Global Voices Online

We’re always looking for new ideas and good stories to write about. If you have a story or a blog post that you think would be a good fit for our daily roundups, email us with the link!

Latin America

Venezuelan News and Views speculates on why neither Trinidad and Tobago nor Barbados signed Hugo Chavez's oil venture, Petrocaribe [es].

The Devil's Excrement questions the significance of Venezuelan Information and Communication Minister, Andrés Izarra's statement that he was not expecting Fidel Castro's visit yesterday.

Tim's El Salvador Blog reports that the White House has agreed to throw in $40 million of aid to Central America as a way to sell CAFTA to democrats.

Fernando Flores summarizes the current political crisis in Brazil [es] and points to Libardo Buitrago who summarizes why Lulu is not able to form an alliance [es].

Elecciones Presidenciales 2005 [es] writes that Chilean presidential candidates Joaquín Lavìn and Sebastián Piñera have agreed to an upcoming televised debate. The office of Socialist front-runner, Michelle Bachelet said she will not be taking part. Meanwhile, Piñera himself writes [es] that he is “astonished by the immediate and gigantic response this [blog] has generated.”

Babalú asks why the mainstream media has forgotten about Elian Gonzalez who was returned to Cuba five years ago.

Juanson World suggests the Mexican government needs a lesson in political correctness as they release a series of Memín Pingüin commemorative stamps just weeks after President Vincente Fox complained that in the US, Mexicans do work that not even Blacks would do. Isopixel, on the other hand, says his northern neighbors need to calm down and take a refresher course in history (referring to US slavery). His readers seems to agree.

The Latin America roundup was compiled by David Sasaki (el Oso).

South Asia

Pakistan’s main internet connection has been down for several days, but many ISPs have switched—or are switching—to backup connections, so connectivity in the country is slowly coming back up.Umar at Metroblogging Karachi reports that his ISP is back up, but the connection is painfully slow. (via Sean Bonner) Misha, another blogger forced off-line by the outage writes about being forced to go cold turkey off the internet.

The Nepalese opposition blog United We Blog reports that they’ve been profiled by the Overseas Press Club of America.

Europe

Loic Le Meur and Udo Schroeter discuess why blogging uptake in Germany has been relatively slow.

A Fist Full of Euros on Spain’s move to legalize gay marriage.

Julio Alonso of Merodeando notes that, in Spain alone, the blog service MSN Spaces has already registered more than a million users [es]

Africa

Black Looks reports that communities in the Niger Delta have sued the Nigerian government and a number of oil companies because of the open burn-off of natural gas. The flares contribute significantly to air pollution in the area.

Meskel Square picked up a copy of the paper the other day to find a copy of one of his blog posts on the front page. Apparently newspapers in Ethiopia take a somewhat relaxed view of copyright…

This is Zimbabwe asks where does the Church stand in relation to Mugabe?

Kenyan Pundit points to a great story that outlines some of the built-in inefficiencies at Telkom Kenya.

The Middle East

Saudi Jeans points to a newspaper article that says that a two week course at Imam Mohammed Bin Saud Islamic University for any Saudi student who wishes to study in the United States is a “waste of money and time.”

Omar at Iraq the Model has an update on the progress of the Iraqi Constitution.

Iran Scan has an article about Iran’s longest-imprisoned journalist, Akbar Ganji.

Israellycool takes on the the Condoleezza Rice ex-boyfriend theory.

East Asia

Is Korean pop culture taking over the world? The Marmot’s Hole a story in the New York Times that profiles the export of South Korean pop culture overseas.

The Korean blogosphere has been agog over the case of a young woman who refused to clean up the mess her dog made in the subway, reports Japanpundit. Some other bloggers, though, feel that the girl’s privacy has been violated.

The Hong Kong Journalists Association has created a Chinese-language blog to protest the arrest and continued detention of Singaporean journalist Ching Cheong on the mainland.

Photograph by Chris Drumgoole

South-East Asia

Thai-Blogs.com sends a fish tale our way: fishermen in northern Thailand have landed a 646-pound catfish; it’s believed to be the largest freshwater fish ever caught. There’s also a pretty amazing picture to go along with the text…

Given the news that oil has passed the $60/barrel mark, Mack Zulkifi of Brand New Malaysian thought it might be prudent to stop by the gas station on the way home to fill up. Apparently, most of Kuala Lumpur thought that it was a good idea as well…

Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi was interviewed on NPR about blogging and cyber-dissents today. Also participating in the talk show were Iranian blogger Hoder and GV’s own Rebecca MacKinnon.

Mr.Brown continues his coverage of l’affair SPG by noting that Sarong Party Girl’s blog is being filtered by government agencies. He wonders if they’re afraid that hardworking Singaporean civil servants will be corrupted by her site.

Saigon-based food blog Noodlepie brings us the story of a restaurant that was forced to shut down because they were lacing the food with gold. The restaurant owners claimed that ingesting gold had health benefits; however, the Health Ministry disagreed.

Rajan Rishyakaran has a very short comment about the Organization of the Islamic Conference’s call for a permanent Muslim seat on the UN’s Security Council.

