Global Voices Online

Taras of Ukrainiana got soaked in the rain last Friday on his way to “Maidan 2.2″ and didn't really expect many opposition supporters to show up at the rally at Kyiv's European Square. But - “not only did the sun come shining brightly, but so did the Orange crowd. I wasn’t the only one with the will to carry on.” Read Taras' impressions and see photos here.

Taras Kuzio discusses Yulia Tymoshenko's lengthy Foreign Affairs piece - and her allegedly good command of English: “In Tymoshenko’s case we can thank her growing knowledge of English on my home region of Yorkshire which produced her rock n’roll son-in-law.”

Christian Espinoza of Tiempos de Blogs [ES] links to the two newest versions of the MySpace social networking site: MySpace Latinoamérica and MySpace En Español. Think Multicultural hears the message loud and clear with these two additions , “Just the metrics that they will release (e.g. “10 million people registered at latino.myspace.com!”) will continue to show advertisers and marketers that there are Latinos online that they need to reach.”

Freelance reporter C. J. Schexnayder paddled deep into the heart of the Peruvian rain forest to profile indigenous rights activist Julio Cusurichi for the San Francisco Chronicle. In his Klephblog, he writes that, “there is a lot more to this story than what I was able to fit in the confines of one newspaper article.” Here, he provides supplementary quotes and additional background information on the plight of the three nomadic tribes that live in the 3,000 square mile reserve in the Madre de Dios region.

Chenette posts a Flickr photoset of shots from Orchid World in Barbados.

St. John has been experiencing some nasty weather - Frank Barnako posts an update, along with a photo of “exactly what many folks on island are worried about - tremendous runoff from the land and construction sites, filing in the bays, and choking the coral.”

At Life in Armenia, Raffi K. tells how he commemorated the anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

Posts from Armenia reports on Global Youth Service Day activities involving school children doing city beautification projects.

Bonnie Boyd reports on how Kazakhstan is carefully navigating domestic and international interests to reform its military.

Birding Mongolia discusses initiatives to protect important bird habitats in Mongolia.

Sue Sypko discusses how photographs taken by Russian Imperial and Soviet photographers communicate different meanings.

Safrang is happy that a census will finally be conducted in Afghanistan and says that it should have been done a while ago.

The Madagascar Electronic Library, now in its sixth month of existence, is home to over twenty free ebooks that have been downloaded over 6,000 times, writes (Fr) Actualité culturelle malgache.

Jaffna takes a close look at how the Left has dominated the interpretation of history in India all these years. “One could disagree. The importance of the Gupta period did not lie in its political hold over the Indo-Gangetic plain from the Hindu Kush to Assam and its links with the Vakatakas that controlled the Deccan. Its significance instead lay in the crystallization of Indic classicism that entailed the incorporation of regional, tribal and folk motifs in a broader civilizational rubric.”

My Himachal on corporate play in the state. “Hydro-electric power projects of private firms in Himachal Pradesh are being pushed by local officers who have made it clear to the people that they have vested interest in these projects. Officers of the state government have tried to influence local activists to support projects that would destroy the livelihoods of local villagers.”

the olive ream sums up global politics. ““I before E except after C” is a mnemonic device that helps me remember the rule for spelling certain words in the English language, such as deceive and siege when I’m describing the actions of the Bush Administration. There’s also a less known memory aid which I qualify as “I before SY when preceded by a ‘Hypo’ “. This writing standard helps formulate the word hypocrisy, which describes the current global, rather repugnant, political status quo.”

