Global Voices Online

Tunisian blogger Astrubal writes[Fr]: “Tunisian blogs and sites have been censored, then those of civil society, then those of LEGITIMATE political parties, now the stupidity of Ben Ali's regime is attacking Dailymotion, one rare remaining space of freedom for Tunisians… Yesterday (April 1st), the Ben Ali dictatorship decided to behead Dailymotion in public .” The blogger posts a Dailymotion clip of a 2004 Bush-Ben Ali conference.

Demain le Congo Brazzaville posts [Fr] a complaint lodged in the French accusing of embezzlement African leaders such as Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassoun Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville and Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso. The complaint acknowledges that a French judge cannot adjudicate on salaries of African dictators but emphasizes the massive amounts of real estate owned by the accused African leaders in France.

Cricketwukup.com rates various aspects of Sunday's Cricket World Cup match between the West Indies and Sri Lanka. The highest marks go to the crowd, for “bravery in the face of the adversity”.

Claudia4Libertad links to a petition requesting that Cuban-American music star Gloria Estefan reconsider having Carlos Santana appear as a guest artist on her tribute to Cuba album “90 Millas” on account of Santana's professed admiration of Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

Andy Moonsammy posts a video mashup on YouTube mixing video from the show “Riverdance” with tassa drumming and Indo-Caribbean chutney music.

Guyana-Gyal's mother's hoarse voice - the result of a foreign “taliban flu” - reminds Guyana-Gyal of the voices of the vendors on Water street who “don’t talk to one another. They shout.”

Vietnamese God takes us to a friend's wedding in the Vietnamese countryside.

Stuart Towns comments on the recently announced Internet usage tax in Thailand. “And it only gets worse: “In addition to the bandwidth tax, an extra usage tax of 490 Baht (US$14)will be levied on those using Bittorrents and surfing foreign language internet forums.” Unbelievable!”

update: Thai blogger iteau exposes this is an April fool prank.

Leila Tanayeva reports on a new, ultra-moder construction project for Almaty's Republic Square.

Culture Shiok comments on the decision by the Singpore's health authorities to show an anti-smoking advert after 8 PM as some children found the advert too disturbing. “Airing the advertisement late at night may spare some children from having nightmares (Do Singapore youngsters go to bed that early?). We'll just have to wait and see how this will change the smoking trend in this small country.”

Tolkun Umaraliev reports on an April Fool's story that appeared in the Kyrgyz press.

Yang-May Ooi writes about one of her readers tagging her as a “Thinking Blogger”. “I like the idea behind this award because it will make us all review the blogs we follow as readers, asking “Which one makes me think?” As bloggers, it challenges us to perhaps delve a bit deeper the next time we write a post and to think a bit harder when we write so that we can give our readers some more food for thought.”

Eating Asia visits Philippines to try out local food. The blogger has posted pictures and recipes of some of the dishes.

Sean Roberts says that Kyrgyzstan's president may have have staved off upcoming opposition protests against him, though he is not entirely out of the woods yet. Roberts says that eventually though, the president will run out of political lives.

Steady State says that the president of Abkhazia, a de facto independent region in Georgia, is trying to attract ethnic Abkhaz who fled to Turkey a century ago to return. Though the largest ethnic group in Abhkazia, all other non-Abkhaz ethnic groups combined outnumber ethnic Abkhaz in the region.

Onnik Krikorian reports on the public events marking the fifth anniversary of the closure of A1 Plus, the only alternative voice in Armenia's broadcast media.

Afghan Warrior notes that re-enlistments in the Afghan National Army are very low, and says that the government should increase pay, replace old equipment, and provide housing for Afghanistan's troops.

Kenyan Pundit asks, “Women, where are thou?”: Several of my virtual and real buddies have received scholarships to attend TED Arusha. So far, all the receipients that I know are male…a trend similar to the Blogging Indaba last year… and I’m curious to know whether there are any women out there who’ve applied for/ received a scholarship to TED. Please leave a comment if so.

The Armenian Odar reports on poor treatment for dialysis patients at a Yerevan hospital.

Voices are starting to rise up against malnutrition in Colombia. First Carlos Raúl van der Weyden Velásquez writes “we should not be surprised” after news leaked out about the the dozens of starving children who died in Western Chocó department. Adam Isacson describes a protest against hunger in the Colombian municipality of San Miguel, Putumayo, along the border with Ecuador.

Estimates are that as many as 200,000 Bolivians have migrated to Spain in the last three years … The lines at the passport office here in Cochabamba have been so long for so long that people sleep by the door just for the chance to get a ticket securing a space to come back weeks later,” writes Jim Shultz in his summary of reaction to Spain's decision to require visas from visiting Bolivians. Miguel Buitrago adds that “at this point in time, there are no more tickets available to travel by plane. The two airlines servicing that route, LAB and Aero Sur, have sold out all their seats. Additionally, LAB, the Bolivian airline, has been having trouble keeping up with its bills and just days ago, it has completely ceased operations and canceled all its flights to Spain.”

With CNN and the BBC no longer readily available in Buenos Aires, perhaps it's time to get acquainted with what the Colombian magazine Semana calls the “100 best novels written in Spanish in the past 25 years.” Or, if you prefer poetry, Blogs de Bolivia points readers toward a new anthology of contemporary Latin American poetry including Bolivia poet Blanca Wiethuchter.

“The unwashed masses have spoken,” writes Natalia Antonova in her post about Verka Serdyuchka/Andriy Danylko.