We’re always looking for new ideas and good stories to write about. If you have a story or a blog post that you think would be a good fit for our daily roundups, email us with the link!

South-East Asia

Tales from Disiniland suggests that embattled Philippines President Gloria Arroyo should take a page out of Bill Clinton’s political playbook.

Singabloodypore notes that would-be Olympic vote protesters could be arrested should they try to organize in Singapore.

Brand New Malaysian alerts us to the plight of a Malaysian blogger who is on the business end of a cease-and-desist letter from a giant US corporation regarding his domain name.

Photograph by Yoshiki Okamoto

The Middle East

Who is Lebanese? The Lebanese Blogger Forum posts an email that laments the habit of overseas Lebanese to downplay their Lebanese heritage.

The Lebanese Political Journal on the phenomenom of the “Waraqa Bayda”, or “white paper”.

What happens when a society that only recognizes religious law has to deal with the reality of a world more complex than religious law was designed to handle? Crossroads Arabia points to an article that suggests that law schools may soon open in Saudi Arabia.

The question of whether or not Saudi Arabia should let women drive raises its head again, reports Saudi Jeans.

The Silly Bahraini Girl, having recovered from a nasty enounter with the flu, posts images of protesters who were beaten by Bahraini police.

More Iranian election fallout: The Eyeranian suggests that Ahmadinejad’s election is not entirely the disaster that it’s been made out to be.

Isam Bayazidi greets the news that Jordan’s King Abdullah will create an anti-corruption committee with a certain degree of skepticism.

Iraq the Model has a list of recent successes against the terrorists in Iraq.

Free Iraqi reports that Saddam’s palaces will be turned into cultural centers.

Farangopolis puts out a bulletin on a missing Iranian filmmaker. Farshid Faraji was arrested by American military forces in Iraq on May 19 after entering the country to film historic sites and has not been heard from since his arrest.

Latin America

Babalú, celebrates it second anniversary [en] of blogging about Cuba and summarizes, “Not much has changed in Cuba these past two years, but we still have one thing: [hope]” They also suggest a letter writing campaign to Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic [en] to protest new, direct flights from Britain to the communist island.

MABB emphasizes the importance of the Bolivian congress [en] right now and spells out six important decisions to be made in the upcoming months.

Eduardo Ochoa, using Google Maps new coverage of South America, points out the new location [es] of last Saturdays, “First Blogs and Beer Meetup” in Manta, Manabí, Ecuador. Photos and details are promised soon.

Julio Alonso [es] and Isopixel both contemplate the recent announcement that Engadget will begin posting in Spanish and what it means for the popular Spanish tech blog xataca [es].

As usual, our Latin America roundup was compiled by David Sasaki (el Oso).

Africa

Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah, an overseas Ghanian blogger, gives some practical advice to another African blogger who is considering blog-retirement.

Both This is Zimbabwe and The Zimbabwean Pundit cover the release of opposition MP Roy Bennett from prison. It should be noted that Bennett lost nearly 60 pounds (27 kg) in his eight months in prison.

Ethiopundit has a very long post that analyzes the Orwellian propaganda machine of the Ethiopean government.

East Asia

Issac Mao alerts us to the plight of Chinese blogger Wang Jun, who’s suffering from a blood disease.

Yellow Peril, the blog of an Auckland-based overseas Chinese writer, has a profanity-filled rant about Chinese internet censorship that tackles everything from the Public Security Bureau to Microsoft.

China Digital Times reports that more than 2,000 Chinese journalists have signed a letter protesting the detention of two colleagues.

Europe

So this guy goes to an expensive restaurant and gets lousy service. An all too common occurrence, right? Well, as Finland for Thought reports, that’s not the end of the story. The disaffected diner posted his tale of woe to his blog, and it eventually rose to the #2 ranking on Google for the restaurant’s name. Legal action ensues… but the restaurant didn’t realize that the angry diner is one of Finland’s top intellectual property lawyers.

South Asia

Niraj engages in a pastime familiar to any international traveler: complaining about a lousy airline.

Central Asia

Blogrel is reporting that several Armenian cities have been wired for city-wide WiFi coverage. This is, however, pay-as-you-go access, not free wireless…

Blogrel also brings us the happy news that the Armenian government, responding to public pressure, has backed away from a plan to drop a highway through the middle of a nature preserve.

The Middle East

A Free Iraqi does an interesting Q&A with his readers.

Crossroads Arabia points to a news story that says that 2,500 scholarships are available for Saudis who want to study at American universities. While 2,500 students is a fairly large number, the American university system is so large that those students could easily get lost in the system: for example, Arizona State University has more than 8,000 students in its freshman class alone.

Sara Jabbari Farouji, an Iranian student studying in Europe, guest posts at Free Thoughts Iran on the election results and makes some interesting semiotic suggestions about how the opposition can reposition itself for future elections.

The author of Iran Hopes 2005 bitterly condemns the election as a fraud and states that “Ahmadinejad may carry the title of the ‘president’, but he is the most powerless man in Iran.”

IranScan points out the parallels between a famous speech that Ayatollah Khomeini gave shortly after the Shah had fled Iran in 1977 and the promises of new president Mahmood Ahmadinejad. It has a brief roundup (unfortunately, linkless) of Iranian blogosphere reaction to the election.

