Global Voices Online

Polish road signs - at Polandian: “All road signs should be taken with a pinch of salt and interpretations read with tongue firmly in cheek.”

The Macedonian Tendency shares the schedule of the Macedonian Film Festival that will take place in London next week.

Babel in Vilnius reports on the second Lithuanian bloggers conference - BLOGin 2008 - held in Vilnius in early April.

Ukrainiana writes about the “Hitler toy” story that first appeared on the Russian TV and was later picked up by BBC: “To the extent that the Western media often cite Russian sources as an authority on Ukraine, they also partake in this smorgasbord of Soviet-style propaganda.”

A lively discussion of Hungarian history - at Hungarian Spectrum.

Scatts writes about Poland's capital at Polandian: “Thanks to either greed, bad planning, ineffective regulations or a combination of all three, Warsaw is slowly becoming a city hidden behind gigantic advertisements.” On 20 East, Scatts posts pictures and describes the route of a “favorite Warsaw walk.” Both entries feature the ubiquitous red-and-white poles - which have also earned a post of their own, on 20 East.

AnTyx writes about playing the Dozor Night Game in Estonia, which “[grew] out of games that have been played for centuries; and certainly after the fall of the Soviet Union every young boy (and a surprising share of girls) all over its former territory went crawling around crumbling industrial parks. But the advent of modern technology - mobile phones, GPS, and the ubiquity of information on the Internet - has taken a pastime and turned it into a sport.”

A post on the Greek-Macedonian relationship - and nearly 800 comments to it - at Mark Mardell's Euroblog (BBC).

Egyptian Zeinobia marked Earth Day yesterday by celebrating the victory of the people Damitta, who fought off plans to have a factory in Ras el Bar.

From Egypt, Mostafa Hussein marks his fourth anniversary as a Gmail user with this post.

Egyptian blogger Zeinobia updates us about the whereabouts of Esraa Abdelfattah, who was jailed in Egypt for allegedly creating a Facebook group which encouraged people to take part in the April 6 strike.

From Cairo, Elijah Zarwan writes: “A man killed the owner of a government bakery when the baker refused to sell him bread.”

Syrian Abu Fares marks his blog' second anniversary with a post about blogging in his country.

Matheus Pacini makes available in Portuguese [pt] a translation of The silent tsunami, from The Economist, to support his post about the food crisis.

Ultra Voilet from India makes a case for women to be taxed differently by the government.

Nepal Monitor on the influence of immigrants on the US presidential elections.

A photo essay on Mumbai Magic - “In Mumbai, a small community from Andhra Pradesh worships the Goddess Mariamman every summer, seeking protection from smallpox, chickenpox and all forms of disease.”

Zimpundit blogs for Pajama Media discussing the political situation in Zimbabwe: “While journalists, bloggers, and activists chronicled the dilemma of a nation that voted for the politics of change, the more significant undercurrent — that of Zimbabweans voting for a change in Zimbabwean politics — seems to have been lost in the furor. There is a difference between a politics of change and a change of politics. In the former, dissatisfied voters elect candidates they hope will transform prevailing circumstances. These voters look to new politicians and hope politics will change their situation. The meteoric rise of Barack Obama, the once unheralded rookie senator from Illinois in the USA, is a case in point of this phenomenon.”

The Inconvenient Truth is a report by The Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) about elections in Zimbabwe: “The 15 page report is titled ‘The Inconvenient Truth: A complete guide to the delay in releasing the results of Zimbabwe’s presidential poll.’, and can be downloaded in .pdf format from our website here.”

kiskeácity remembers two influential Caribbean icons.

“On an abandoned wall in Port of Spain, a graffiti artist declares the right for public art”: Thebookmann explains.

A wide angle of view of India on the culture of drying clothes on a line, and why it's far more environment friendly than using dryers.

Bermuda Longtail blogs about legislating road safety.

Elena reports about a short protest against the American airbase, which was held today in the Old Square in Bishkek, the Kyrgyzstan's capital city.

Patrick Frost reviews an optimistic appraisal of Afghanistan’s stability by the US Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who has stated that the Afghan army and police forces should be able to secure most of the country by 2011.

Joshua Foust reports that Iranian officials were forced to admit defeat in the gas pricing dispute with Turkmenistan.

The Council of Afghan Mullahs has warned private TV channels in Afghanistan to immediately stop broadcasting Indian soap operas, hadi1121 reports.

The Rumi analyzes the reported preparations of Hamed Karzai, the incumbent president of Afghanistan, for the second presidential win.

The Macau government decided to give every citizen 5000 dollars for relieving the inflation problem. Long ching noticed that rather than appreciating such move, people are skeptical of the policy [zh].

ESWN puts together comments from various sources and translates a Chinese article from my1510 criticizing Grace Wang's essay in the Washington Post.

Anti in nationonline.com (a nationalistic website) urged people to anti “anti-CNN” and criticized that the anti-CNN is run by commercial organization.

Is Bahrain the happiest place in the Gulf? Bahraini Mahmood Al Yousif challenges a newspaper claim in this post.

A tragic fire that killed 15 people in a Quito, Ecuador disco due to the improper use of fireworks indoors. Danny Ayala Hinojosa of El Federalista [es] places blame on the public sector for not enforcing the laws.