everything is fairly special and treated as such by most people - birth of a new baby, a game of football, coffee drinking, fishing and so on.”

Registan.net says that plans to overhaul Uzbekistan's school system will lead to more corruption in education.

Bosnia Vault analyzes the ICJ verdict's “trends, consequences, and more.”

Lebanese blogger Mustapha posts of a picture driven by Syrian president Bashar Al Assad. The new car was designed in Iran and built in Syria.

Afghan Lord marks International Women's Day by describing the suffering of Afghanistan's women.

Wu Wei has posted some of the photos from her old trips to Russia at Flickr, here.

Neretva River writes about Serbia's plans to sue Croatia over the wartime ethnic cleansing of Croatian Serbs - here and here.

Serbia and Croatia are likely to join the EU real soon, Neretva River reports.

Blogger Abu Aardvark (aka Marc Lynch) writes an in-depth article on the Muslim Brotherhood bloggers here. “Over the last few months, young Muslim Brotherhood members have begun blogging in force. This sudden, dramatic development may come as a surprise to western observers, who generally assume that blogging empowers liberal, pro-western voices,” he writes.

A “no comment” post at East Ethnia: “Man drives stake in grave of Slobodan Milošević.” The post is filed under the “vampires” category.

Eric Gordy of East Ethnia explains the ICJ verdict (”171 pages of pure lawyerese”) in a Q&A format.

Darkness at Noon ruminates on the winter and its demise, and a little bit on the Russian politics, too: “Eventually the temperatures rise, the thaw begins, and Muscovites no longer have to worry about the knock in the middle of the street. But as with any regime chage, there is a new landscape that must be navigated.”

Palestinian blogger Eman posts an open letter to the world leaders here and urges all Arab bloggers to spread the word. “(W)e demand every person in position of responsibility, every international organization, every satellite channel, every media professional, all those to whom this letter is addressed and all those who read it to immediately demand halting violations, destruction, demolition and digging of the scared sanctities in Al-Aqsa Mosque, and ensure access to it for worshippers to practice their right of worship,” she writes.

The Economist's Edward Lucas sees the recent election in Estonia as “both important and worrying.” There are 36 comments to the entry so far, many of them about the fate of the Bronze Soldier monument, and some in Estonian.

The Party of the Regions' stronghold, Eastern Ukraine, isn't experiencing its best times - which could possibly mean that the prime minister would have to fight hard to stay where he is: Foreign Notes translates a relevant newspaper article.

Siberian Light interviews Copydude: “Russia is as democratic, or undemocratic, as anywhere else.”

“On March 8, 1917 scores of women protested WWI, bread prices, and poverty in Petrograd’s industrial Vyborg district,” writes Sean's Russia Blog about the beginning of the February Revolution whose 90th anniversary is marked this year.

Anton Verstakov's photos from Sergiev Posad at Russia Blog.

According to Omid Memarian,all jailed women activists are released except three of them.The blogger adds “one of the women released in the second group told Rooz,an online magazine,: “The interrogators were not impolite; however, conditions inside the prison were not good at all. If we needed something, we had to bang on the door a thousand times and scream.”

Christian Espinosa follows the ongoing success of YouTube “techno-folklorist” Delfin. A new YouTube interview reveals that the web2.0 phenomenon grew up in a straw house in the small village of Guano in Chimborazo province.

Omar Perez Santiago admits on his personal blog [ES] that he in fact was the creator of Diario del Presidente. Blog de un Animal Político [ES], the wildly popular blog that claimed to be written by former president, Ricardo Lagos. “The diffusion of the blog was easy. I announced it on the blog of Senator Fernando Flores who, in that time, was the epicenter of bloggers.” Perez sites Duchamp, Warhol, Wu Ming as earlier pranksters.

Seeking a respite from the rising north-of-the-equator temperatures? Head over to the Cooking Diva Blog and learn how to make popscicles from red hibiscus and yogurt.

“Everybody is talking about two things this week in Uruguay. The first one is Argentina's 2007 edition of Big Brother, the reality show, and the way Nadia was kicked out :) The second one, is the fact that Bush is arriving this friday to Uruguay along with Condolezza Rice, and all the turmoil this is generating.” More from Gabo.

Mark in Mexico, who spent the past two weeks in “one of the oldest and best established private schools in Oaxaca City,” hints at his upcoming series on private education in Oaxaca.

The Travel Photographer introduces Brazilian photojournalist and ethnographer Antonio Mari.

As George Bush heads to Latin America, White House officials make the claim that US aid to Latin America has doubled since Bush took office. But is it true? Adam Isacson examines the numbers.

Blogs by Khmer takes offense at Cambodian Prime Minister's recent speech where he asked the people not to beg his party for schools and other facilities if the party looses the elections. “Shame on you, Mr. Prime Minister! Improving people's lives by building schools, hospitals, bridges, libraries, roads are the government obligation, sir.”

Our Awsome Planet shares images from the blogger's recent trip to Egypt. “This is my humble attempt to share the experience with you, and I feel that there are no words to describe accurately the experience. I immediately went over to www.new7wonders.com to vote for The Great Pyramids of Egypt as part of the new 7 wonders of the world which will be announced on July 7, 2007.”

Caffeinesparks celebrates the Women's day by digging up statistics that points to Philippines having the most number of women in top corporate positions. “My country tops the list of countries with the most number of senior management executives among 32 surveyed nations (including yours). In the region where wives supposedly walk a few paces behind their husbands and some are required to wear head scarves/veils, 42% of businesses are run by women.”

Susan Loone introduces some of the interesting Malaysian women bloggers she has come across. “It’s a man world they say. And that was how I felt when I started blogging. Most of the events by bloggers were headed by men, most of the commentators were men. I knew there were many women out there who are just as interesting, talented and exciting. But where were they? Where were you? So, I ventured out on this journey to seek for them, for you, and look what I found!”

Mayvelous, the Burmese blogger in Fiji gets a new training assignment and she is blogging her training notes “So here I am, sharing my notes. You have a choice to read or ditch them, it’s entirely up to you. I’m still learning and those technologies are very new for me, hence my notes gonna have heaps of errors and wrong information. You are most welcome to correct them, fill somemore in and share you notes with me too. Alrite, so we are set to go.”

A member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference suggests to Change the name of Fu-nu's Day (婦女節) to Nu-xin's Day (女性節), following Japan's example. Zhaihua points out(zh) that such change is unnecessary, because Nu-xin according to traditional Chinese, is more discriminative than Fu-nu.

Granite Studio introduces an ancient writing “The Faults of Qin” from Han Dynasty that criticizes authoritarianism of Qin dynasty and conveys idea of balance power between the state and thoughtful people.