The Syrian News Wire has an excellent summary of the recently-completed Lebanese elections. About Lebanon speculates about how the election results will play out in the Parliament. One possibility is that pro-Syrian politician Nabih Berri will be re-elected Speaker of Parliament, a option that has drawn heated opposition from across the Lebanese blogosphere.

Sabbah’s Blog has a long post about the Hijab, the Muslim headscarf.

Both Mouse Hunter and Subzero Blue have write-ups of the Third Tunisian Blogger Meetup. Sounds like a good time was had by all…

Despite protests from Israeli settlers who attempted to prevent the demolition, the Israeli Army started to tear down a number of abandoned beachfront houses in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. Rafah Pundits Radio notes a striking parallel to IDF demolition of Palestinian houses in the same area a few years ago.

Where are you really from? AquaCool expresses her bitter disappointment when she meets a Jordanian who disavows his origins after having acquired a different passport.

Celebrity gossip meets international blogging: it turns out that the fortune that Paris Hilton’s fiance, Paris Latsis, is heir to, may be tainted. Israellycool points to a magazine report that claims that the Latsis fortune was not amassed in shipping, but rather by running oil and guns.

East Asia

Japanpundit continues his profile of Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. Must reading if you’re at all interested in how Japan works.

Bingfeng Teahouse is slightly amused by news that a new poll indicates that China has a better image than the US.

ESWN has a guide to the three stages of breaking disaster news in China. Unsurprisingly, step three is “ban further coverage.”

The website of a police-run security company in Beijing has been defaced by hackers, reports Chinese Internet.

New Mongols finds a story that suggests that women are starting to dominate higher education in Mongolia.

Shanghaiist has full coverage of “One World, One Dream”, the inspiring new slogan for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Photograph by Paul Frankenstein

Europe

Central Budapest reports that the latest statistics indicate that the Hungarian population is slowly shrinking. However, the Hungarian press is, “in a spirit of exceptional cheerfulness”, reporting this as good news.

A national ID card bill will be set for a second reading in the House of Commons, reports Lots of Big Ideas; they’re less worried about the ID card itself than the idea of a database nation.

The Barcepundit on the Spanish Government’s proposal to remove the word “war” from the Spanish constitution.

Beauty Pageant Vote-Fixing Scandal! Blog de Connard breaks the news that the Miss Russian Army 2005 pageant (won by a Navy Liutenant, reports Siberian Light) may have been fixed, with the judges fixing the outcome before the contest proper. MPC sadly wonders, “can we not even keep the Miss Russian Army contest free from graf?”

South Asia

Six months ago, the Boxing Day Tsunami devastated the Indian Ocean rim. Macam-Macam has a comprehensive recap and update on the situation. In addition, WorldChanging has its own update.

United We Blog: can protesting journalists alone make a difference in Nepal?

India Uncut has a brief report on Sunday’s Mumbai Blogger Meetup.

Kiruba Shankar points us to an Financial Express article about blogging in India.

Pakistani blogger KO posts a letter to the Indian people: “In Pakistan, we have a slightly different democratic system from India, where you have the worlds biggest elections. … We have greatly streamlined the process. You see, Musharraf tells us he embodies the people’s desires, and so when he votes its the same as the whole country voting, so our process is much faster and terribly efficient.”

Africa

This is Zimbabwe relays the news that private citizens are now being ordered to dress ‘appropriately’ by government forces.

Having turned on their erstwhile allies the war veterans, Zimbabwe’s ruling regime now has to find a way to placate them, says Zimpundit.

Inside Somaliland looks inside “the best camel meat restaurant in the country.”

South-East Asia

In the Philippines, President Gloria Arroyo has come out and admitted that it’s her voice on the controversial ‘election-rigging’ tapes. Crainal Cavity is less than impressed by her statement, predicting that Arroyo won’t last out the year; Nina at Metroblogging Manila doesn’t even give the President that long. However, The Sassy Lawyer thinks that an immediate change of office is unlikely, at least from a legal standpoint.

Sarasonteh wonders why the English-language press in Bangkok has such tremendous difficulty identifying a “former” casino-owner turned Senator in stories about illegal casinos getting shut down.

Singabloodypore notes the irony in having a Malaysian film festival show a film that’s been banned in Singapore.

Thai-Blogs has an immensely practical post about the different kinds of taxis available in Bangkok. It does not, however, cover tuk-tuks.

ThaRum’s Web complains that copying foreign pop songs is destroying the Cambodian music industry.

Jeff Ooi has a post that excerpts from a a lengthy interview given by Tengku Mahaleel, the beleagued head of Proton, Malaysia’s national car company.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers announces the formation of a Singapore-specific branch of the Committee.

Latin America

Jeff Barry, an American expat now living in Buenos Aires announces that Google Maps has found it's way to Buenos Aires [en]. He also notes that Buenos Aires is becoming a destination of outsourced call centers [en] from the US.

Gastonl [en], an Argentinian living in Toronto has written a controversial post [es] trying to peg Argentine idendity on the group blog Argenautas, written by “Argentinians spread around the world.” In response, Jorge Gobbi questions [es] if Argentinians living abroad have even the right to characterize Argentine identity.

