Global Voices

English

The world is talking, are you listening?

China

Middle East:
Chan'ad Bahraini has a series of good photos and a long blog post about Tuesday's demonstration in front of Bahrain's Ministry of Information. He says 40-50 people gathered to oppose the ministry's decision to press charges against three moderators of the online forum BahrainOnline.org, one of whom is also a blogger. Chan'ad reports that most people who run online forums as well as most Bahraini bloggers are against the new government regulation requiring all website owners to register.

“From Cairo With Love” has some thoughts on the relationship between blogging and political reform in Egypt.

Beirut Spring says Lebanon has its own “Howard Dean.”

“Free Thoughts on Iran” talks about election hype.

Iraq the Model and Mesopotamian have strong views on how to interpret the latest terrorist bombings.

Central Asia:
Another Irani Online translates a Persian blog post written by a young Afghan man writing from his native Kabul who asks: “When the system and the foundations of the government is based on false promises and threats, then what can you expect from that government?” Neither the Afghan blogging in Persian nor the Irani Online have much good to say about the Karzai regime, the way the Americans have handled Afghanistan's post-Taliban era, or about the way in which Afghanistan seems to have been forgotten in the news. (via Afghan Lord)

Afghan Warrior reports on concerns that Taliban prisoners released from U.S. custody will re-engage in a war against the Afghan government.

Found in Del.icio.us:
Burka Band turned up today in the Afghanistan del.icio.us feed, which is one of the many feeds we are subscribing to in the Global Voices aggregator.  Through Technorati I then found this blog post about "Afghanistan's Greatest Girl Band," which includes MP3 clips of their cover song, "Burka Blue (MP3)."

…And to continue on the counter-intuitive line of reporting from Central Asia, Registan.net reports that Uzbekistan will soon get blackberry pager service.

On a more serious note at Registan, Nathan suggests that many Central Asian governments, despite their human rights failures and incompetencies, may still be better than the likely Islamic extremist alternatives.

East Asia:
Andrea of T-Salon shares her virtual Chinese book collection, and the online tools that make this possible.

Japundit is concerned about the use of the internet to manipulate public opinion when it comes to the latest China-Japan history spat.

Europe:
French blogger Loic Lemeur has a virtual “mini-me.”
Ross Mayfield marvels at the growth of the French blogosphere after attending Loic's recent LesBlogs conference. (Via German blogger Heiko Hebig.)

South Asia:
From India, Vantage Point sees an Enron connection in the Maharashtra power crisis.

Southeast Asia:
Jeff Ooi has been raising a ruckus on the issue of baby-fingerprinting. (His site seems to be experiencing problems so if you can't get through to that link right now please try later.)

Africa:
Black Looks reports on death in Ogoniland.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download