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With election authorities now ordering a partial recount and a run-off between Rafsanjani and the conservative Ahmadinejad scheduled for this coming Friday, bloggers continue to chew over the results and...
Global Voices is offering six bloggers based in Kenya the opportunity to attend the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Nairobi for free. ... More »
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 and a short blurb about what it's about!
Europe
Loic Le Meur is trying to get a rough handle on the size and shape of the European blogosphere. To help himself out, he’s set up a wiki page on the subject.
A Fistful of Euros notes that the PMs of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia are meeting to strategize in the wake of the French and Dutch rejections of the EU Constitution. It’s suggested in the comments that German PM Schroeder should join the meeting; this leads to a debate on just how welcome a ‘mitteleuropablock’ would be.
Heiko Hebig observes the 50th anniversary of the Bundeswehr.
Polbog got caught in a bomb scare that caused massive gridlock in Warsaw.
A Welsh View points to how to buy a pint of Guinness. I’m not sure why a Welsh site points to a Swedish site for instructions on how to order an Irish beer—perhaps we can blame globalization.
Photo by Computix
The Middle East
Global Voices can confirm that seminal Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan (a.k.a. Hoder) will be travelling back to Iran in the next few days. The news, originally reported on Jeff Jarvis’ Buzzmachine, has not actually made it to Hoder’s own blog.
Mohamed, who writes From Cairo, With Love, writes about attending two evening protests and then dining at a fancy hotel: “Sitting in that balcony, watching the beautiful Nile, the city lights and detaching from everything real in Cairo is just a breathtaking experience. … hearing those noises adds to your sense of isolation from everything filthy down below, easily forgetting how filthy some have to be to get up here.”
Iranian Girl on westerners who don’t understand the oppression of the hijab (headscarf): “I don’t know why this lady didn’t mention that if she had liked it this much, why didn’t she continue wearing it?!”
A Family From Mosul reports that to deter suicide bombers, authorities in Tikrit have ordered that only cars with at least two passengers are allowed to travel within the city.
Mustapha, from Beirut Spring, suggests that building a new Lebanon will be a long process with no magic shortcuts.
South Asia
Skypejournal has an interesting story about how Dina Mehta uses Skype to facilitate cross-blog communication and collaboration, particularly in the face of a crisis.
India Uncut has announced a time and place for the Bombay Mumbai Blogger Meet for June.
Latin America
Bolivia has a new President: Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze. Barrio Flores has a brief profile of the former Bolivian Supreme Court Judge, while MABB details the convoluted process that lead to his selection.
East Asia
In light of the recently announced registration requirements for Chinese blogs, T-Salon reflects on what privacy and anonymity really mean in the Chinese context. She also quotes liberally from a Taiwanese opinion piece about the restrictions.
Slightly ironically, The Longbow Papers announces that CCTV, the Chinese Government’s broadcasting arm, will be airing a segment about blogging in China. The TV segment will be focusing on We Observe the World, or WOW; it’s a group blog/ezine produced by the students of Beijing Foreign Studies University.
ESWN has two thematically related pieces up: first, he wonders why the Hong Kong English-language press has ignored a major corruption scandal that’s been splattered across the front pages of the Chinese press. Second, he examines a joint Sino-Korean-Japanese history book that tries to provide an unbiased account of modern east Asian history; most telling are the passages he uses to compare with a contemporary Japanese textbook.
Photograph by Nathan Nelson
South-East Asia
Bun Tharum uses the story of how he received, as gift, a Khmer dictionary that he’d just purchased for himself, to comment on the state of Khmer literacy. Also in Cambodia, Webbed Feet, Web Log posted a close-to-canonical list of Cambodian blogs. Most of the blogs are of expats in Cambodia, but there’s some good stuff in there.
Australia
Rank and Vile has a lengthy post about Australian self-identity and the clash between image (Australia! Land of the bush!) and reality (Australia! One of the most urbanized countries in the world!).
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 and a short blurb about what it's about!
Africa
The Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa has been hit with anti-government protests and a resultant government crackdown; news reports indicate that at least 22 protesters have been killed. Andrew Heavens, a freelance photographer for Reuters, has been covering the violence on his blog. Andrew’s Flickr feed has more photographs, including eerie images of armored vehicles in downtown, the wounded being treated by doctors. Ethiopundit suggests that perhaps Ethiopia is on its way to a Ukranian-style peaceful revolution; in a separate post, he suggests that the massive gain made by the opposition was actually a fig leaf designed to divert attention from even more massive electoral fraud. Global Voices’ own Ethan Zuckerman has a more detailed update on the situation.
Afrotecnik reports on a rural network of small, solar-powered community radio stations in Niger.
South Asia
A new cricket blog—that’s cricket, the sport that’s cousin to baseball, not cricket, the arthropod—called Fourth Umpire has arrived on the scene. Though the author is based in Manhattan, the blog focuses on cricket in the sub-continent.
Niraj points to a really informative post about the Biharis, a class of stateless people created when Bangladesh became independent in the early 1970s.