Marcela Olivera guest blogs on Blog from Bolivia [en] to bring us up to date on the political conflict as well as beautifully describe the importance of the summer solstice to indigenous Bolivians. Major state and federal elections seem to be around the corner.

MABB translates [en] a political cartoon [es] which seems to effectively sum up the current political situation in Bolivia.

Roberto Arancibia of El Mundo Sigue Ahí [es] has notified me with Chilean presidential candidate Sebastian Piñera’s official blog URL [es]. Piñera, in his latest post, clarifies the difference between this official blog and the one I linked to in yesterday's roundup [en]:

El talentoso escritor Sergio Paz ha expresado sus dudas acerca de si este blog lo escribe realmente Sebastián Piñera, es decir, yo … puedo asegurarte … que estas palabras son mías. Hay otro “blog de Sebastián Piñera” dando vueltas por ahí, pero más bien es una bitácora de campaña que crearon amigos en Antofagasta y por eso está escrito en tercera persona. Este es mi blog y acá pretendo expresar lo que muchas veces no se puede decir en medio de la actividad tan intensa como candidato.

The talented writer Sergio Paz has expressed his doubts [es] in regard to whether this blog is really written by Sebastián Piñera, which is to say, me. I can assure you that these words are mine. There is another “blog [es] de Sebastián Piñera” making its rounds out there, but it is more a campaign weblog created by some friends in Antofagasta which is why it is written in the third person. This is my blog and here I will express what I often can't say in middle of such intense activity that surrounds me as a candidate.

The candidate's blog is open to comments.

As usual, our Latin America roundup was compiled by David Sasaki (el Oso).

South Asia

United We Blog! puts out the call for more Nepalase bloggers. In furtherance of this goal, Uzz of UWB has translated Wordpress into Nepali, and that tool will be availble to the public within two months…

South-East Asia

Sakdipat, at Thai-Blogs, blogs about her first day of school… as a teacher. One of her projects is teaching her students—who are currently learning in an all-Thai environment—to blog in English.

Mr.Brown critiques Singapore’s appearance in an American comic book. At least they got the Singlish right, no?

Photograph by Hartanto

The Middle East

Hoder explains the very practical impact of what’s at stake in the Iranian election. In addition, the Los Angeles Times has an interesting feature story about Hoder and his return to Iran in Thursday’s edition.

A Free Writer details the latest tactic that terrorists are using to raise money in Iraq.

Having traded Tehran for the countryside, Mr.Behi looks at the difference between Iran’s two presidential candidates.

Another Irani Online has voted and now he’s watching TV, waiting for the results.

Brooding Persian further explains his decision to not vote in the election.

Yishay Mor recently observed that Secure Computing’s filtering software is used by Tunisia to control their internet. David Burt, Secure Computing’s PR manager, posted a comment on his blog stating that Secure Computing does not license their software to Iran. Yishay wrote back, pointing out the discrepancy; Mr. Burt’s response is, to say the least, eyebrow-raising.

Ammar Abdulhamid, who writes Amarji - A Heretic’s Blog, is very skeptical of the Syrian Government’s attempts to reform itself.

Isam Bayazidi on the culture of software piracy in Jordan.

The pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat has been running a series of articles on Arab blogs; The Big Pharaoh points to two in the series that mention him.

A detailed cultural critique comes from From Cairo, With Love, as he tries to figure out why Egypt seems to be perpetually stuck in neutral.

Africa

Bankelele points out that Harvard Business School is holding an open house in Nairobi next month.

Amnesty International launched an appeal for action in Zimbabwe yesterday, reports This is Zimbabwe. The blog also condemns the African Union’s refusal to act, stating that the AU’s “comment[s] denies the truth that, even by Zimbabwe’s own legal system, the actions have been illegal.”

East Asia

Japanpundit looks back on the remarkably successful administration of Prime Minister Koizumi, and starts to explain how and why the Japanese political system is not what it seems to be to western observers.

Following up on the recent report of a black watermelon, Tokyo Times reports that square watermelons have started to go on sale in Japan.

SimonWorld notes that whaleburgers are now on sale in Japan. No first-hand reports on how they taste yet.

Europe

Pesticide notes that the world’s largest mass kiss-in will be attempted on Saturday night on the Elizabeth Bridge in downtown Budapest. I’m sure that if anyone wants to join in, they’d be more than welcome.

Heiko Hebig points to an interesting-looking German-language article about blogs and bloggers.

Is the French newspaper doomed? Loic Le Meur points to the report of a government think-tank that seems to think that it is…

Budget airlines are sprouting in Europe like mushrooms after a rain; A Fistful of Euros has the latest on their expansion into Eastern Europe.

When the cop’s in the bathroom, the crook will play? The Daily Czech reports an embarrassing incident when a billionaire fraud suspect managed to escape police custody when the police officer guarding him went to use the loo.

Central Asia

Pretend You’re Dread, a new blog about Kyrgyzstan, on differing cultural norms: “It seems that the guest of honour is very much optional when it comes to parties in this neck of the woods.”

Oneworld reports that Georgia is putting together a proposal to host 2014 Winter Olympics.