A Fistful of Euros writes about Ukraine, and about revolutions eating their children, and about “shift[ing] away from snipers towards tents and blogs as a means of resolving political conflict.”

Abdymok.net posts updates on the situation in Ukraine following the president's decision to dissolve the parliament.

Enidd describes what it feels like to be in the center of a revolution: “the main thrust of the revolution seemed to be seeing who could wave most flags and jump about the most, and who had the loudest sound system - which made it very like the reading festival, apart from three things: the music was all crap, the only drug available was alcohol and, most notably, a zillion clean portaloos had appeared overnight, all along kreshchatyk and around maidan.”

Ukrainiana explains the essence of “the spring sequel to the Orange Revolution.”

Barcamp Bangalore 3's on and is seeing a huge number of participants. Photographs tagged with the barcamp at flickr. Posts by Himanshu on the Barcamp here, orione. Meanwhile Ponder Point explain what exactly a barcamp is.

Inspired by a New Zealander blogging about Honduras while in Ireland, “La Gringa” agrees with the description of Honduras as “sweatshop-friendly.”

According to Zannevesht [Fa] at least three women activists were arrested while they collected the signatures for the Campaign “One Million Signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws.” It happened in Laleh park in Tehran.

Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar criticises Senator John McCain's visit to Iraq, saying that the impression it gave about the level of safety and security in Baghdad was misleading. “I don't think many Iraqis can afford to hire some hundreds of bodyguards and a few helicopters to protect them while they are shopping. Do you realize how would it be for a regular Iraqi to go shopping without the US army's protection, do you realize how your shopping spree would have looked like if you went to a real market with cars driving around?
“How does it feel when you can't stop lying? Don't you think that a better way to support the US, the President, the Republicans, or even yourself is to tell the truth and end illegal interventions in other countries?” he writes.

Iraqi blogger Truth Teller posts two photographs allegedly portraying blasphemous acts committed by US marines in Iraq. One shows a drawing of a cross on the Quran and the second graffiti on a wall which reads: Our God is better than your God.

Writing for The Arabist, Issandr El Amrani links to an article written by a Muslim Brotherhood author in defence of jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Nabeel Sulaiman, who is serving four years for insulting both Islam and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

A post on the outbreak of a fire in the Sayeddah area of Cairo, Egypt, by blogger Frederik Richter triggered this comment from reader Amil Khan: “One of the fires I went to was right next to the office. I was surprised to find the same senior policeman who oversaw the beating of protesters. To be fair though, he beat the fire onlookers too. I spoke to a bank worker who said that at certain times of the year you’ll see many fires in offices and banks across Cairo. He said they are usually started by senior employees who have been busy in some sort of dodgy dealing and are looking to neatly cover up the evidence.”

Bahraini blogger Silly Bahraini Girl criticises legal action being taken against two youth accused of making animal noises to a policeman.

Bahraini blogger Silveroo calls for an all-female bloggers meeting, sparking an argument in which some of accusations exchanged were “sexist” and “genderphobic.”

Bahraini blogger Manama Republic laments the loss of a Bahraini security guard, who was shot outside a nightclub, and sheds light on a whole generation of ‘forgotten' Bahrainis. He questions the lack of police interest in pursuing the perpetrator of this heinous act and wonders whether the killer was a well-heeled blue-blooded specimen. The guard was declared brain-dead and lies in hospital.

Algerian blogger Nouri discusses a new wave of Arabism, led by Saudi Arabia. “Saudi Arabia has been driving efforts to construct a regional Arab block to check Iranian influence in the Middle East, a fact that has some American commentators worried,” he writes.

Visit Bhutan on archery as the national game of Bhutan. “The Archery Games attract huge numbers of crowd during the Losar or New years eve where people gather and watch their villages archer edge past over the other villages archer, the archer range or the target would be decorated and the host villages have their own cheers leader girls disturbing the enemy villages while taking aim or the shots.”

The owners of “the coolest nail house in history” have finally signed an agreement with the developer. And the pioneer citizen reporter zuola's blog is now blocked by GFW (zh).

MaXXa on the politics of NGOs in Sri Lanka. “The activeness of NGO's in Sri Lanka is full of life especially in issues related to ongoing ethnic conflict and other relevant matters. Whether their intention for such activeness is bona fide or malafide or just to promote their hidden agendas, it causes a substantial influence in government's decision making. The vulnerability of the Government before the International is so high due to the statements release by several NGO's.”

Metroblogging Islamabad suggests that money be spent in better ways. “The huge amount of money spent on rallies that is, apart from political propoganda, is not effective at all and the lightening of buildings on such huge scale country-wide, this could have been spent on feeding few mouths, buying few life necessities for some, a positive thinking and the courage to take FIRST STEP is needed.”

Khatmandu Speaks on the state of citizen journalism.”Nepali blogosphere- like Nepali citizen reporters who surfaced in Ohmynews International- has roots as old as the royal takeover of King Gyanendra on February 1, 2005. Prior to February 1, the Nepali blogosphere was like a concealed treasure, a secretly kept diary- known to only few insiders and friends. Today, Nepali blogosphere is open and being populated every other day.”

ESWN has translated an article, “The Most Awesome Nailhouse” Gives Birth to “Citizen Journalism”, by Chen Wanying from yweekend.

James from Japan Probe blogs about the recent sand storm (with video) in Japan. The mainstream media described the sand storm as a Chinese invasion.

Jamie blogs about an irregular worker sit in action in Ulsan.