Global Voices Online

A YouTube video of Somali-American protest in Minnesota: “Somali-American protest in Minnesota What they called The illigal invasion of Ethiopian army in somalia with the support of George Bush's adminstration.”

A post about Congo's forgotten women in the Sub-Saharan Africa Roundtable: “In 2001, after a disastrous misadventure in the Congo, Ugandan troops trekked back home with a cargo of hundreds of Congolese women they had “married” while fighting in that country. Most of them ended up in northern Uganda where their men had been hastily taken to continue the seemingly endless fight against the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army. But it wasn’t long before the rosy picture the Congolese women had of Uganda turned rough.”

Ndagha introduces Malawian bloggers: “Today, as I look at the road to blogging, I realise it is still a new journey for many fellow Malawians. Since the publication of an article “Malawians Turn to the blogosphere” in March this year, I have recieved lots of comments and enquiries on blogging. I should admit I have been humbled. There are many people who want to start blogging but a bit constrained for now by internet access while others are scared of being misunderstood.”

Basketball legacies from Cape Verde: “In examining the small but intriguing world of Cape Verdean basketball, there are two families who stand out quite prominently. In each case, the athlete is a young woman, and their Father, in one instance, and Uncle, in another, is coaching at the highest levels of major college basketball.”

Andile Mngxitama discusses the presidential succession debate in South Africa in terms of “Market Taliban versus Populist Taliban: “Developments around the presidential succession debate have brought to the fore, at least on the analytical plain, two main contending forces. These forces are symbolically represented in the persons of President Thabo Mbeki on the one hand and his former Deputy Jacob Zuma on the other. For lack of a useful coinage these forces can be characterised as a Market Taliban versus a Populist Taliban.”

Nigerian democracy (DemoCrazy) for dummies from Ijebuman's diary: “A friend wanted to know about naija's democracy, so i've decided to do a dummies style tongue-in-cheek explanation of democracy naija style.”

Blogger Rick Richman brings us up-to-date with the latest developments in the Israeli town of Sdoret.
“The invaluable One Jerusalem held a bloggers’ conference call today with Noam Bedein of the Sderot Media Center to provide some perspective. The audio of the call is here.
Bedein told a story of rockets all the time, usually in the morning to terrorize the kids on their way to school (half the kids in Sderot are clinically traumatized), no governmental support (much less retaliation), no media coverage in the absence of blood (but the entire city is terrorized by anxiety every time there is a 15 second Red Alert) — just sports, weather and seven seconds of ‘rockets again in Sderot, no one injured,'” he explains.

Syrian blogger Abu Kareem reports that human rights activist Kamal al-Labwani was sentenced to 12 years in prison for communicating with a foreign country and inciting it to initiate aggression against Syria.

Israeli blogger Imshin is disgusted with the ‘unreasonable' demands by Israeli students enrolled in subsidized universities. “So what we have here is one of the strongest segments of society, who are behaving like spoilt brats, violently demanding that the state continue to heavily subsidize them. The state is suggesting, via the Shochat committee, that they pay more, but are able to take loans so that they can pay for their education over an extended period. The state is also suggesting that more people will be eligible for grants and scholarships. And that people who are studying for highly paid professions, such as, I suppose, accountancy, will pay higher university tuition. In return, the state will increase the university budgets.
It all sounds extremely fair to me,” writes the blogger.

Iraqi blogger Omar gives us an overview of the political situation in Iraq. He admits that it is a rough time but insists that he will not panic. “The political process in Iraq has reached another very critical and important stage. This is the time that will decide if Iraq will emerge as a country that can sustain itself and where groups of people-while have many differences-can share this nation and coexist peacefully.
There's no doubt that this is going to be a difficult journey until key requirements to reconciliation, especially the oil distribution law and the Justice and Accountability law (which will replace the debaathification law) see the light. Many concessions will have to be made by every one of the major constituents of this country before the final compromise is reached,” he notes.

Iraqi blogger Lady Bird links to a newspaper article which claims that there are 14,000 Iraqi prisoners held in her country - making it a new Guantanamo, which no one knows about.

Lebanese blogger Anton Efendi sheds light on the role Syria is playing in Iraq.
“Reality is that Syria has zero assets inside Iraq. It has no influence over any Iraqi political group (here's a test, to contrast with Iran: name a single Iraqi politician that can be said to be “Syria's guy.” Exactly.). This is why they tried to create a seat for themselves at the table by hosting a sham Baath party conference in Syria, where certain marginal Iraqi Baathi figures were co-opted. The result was that the Iraqi Baath party disowned them and attacked the Syrians for trying to create a splinter leadership,” he notes.

Blogger Dan Fleshler reports that IDF soldiers have received orders to prevent Palestinians from accessing the Dead Sea. “This is the kind of story that feeds into the increasingly popular tendency to equate Israel with South Africa under apartheid. I don’t buy into this equation…yet. There are a number of good arguments that show the differences,” he argues.

An exhibition of photographs of Arab women leaves Lebanese blogger Leila Abu-Saba scratching her head. “I do scratch my head, however, at the breathless description of the purpose of the show. See Arab women cross-dressing! Unveiled! Scantily clad! Those poor Arab women, they used to be liberated and now they're all veiled and oppressed! Look at these pictures, they are so surprising! Arab women aren't all just hiding under burqas! They have intense, modern cultural interests that have been documented for the last hundred years - what a shock!” she rants.

Palestinian blogger Haitham Sabbah reports about mass protests to end Israeli occupation, planned on June 9th and 10th in Washington, DC.

Debito comments on a New York Times article describing the case of 13 men and women “acquitted this year in a local district court, which found that their confessions had been entirely fabricated“. Debito notes that “The Japanese authorities have long relied on confessions to take suspects to court, instead of building cases based on solid evidence. Human rights groups have criticized the practice for leading to abuses of due process and convictions of innocent people.”

Syrian blogger Wassim charges that Al Hurra is an American propaganda channel. “A lecturer of mine invited me to a talk that was being held by Al Hurra in London (a channel I despise) called the ‘Arab Europeans'. I will review it later and also about what I plucked up the courage to blurt on camera :)
Now I have a strong desire to go wash myself, I feel unclean..” he writes.

The blogger at Morir Antes Que Esclavos Vivir [ES] is bewildered that the case is closed in the investigation of the murder of Cristian Urresti, the 17-year old Cochabamba resident killed in the civil unrest of January 2007. Even though there are supposed amateur video and eyewitnesses of the death, the police deemed that there was insufficient evidence.

Seems blogger Lam Chun See's son has been “porning” a lot lately. This “porning” has nothing to do with pornography. Lam Chun See explains what this Singlish term means.

Singapore's Intrepid traveller Popagandhi is in the Thai-Myanmar borderlands and meets an old soldier from the Nationalist Army that fled into South-East Asia after the communists took over China.

Video sharing site YouTube has agreed to take down the videos that ridiculed the Thai king and offended the Thai government. Thailand had threatened to sue Google and YouTube is currently blocked in Thailand.New Mandala has some questions. “Following this development, there are many new questions: When will YouTube be available again in Thailand? Will YouTube now block any future content that is deemed illegal in Thailand? Will there be a global ban on content deemed to breach the Thai lèse majesté provisions? Will the provocateurs who uploaded the offending YouTube videos now just find other outlets for their work? Will they be banned too?”