With elections in Kyrgyzstan only a month away, election-related ‘incidents’ are on the rise, reports Alan Cordova.

Australia

There’s a really interesting guest post at The Road to Surfdom about Chinese defector Chen Yonglin. The anonymous author is apparently a former employee of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Latin America

The Committee to Protect Bloggers [en] and Ecuablogs [es] both cover the cease and desist letter [es] which Ecuadorian blogger Eduardo Ochoa (AKA “blue”) recently recieved [es] from the telecom company Movistar. While Ochoa has so far complied with the demand, Mexican blogger Eduardo Arcos opines [es] that what Ochoa did was legal under article 83 of Ecuador's Intellectual Property Law [es]. Ochoa now satirically proposes [es] doing away with the letter “M”, which seems to be the intellectual property of a single company.

The Chilean blog, El mundo sigue ahí gleefully announces [es] that pro-business Chilean presidential candidate Sebastián Piñera has opened up commenting on his blog [es]. According to Angus Reid consultants, Piñera is the conservative favorite and currently is running second place after Socialist Party candidate Mora from Babalu [en] points us to Venezuelan blogger, Tomas Sancio [en] who in turn links to an audio file [es] of a Cuban-American man asking the Cuban Phone Company for a cell phone (which can only be obtained in Cuba with a government permit.

The Latin America roundup above was compiled by David Sasaki (el Oso).

Africa:

As Zimbabwe's government crackdown called “Operation Restore Order” evokes an international outcry, Sokwanele describes what it's like to “have stared into the face of evil.” The Zimbabwean Pundit calls for a boycott of South African goods to protest the fact that South African President Thabo Mbeki could be doing much more to bring Zimbabwe's President Mugabe under control.

Congo Girl describes what its like living and working as the country hunkers down for an impending general strike, plus fears of possible looting and pillaging on June 30th, the 45th anniversary of DR Congo's independence from Belgium.

Middle East:

The Arabist Network has a first hand account of a demonstration in Northern Cairo. (Picture from Arabist Network, with more here.)

From Cairo With Love asks “What's Wrong with Egyptians?”

The Big Pharaoh has some views about the exchange of ambassadors between Egypt and Iraq.

Silly Bahraini Girl has some sarcastic remarks on “Democracy in Wonderland.”

Hossein Derakhsan (Hoder) has returned to London from Iran.

Omid at the Iranian Prospect believes Friday's runoff election will be a battle between Iran's middle class and lower classes.

Babak Seradjeh at Free Thoughts on Iran believes the road to democracy does not lead through this week's elections.

Iran Scan has some new opinion poll numbers predicting a win for Rafsanjani.

Iraq the Model has been mentioned in the AO/Technorati Open Media 100. Congratulations!

Central Asia and Caucasus:

Afghan Warrior reports on the killing of an election worker.

Registan.net points to this interesting post about the tightening of government control over the .kz domain name in Kazakhstan.

Also at Registan.net, Nathan points to debates around the blogs about the geopolitical struggle over Uzbekistan.

Blogrel continues a lively discussion of democracy in Armenia.

In Azerbaijan, Carpetblogger found something strange in a copper workshop.

The section above was compiled by Rebecca MacKinnon.

Latin America:

Venezuelan blog directory, VeneBlogs points to [es] an article in El Universal [es] which profiles three Venezuelan blogs dedicated to the art of … food. The first is that of gourmet chef Sumito Estevez [es], who just recently opened his own restaurant. Caracas based journalist María Luisa Ríos writes about local restaurants, events, and desserts in her blog Mil Sabores [es] (One Thousand Flavors) and finally blog de Takeshi [es], from the Andean region of Mérida is written in Spanish by a Japanese chef and focuses on gastronomy from the Venezuelan Andes.

Rosario is ecstatic [en] that “Uruguay has now joined the ranks of civilized countries”.. who read Harry Potter…

Eduardo Arcos of Mexico City encourages readers to participate in the First Conference of Weblogs.Communication [es] on July 15^th at the Coyoacan Cultural Forum in Mexico City. In addition to registering for the free event, conference administrators are soliciting short presentations and white papers. Here's the conference description [es]. Widely regarded Spanish blogger and professor, Dr. José Luis Orihuela Colliva [es] will be speaking at the conference.

The section above was compiled by David Sasaki (el Oso).

East Asia

The Lost Nomad alerts us to the fact that PBS has posted on-line (streaming only, unfortunately) a number of Frontline documentaries on North Korea’s nuclear program. Thanks to Asiapundit for the heads-up.

ESWN explains the lengths that officals take to keep information out of the newspapers in China.

The China Digital Times points to an OJR roundtable about the hurdles that Chinese bloggers face.

Japanpundit points to a matched set of point-counterpoint Op-Eds in the pages of the Japan Times arguing the merits of whaling; this is an interesting dicussion in light of the IWC’s recent decision to defeat Japan’s proposal to resume commercial whaling.

Photograph by RM Tunick

South-East Asia

The Brussels Convention outlines transnational civil jurisdiction issues in the European Union; this makes doing business in the EU a much more predictable affair. The Aseanist argues that for ASEAN to really fulfill its potential, it needs its own version of the Brussels Convention.

