Global Voices

English

The world is talking, are you listening?

China

Middle East:
Woodstock in the sand dunes? Chan'ad Bahraini has a long report and many photos on a large and peaceful protest in Bahrain demanding constitutional reform. (No sign of this story in the mainstream Western media that I have found.) He says the protest had a “Woodstock feel” to it. C.B. also points a report on Bahrain's political situation by the International Crisis Group, which is useful if you're not a close follower of Bahraini politics…

Ammar reports on the state of Arab blogging for the Committee to Protect Bloggers.

AquaCool links to an international environmental photo contest if you're a photographer and care about the environment, check it out.

Annalysis in Cairo abhores honor killings, as do all progressives in the Middle East, but asks whether a book on honor killings that allegedly distorts facts to prove its point isn't counterproductive.

Pining for Carly in Cairo: Hossein at From Cairo with Love has quite a post about living with terrorism, how he had a great date at the JW Marriot, his friend's divorce, and how he's in love with Carly Fiorina. Yes, that's all in one post!

Silly Bahraini Girl has a dirty joke (aged 18 and older only please).

Eurasia:
Photo: Armenians celebrate Victory Day over the Nazis.

Blogrel has some local perspective on Bush's trip to Georgia.

Central Asia:
Waheed the Afghan Warrior describes a suicide bombing at a Kabul internet cafe.

Africa:
Thinker's Room makes fun of Kenya's first lady in a manner that Lord of the Rings fans will appreciate.

East Asia:
Isaac Mao reports that some blogs that failed to register their existence with the authorities are now blocked, and other bloggers who tried to register have not been allowed to do so.

ESWN has a family perspective on the Sino-Japanese history spat.

South Asia:
Rezwan has some observations about the growth of the begging industry in Bangladesh. Yes, he describes it as an “industry.”

Southeast Asia:
Congratulations to bloggers in the Philippines for their successful iBlog conference!

Singabloodypore links to a documentary that was barred from a local film fest (clarification: the filmaker was threatened with jail if his film got screened), but somebody has uploaded to the web so everybody can see it anyway. Heh.

Thaiblogs.com has a post on life in a Thai buddhist temple.

Europe:
Barcepundit enjoyed participating remotely in BlogNashville.

Lots of blogger gatherings around the world this past week, including Blogmich05 on Saturday in Berlin. Here's the Flickr tag, and the list of blog coverage.