Global Voices Online

Bangkok protesters clashed with police in front of the Parliament building. Twitter user jeremyfanclub gives an update: “Bangkok is going political unrest PAD and police is fighting now at front of parliament from morning til now.”

mojix at Zope Junky Nikki picks up news that the Nikkei stock average has slumped below 10,000 yen for the first time in nearly five years [ja], featuring a PDF of a print article from Nikkei Keizai shimbun announcing the drop. mojix writes: “There are good sides to a strong yen, and [the price of] resources and commodities has dropped, so for Japan this could perhaps be a kind of chance.”

Famous South Korean actress Choi Jinsil committed suicide on 1 of October. Ask a Korean! pays tribute to the Choi with a brief account of the actress' life history.

Blogger Hiromitsu Takagi [高木浩光] takes up the story [ja] of Google vice president Kent Walker's Q&A at a press conference in Tokyo on Sept. 29th, highlighting statements [ja] by Google Japan director Kōichirō Tsujino [辻野晃一郎] claiming that people who would like images from the company's Street View service to be taken down can contact their regional administrative offices or consumer centers. Takagi has his doubts and calls Google directly, then calls his local consumer center, and in the end confirms that no provisions are in place for takedown requests. Listen to his phone conversation with Google (in Japanese). (Thanks to Gen Kanai for the link.)

Hiroyuki Fujishiro [藤代裕之] at Gatonews comments on reports [ja] that Japan's two largest dailies, the Yomiuri shimbun and the Asahi shimbun, have agreed on a mutual consignment deal that, by 2012, will consolidate the printing end of the news production process. The two papers will also assist in printing the country's major business paper, the Nikkei Keizai shimbun, in cases of sudden disasters such as earthquakes. Fujishiro writes that the move, which comes less than a year after the creation of shared news portal Aratanisu, signals a sense of impending crisis in Japan's newspaper industry.

Genderstan reports that Klara Kabilova, former head of the Central Election Commission of Kyrgyzstan, made a statement about receiving threats from Maksim Bakiev, son of President Kurmanbek Bakiev. In her statements she mentions that he swore at her and threatened her safety.

Japanese blogger kawase_oh [為替王] analyzes recent fluctuation in exchange rates [ja] between the yen and the U.S. dollar, and also between the yen and other major currencies. The blogger says to look out this week for the Bank of Japan's Tankan survey [日銀短観] on Oct. 1st, and to the announcement of euro zone policy interest rates on the 2nd.

On its blog, Nigerien insurgent group Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice [Fr] denied the reported departure of Commander Kindo Zado, one if the movement's vice presidents, a former Nigerien army officer who defected to MNJ last year.

According to Ameba news [ja], Taiwanese blogger and Japan-lover Shuen Shuen, also known as “Naomi”, announced on her blog [zh] that she wanted to move to Japan and find a Japanese guy to marry. That news is now all the talk of the Japanese bulletin boards [ja], and apparently sparked a storm among some readers of her blog.