The Insane Ox Relaoded, an anonymous academic blog in Malaysia, wonders what it will take to wake up his collegues.

Jeff Ooi has a question about a disgruntled reader and what he should do.

Clair from Blah! on the task of changing the image of the Filipina online. This is a movement that exists partly due to the unfortunate fact that the majority of first-page Google results for ‘filipina’ are mail-order bride sites.

Mr.Brown on whether or not nerds make better lovers.

Noodlepie is attempting to review all the softdrinks on sale in Saigon. Hopefully his teeth won’t all fall out before he finishes…

South Asia

Vichaar.org points us to an anonymous blog written by a US diplomat in India.

United We Blog wonders, tongue only slightly in cheek, about whatever happened to the Nepalese Royal Commission for Corruption Control?

Central Asia & the Caucuses:
The Farsi blog Shared Pains (winner of the 2005 RSF Freedom Blog award) has a post in English on freedom of expression in Afghanistan (hat-tip to Afghan Lord).

Registan points to an interview with the leader of Uzbekistan's opposition coalition. On the 40th day of mourning after the Andijan crackdown, Nathan has some harsh words for Russia's blind eye.

Blogrel discusses America's influence on democratization in the Caucasus.

Southeast Asia:
Webbed Feet has a big list of people blogging about Cambodia.

As Vietnam's prime minister tours the U.S., the new Vietnamjournalism blog, run by a Vietnamese journalist, reports that the Vietnamese president wants journalists to help “encourage the nation's citizens to flay enemy fabrication.”

Brandmalaysia's Mack Zulkifli talks about media reaction to the Singaporean blogger who bared most of herself on her blog… and about the larger issue of blogging as a lifestyle.

Economist/columnist Paul Krugman visited Bangkok, and Sarasonteh has the fallout.

East Asia:
In China, Typepad blogs are now confirmed to be blocked. Asiapundit has started a campaign to shame companies whose technology enables the Chinese government to do this. (There's a big argument going on about this in the comments section of my blog.)

Meanwhile, the Chinese adopt-a-blog project is getting lots of buzz in the English language blogosphere.

Chinadigitaltimes points to an article in Singapore's Straits Times: CHINA: Hackers hit website of firm trying to control Internet use. I guess we know where at least some of China's hackers stand on the censorship issue…

ESWN describes how information is kept out of newspapers in China.

South Asia:
Reporters Without Borders is hosting a new blog from Nepal, Nepal Info (in Nepalese).

In Bangladesh, Futurebanglanetwork is cynical about the World Bank's motivations when it comes to lobbying against a SIM card tax.

Chiens Sans Frontieres brings us a link to Gujarati rap.

In India, the Mumbai bloggers are planning another blog meetup on Sunday. If you're in town be sure to join them.

Africa:
Ma-Schamba in Mozambique is looking forward to an upcoming exhibit of Mozambican contemporary art [Portugese]. (Poster for the exhibit at left.)

Sokwanele is concerned that Zimbabwe is turning into a Chinese colony.

Vilho's World has some thoughts about the issue of transparency in Namibia.

Middle East:
At the Lebanese Political Journal, “Cedar-Guardian” has some views on Lebanon's post-election political future, and “Lebanon.Profile” is resigned to political asassinations. (Click on their names to hear podcast interviews with these two bloggers in Beiruit.)

Brooding Persian explains why he chooses not to vote in Iran' s election run-off on Friday.

Under Underground will vote but is bitter about it.

In Egypt, Manal and Alaa describe how they organized a protest and how blogs played a part.

Spark Armada's Nir Ofir wants to start an August 31st World Blog Day tradition. Why that date? Because he thinks the date 3108 kind of looks like the word “blog” if you write it a certain way… His idea: “in this is day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs (in the same time). In this day all Blog web surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown blogs.” (He has even created the graphic at right.)

Europe:
Bonjour L'Estonie describes Estonia's native religion.

Finland for Thought has a short quiz about his nation's leader…

Pestiside has some dirt on Hungary's highway wars.

Latin America:
Coming soon. Check this post later for today's Latam links courtesy El Oso.

The Middle East

Mahmood of Mahmood's Den announces that he's not only going to take Reporters Without Borders' guidelines for a free internet and translate them into Arabic, he's going to fax them to his members of Parliament. Why not email? Well, sending email to Bahraini MPs doesn't seem to work so well.

Another Irani Online ponders the Iranian election results and asks, “how well do we really know ourselves anyway?”

Hoder says that “conservative” isn't the right word to use for Iranian presidential candidate Ahmadinejad; he thinks that “fundamentalist” is much more accurate.

Pedram Moallemian, who writes The Eyeranian, explains why he didn't vote in last week's election.

The Iran News Blog wonders if Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Khamenei were colluding to get a ultra-right-wing candidate in the run-off, to assure Rafsanjani's election as president.

Baghdad Burning has a long, detailed post about daily life in Baghdad.

Sabbah Blog has a story about child camel jockeys being returned to their families.

Saudi Jeans has started to take steps to build a Saudi blogging community.