The breathless pace of developments in Bangladeshi politics explained by Mash. “The drama over the weekend unfolded on three continents. The first crack in the military’s plan occurred when the Bangladesh High Court responded to a Habeas Corpus petition filed on behalf of Khaleda Zia protesting the military government’s action restricting her to her house without charge. The High Court has ordered the military government to explain in writing within five days why the court should not order the government to produce Khaleda Zia in court to prove that she is not under house arrest. “

Tanvir meets people at Somewhere.in, the guys who made blogging in Bangla that much easier. “Hasin bhai is one of the genius programmer currently working for Somewhere In. He also developed Bangla interface of wordpress, as I heard from Mr. Arild. Mr. Arild is the Coordination Head of Somewhere In. Somewhere In is a representative IT firm in Bangladesh of a Norwegian company named ESCENIC. “

Lebanese blogger Assad Abu Khalil quotes Israeli paper Haartez as saying: “An atmosphere of disappointment, despondency and anxiety prevails in Israel in its 59th year. There is no point in trying to dull the power of these feeling when we mark Memorial Day and Independence Day,” as Israel marks its 59th anniversary.

‘Call me conspiratorial (please do), but Aljazeera.net (Arabic) has this headline: “Olmert shows flexibility toward the Arab peace initiative.” Tomorrow on Aljazeera.net: news about Bush's promotion of freedoms in the Middle East,' writes blogger Khalil Abu Assad in his Angry Arab News Service.

Jordanian blogger Natasha Tynes, who lives in the US, had the chance to watch Egyptian movie Yacoubian Building and gives us her thoughts on it here. “The person introducing the movie at the festival said two things of interest. One: The actual residents of the building are suing the author and moviemaker, as the story is so close to their real lives. Two: This was the most expensive Egyptian movie ever made. Now, I can't help but wonder: Are we witnessing a revival of the Egyptian cinema?” she writes.

Egyptian-based blogger Sandmonkey gives us his take on the French elections here.

Syrian-American relations come under the spotlight in this article posted by Joshua Landis on his blog Syria Comment.

Dubai-based Keefieboy agrees with Dubai strongman Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoom that the Ministries of Education, Justice and Labour “are hindering the development of the UAE rather than helping it and they need a wholesale re-evaluation of what their roles should be and how they should go about doing them.”

Rafiq posts a link to an article about South African bloggers in the Mail & Guardian, “An article in the business section of Mail & Guardian: SA Blogging Bonanza.”

Pause to Ponder defends his opinion about the state of Nigerian democracy: “The above topic was inspired by my last post, which has earned me bashing from 2 fellow bloggers, I bet a lot more are still coming. Their vituperations are long awaited though, because of my own perspectives of weighing Nigeria scenarios differs in a long way with lots of bloggers on the net. Having said this, when and for how long would the intellects of our country continue to rule this country from far away, all by being among the elites that criticise the government, believing that nothing comes out of the government of the day.”

iScatterlings' It’s a Namibian Thing VII: “A lot has been said about apartheid but not too much was mentioned about the white on white apartheid. I suppose it was inevitable in a town like ours to have two distinct factions created. English and Afrikaans. Us kids pepetuated the divide and I cannot believe that as I type I am recalling one or two huge events in our gang warfare. Yes it was puny and innocent stuff compared to what happens these days between gangs but back then as little boys, it was seriously sad that the only time we united was on the sports fileds against a common foe. It’s a Namibian thing.”

“I'm sure tourism numbers are up. And I'm glad that we seem to be making some gains. But…the question is ‘by how much?'”. Politics.bm has some suggestions for measuring tourist arrivals in Bermuda.

Both Caribbean Beat Blog and Thebookmann acknowledge the passing of Trinidadian artist Boscoe Holder.

Abeni is impressed by the swift action of the St. Vincent Police Force in dealing with cyber-culprits who have allegedly been doctoring photos of young Vincentian girls and sending pornographic material out over the Internet.

Myatthura introduces a new web portal from Myanmar. “Still in beta stage, the web portal has some important features such as Myanmar news, International News, Forum, Books, entertainment, etc.”

“As a Torah-observant, patriotic Jew in Eretz Yisrael I long for the day on which I will be able to live in a Jewish polity which operates according to halacha, Jewish law. I sorrowfully see a secular state which is in a desperate race against time to commit suicide before there is a Torah-observant majority ruling it. We must get off the wagon called Medinat Yisrael because it is on the way to self-destruction,” notes Israeli blogger Goyisherebbe as Israel celebrates its 59th anniversary.