The blog Al-Hiwar, written by an American in the Middle East studying politics in Lebanon and Yemen, studies how different news organizations characterize the recently-assassinated George Hawi.

East Asia

Has China started blocking Typepad blogs again? Asiapundit has noticed significant disruption in getting to the hosted blog services, though Fons of China Herald notes that not all Typepad sites have been affected.

Is all censorship bad? EastSouthNorthWest says that maybe there should be some limits to freedom of speech.

Photograph by Anthony Hartman

Latin America

Barrio Flores reminds us that while there may be many reasons to disagree with Evo Morales, his opponents shouldn't stoop to racism.

Europe

Central Budapest notes two anniversaries of note: first, the Budapest stock exchange celebrates 15 years of trading after being re-opened in 1990. On a more somber note, a monument to commemorate the 1956 uprising is being planned to open on the 50th anniversary of the event. Fittingly, the monument will be placed where a statute of Stalin once stood.

Loic Le Meur points to a long article about citizen journalism and blogging in the French newspaper Liberation. The paper has a great graphic on its front page; Loic has reproduced it in his post.

South Asia

Gaurav Sabnis of Vantage Point celebrates the news that some Indian states are starting to move away from a government-backed monopoly system in selling produce.

Photograph by David Sasaki

Africa

This is Zimbabwe posts some startling aerial images demonstrating the impact of the so-called “Operation Clean-Up”.

The Zimbabwean Pundit discovers that the government is apparently printing money to combat inflation. Unfortunately, as students of the Weimar Republic and Chinese Civil War can tell you, printing money only leads to hyperinflation.

We'd like to apologize to the author of Black Looks; an editing error in producing yesterday's blog roundup inadvertently changed her gender. Our apologies for the mistake.

South-East Asia

The irrepressible Mr.Brown on the topic of blogger manifestos.

Tomorrow covers the minor disaster that strikes when a newspaper mixes up two different young Singaporean bloggers.

East Asia

New Mongols, under the guise of a complaint about a Chinese museum of Mongolian culture, takes a close look at patriarchal Chinese attitudes towards Mongolia.

An in-store McDonald’s ad has been accused of insulting all Chinese customers, reports Danwei. Like many similar stories that have come out of China, I suspect that there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

Bingfeng looks at the return of Confucius in modern China. Historically, the Chinese have turned to the old masters in times of change and crisis with mixed results.

After receiving publicity in Western press, two Chinese websites have been shut down by the authorities recently. EastSouthWestNorth wonders if there was a causal relationship…

Found on an message board: An eye-opening collection of Korean children’s anti-Japanese art.

Photograph by Janice Lo

The Middle East

The final round of voting for the Lebanese parliament has concluded, with the ultimate result being a solid majority for the anti-Syrian “opposition.” About Lebanon states that it’s time for differing factions to set aside their differences and work together, an idea strongly seconded by Pulse of Freedom.

The Beirut Spring has a great graphic breaking down the membership of the new parliament.

However, the Lebanese Political Journal asks some tough questions about voting irregularities.

More fallout from the Iranian Presidential election results: Mr.Behi calls on the forces of reform not to give up: “But this wall is our last to protection. If we show up little, they will cheat again and make the most logically impaired people to become the owners of our destiny and they will cut all the trees we raised in these years with our words and ideas so that under they shadow we can have better living and a more free society despite the barren desert of dictatorship around us.”

In addition, Hoder notes that election-related text-messaging (SMS) has been banned by the authorities.

The Big Pharaoh gets into a lengthy political conversation with some bookstore employees… and discovers that they didn’t complain once about Palestine or the USA. Perhaps the Egyptian political elite cannot deflect criticism with those two hot button topics anymore.

Egyptian Person comments on Farouk Kaddoumi’s recent statement calling on resistance groups to stop targeting Palestinian civilians: “But I think that Kaddoumi … did not have the courage, or perhaps enough wit, to include in his list of wrongdoings by the Palestinian groups other kinds of attacks against civilian Israeli targets …

Saudi Jeans on the rituals of the teenaged Saudi male:“During summer, large number of young men in Riyadh go to Jeddah to have a good time, because they are not allowed to enter entertainment places, such as shopping malls, in Riyadh, unlike Jeddah, which does not have this kind of boys-phobia.” Unfortunately, as the blog reports, some of the malls in Jeddah have been changing their policy on unaccompanied young men…

Mahmood’s Den has a simple explanation for why some Bahraini protesters were beaten badly by police: “That’s because they protested in front of the Royal Court.”

In less political news, the recent Jordan blogger meetup “was one big success,” writes AquaCool. She says that “I enjoyed every moment, I didn’t feel like a stranger, I felt I’ve already met the bloggers before and having an interesting, and a fruitful conversation with all of them couldn’t be easier!”

Latin America

MTYBlogs.com has a great English-language roundup of blogs from Monterrey, including this great guide to podcasting in Spanish.

Exhausted from the excitement of the Bolivian presidential resignation and change of power, Barrio Flores settles for doing a roundup of the past week in Bolivian blogs.

Blog From Bolivia thoroughly disassembles an Economist article about Bolivia’s economic troubles.

Bolivian legislatures are attempting to collect compensation in the event that the Congress is dissolved; MABB is understandably outraged: Never mind the 126 million dollars it would cost, how about the fact that they have been completely unable to deal with the crisis currently affecting the county.

South Asia

Kiruba Shankar, in the context of a podcasting meet-up, needs to know what the best way to connect some remote visitors…

Rashmi Bansal at Youth Curry uses the question—“So, when are you having another baby?”—as a starting point for an essay on the nature of the modern Indian family.

In sports news, a jubilant 3rd World View
is collecting news reports about Bangladesh’s massive upset cricket victory over Australia.

Photograph by Pyo

South-East Asia

Jeff Ooi writes about some positive press coverage that Malaysian blogs have been getting, and reminds his readers that there’s a Malaysian blogger meetup this week in Kuala Lumpur…

Jakartass is relieved to know that Indonesia’s antiquated foreign marriage laws will be reformed soon: “Er Indoors and I should be able to complete the marriage procedures started 15 years ago.”

Macam-Macam notes some interesting disparities in Indonesian drug penalties and concludes that, as in many things Indonesian, the rules for the haves and the rules for the have-nots aren't always the same.

Europe

It’s graduation season these days; colleges and high school seniors get dressed in robes and funny hats and face their future. San Francisco-based Irish expatriate Dervala takes the occasion to reminisce about the Irish college entrance exam: “In Ireland, we didn’t get to prove our “scholastic aptitude” with a multiple-choice test of our parents’ ability to pay for Kaplan prep. Instead we faced the Leaving Certificate, a national examination that would, we sincerely believed, determine everything in our future except the color of the curtains.

In Hungary, Pesticide explains why turnout at a meeting celebrating 60 years of Russian-Hungarian brotherhood might have been a little low; it also details the link between nice weather and rising eviction rates in Budapest.

Africa

Ethiopundit write a long post about the government that rules Ethiopia: “Ethiopians are in the tragic position of being ruled by an undemocratic government that actively hinders their economic and social development and indeed values their suffering for the aid money it attracts.” The post also has a detailed roundup of blog posts about Ethiopia.

Apparently recovering from a back injury, the author of Black Looks uses her time to do a quick pan-African blog roundup.

Central Asia

The Carpetblogger discovers that mourning in Azerbaijan involves much more ritual than in the West.

From Registan.net, a report about a 20,000-strong opposition protest in Azerbaijan. Taking their cue from another former Soviet republic, the protestors have picked orange as the color to symbolize their fight.

The Middle East

Regime Change Iran has a story about the difficulties that US-based Iranians have in voting.

Mr. Behi has running coverage of election day. Highlights: “This [extension of voting hours] is always happens regardless the number of voters so make it look big.”

Hoder can’t believe that the western press is ignoring Dr. Moin’s rapid rise in popularity.

Free Thoughts on Iran says the voting situation reminds him of a old Lone Ranger joke.

Under Underground explains why he voted for Dr. Moin, despite some misgivings.

Nema at Iranian Truth has some advice for President Bush: “My advice to Bush, keep your mouth shut. You pick the worst times to talk.”.

Is Iran nearing a tipping point? Nasrin Alavi at IranScan seems to think so.

Responsibility for least some of the bombings in Iran earlier this week have been claimed by Arab seperatists, reports the Arabist Network. However, this does not address the issue of the bombings in Tehran, which appear to remain unsolved.

Silly Bahranini Girl attends a “massive rally” for constitutional reform. Apparently the government had ruled that the previous constitutional reform rally was, in fact, unconstitutional…

South-East Asia

ThaRum’s Web has been keeping close watch on the kindergarten hostage situation in western Cambodia.

Jeff Ooi looks at a New Straits Times article about blogging in Malaysiaand notices that a certain prominent, award-winning Malaysian blogger is missing from the roundup…

Brand New Malaysian point to an article about a new proposed regional ASEAN airline. I’m guessing the model is similar to American regional carriers or European discount airlines like EasyJet or RyanAir.

Commentary Singapore notes that the CEO of NTUC Income, Singapore’s biggest insurance company, has started blogging.

Photography by KatieW

Europe

Babblogue Blog announces the time and date of the next Galway blog meet.

Latin America

VCrisis has notes on the story that Citgo, the Venezuelan state oil company, managed to lose—as in misplace, as in cannot account for—more than $700 million.

Central Asia

In a post titled “The Last Soviet Generation”, Katy at Blogrel notes that the kids who are eligble to vote this year have never really known the Soviet Union.

Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan goes for a field trip into the country: “Although the curtain never fully closed on the genetic memory of the Kyrgyz during last century’s Sovietization, the re-emergence of their own culture plays out on an eerie stage…”

Africa

Meskel Square has the full text of the press conference the UK’s secretary for international development gave in Addis Ababa earlier this week. The highlight is that the UK is suspending a 20 million pound increase in aid to Ethiopia after recent post-election violence.

This Is Zimbabwe has a copy of Pope Benedict XVI’s address to the Zimbabwean envoy to the Holy See. It’s loaded stuff, particularly if you ignore the diplomatic boilerplate.

East Asia

ESWN has a post about contemporary versions of the famous “No Chinese Or Dogs Allowed” sign.