Violence in Bahrain and clashes between demonstrators and riot police were the focus of a television programme which Bahraini blogger emoodz watched for an hour before realising it didn't satisfy his quest for learning the reasons behind this escalating stand off. “Needless to say, I had to sit along a one sided conversation praising the way the security forces have dealt with the issue, showing clips of fire blazes and destruction around streets and living neighborhoods. Clips of hooded youngsters as they set tires and gas cylinders on fire were aired and repeated as well dressed cleanly shaved government officials calling them everything from 'saboteurs' to ‘gangsters',” he explains.

Iraqi blogger Lady Bird says the building of the Adhamiya Wall, which circles a sunni enclave in Iraq, will go ahead. “Maliki’s chief of Baghdad security “Al-Assadi” said that the work on the wall will continues. CNN reported that all Iraqis Sunnis and Shiites expressed their anger [video] about the occupiers decision,” she explains.

Iraq's new oil law threatens to tear apart the war-torn country even further, writes Raed Jarrar. “The law threatens Iraq unity through decentralizing the major authorities related to petroleum operations. Many Iraqis view the law as an “Iraq separation fund”. Many observers this that a number of Iraqi separatist leaders, Sunnis and Shias and Kurds, are using this law to implement their separatist agenda. They want to split Iraq into three or more sectarian/ethnic regions. Iraqi nationalist leaders are fighting against the law because they think this is the most dangerous thing that could happen. Iraqi nationalist, Sunnis and Shias and Kurds, believe in a unified Iraq with a central government that controls natural resources,” he explains.

Blogger Chanad Bahraini discusses poverty in Bahrain, saying: “Statements from the prime minister that “new steps are being taken to help needy families in Bahrain” are a dime a dozen. We read about them every few weeks, as the local press always makes sure to give it front page coverage. It’s been like this for as long as I can remember, but those statements are just words, as the underprivileged sections of society continue to be denied this country’s wealth.”

Algerian blogger Nouri provides links which discuss why the Armenian genocide should not be called a genocide and who is a moderate Muslim.

James from Japan Probe criticizes Greenpeace's anti Whaling Video as anti-Japanese and inappropriate.

Fang Jun from Mindmeter started the chain blogging on “the most ‘er' (literally means 'second', extended meaning: ‘inferior' and ‘er') internet company” in China. His choice are: Sina (stops photo sharing), Focusmedia (too much ads), Google (failure in pinyin typing entry), Myspace China and Baidu Japan (zh).

Wang Xiaofeng's choice are: Sina, Sohu, Yahoo (cn), 3721 and blogcn (zh).

William Long comments on the localization of google adsense: Will the localization lead to the intervention of local governmental monitoring bodies? Especially from the revenue department? If the monitoring bodies intervene, can Google protect their customers' privacy? (zh)

Michael, from the Opposite End of China blogs two pictures, one is before the sand storm, the second is taken after 11 minutes. The reader can see how sand storm makes a difference to the environment.

Jason Li from Virtual China introduced a Photo Comic Blog, Very Real People, Very Entertaining. Humor is very difficult to translate, and Jason tried to capture the sense of Chinese Humor in his post.

Fade Out blogs about election dispute in Lesotho over Proportional Representation (PR) system: “The Public Eye has a second story here, which says absolutely nothing… However it seems that all sides are firm in their commitment to resolve this issue peacefully.”

Mirsulzhan Namazaliev reports from the scene on the final day of Kyrgyzstan's protests. In the wake of the dispersal of protesters, the government has been harassing opposition members and opposition publications. Azamat reacts with a call for President Bakiev to leave the opposition alone and get back to work.

Oneworld Multimedia reports on efforts to make Armenian election ballots more accessible to the blind.