Photograph by Steve Evans
The Middle East
Gateway Pundit reports on a candlelight vigil in Cairo that protested violence by government-backed thugs during last month’s elections. In addition, Manal of Manal and Alaa’s bit bucket actually attended the protest; her report includes photographs of the protest.
Al-Ghad, an Egyptian opposition party, has circumvented the state’s control of the radio waves by launching a radio station over the internet, reports *The Arabist Network. The internet stream, which can be found here, seems to feature mostly talk shows with occasional musical interludes.
The biggest news in the Iranian blogosphere today is that Iran beat Bahrain in soccer and thus advanced to next year’s World Cup. What could be bigger than that? The fact that a group of about 30 women entered the stadium for the historic game and cheered their team on to victory. Hoder’s take includes pointers to pictures; Brooding Persian translates the Farsi statement of one of the women; Under Underground celebrates both the soccer win and the advance in women’s rights.
In Iranian election news, Hoder reports that the reformist candidate Dr. Moin (also romanized “Moeen” by some) has the most to lose by a low turnout in the election. And a specialized Flickr group dedicated to the election has been created, featuring images of campaign posters, both en toto and defaced…
In Lebanon, The Lebanese Blogggers has a lengthy post about trust, governance, and it’s application to Lebanon particular and the Middle East in general.
East Asia
Asiapundit notes that the New York Times has picked up on the “China Requires Bloggers to Register” story.
Tokyo Times reports that Tohoku University has managed to develop a ballroom dancing robot. The robot itself seems like a bright pink vision straight out of Metropolis.
Latin America
In La Paz, MABB continues to follow the saga that is Bolivian politics; in its latest update, Congress has accepted President Mesa’s resignation but has not yet appointed a successor. The post has a handy chart comparing and contrasting the three major candidates for the position. As a side note, the Bolivian constitution has a line of presidential succession laid out; the debate over the next president has more to do with the forces that forced Mesa out and less to do with following the letter of the law.
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 and a short blurb about what it's about!
Europe
Mike Tyukanov, from Stroke of Key, reports that a long-overdue statue of Tsar Alexander the Liberator has been unveiled in downtown Moscow. Mike notes that that while Alexander battled the Ottoman Empire, he also integrated Muslims into Russian civil society, and many Muslim soldiers served in his campaigns against the Turks.
East Asia
Japanpundit reports that the Japanese government will soon require all foreigners staying in the country for more than 90 days to carry government-issued IDs with smart chips in them.
ESWN translates an Eastweek article that suggests that the Ching Cheong arrest was really about Taiwan. However, as ESWN notes, Eastweek sometimes gets their exclusive scoops wrong…
Photo by John Frankenstein
South Asia
United We Blog! has a long story about the aftermath of a government-forced dispersion of an unofficial refugee camp from a park in Katmandu.
Central Asia
Registan brings us the remarkable story that the Uzbekistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that there is no internet blocking or filtering in the country. This claim was apparently met with knowing skepticism from the foreign press corp.
South-East Asia
Singabloodypore looks at the velvet glove approach the Singapore government is using to suppress speech on-line and finds it vastly superior to the Chinese and Iranian implementations. However, he worries about the iron fist underneath the velvet glove…
At Thai-Blogs.com, Richard has posted a quick guide to cultural do’s-and-don’ts in Thailand. While it’s geared towards teachers, it’s useful for anyone travelling to the Land of Smiles.
In our last roundup, we noted a political scandal brewing in the Philippines revolving around two different versions of taped phone calls that implicated President Arroyo in electoral fraud. Well, as PCIJ points out, a third version of the tape has emerged; it’s substantially longer than the other two editions and has a number of conversations not on the other tapes. PCIJ has transcribed the missing minutes.
The irrepressible mr.brown points to a site that, at first blush, appears to be the blog of Yeo Cheow Tong, the Singaporean Minister of Transit… The moral of the story, is, of course, that not everything on the internet is what it appears to be.
More seriously, Brand New Malaysia points to the very real blog of Sharir Abdul Samad, a Malaysian MP. The MP’s blog is in Malaysian; while that’s a problem for us, since the Global Voices staff lacks a Malay speaker, it’s probably a net gain in communicating with his constituents.
Macam-Macam observes that the Sultan of Brunei has appointed a non-muslim to his cabinet, the first time that a non-muslim has ever held such a high rank in that government.
Latin America
VCrisis translates a blog post that reports a troubling trend in Venezuela: the Foreign Ministry is only accepting applications from “those who are engaged in the revolution.”
Africa
The Zimbabwean Pundit notes that the Zimbabwean opposition has called for a national mass job stay away for Thursday and Friday. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing that “mass job stay away” is pretty much the same thing as a general strike.
Sesotho, the language spoken in Lesotho, requires use of the “š” character to write properly. Sotho, the blog, explains how to write that character for web pages properly.
The Middle East
A new blogger, Eygptian Person, write about the Saudi tradition of “summer marriage”.
Abu Aardvark covers two disparate topics: first, what can America and Americans do about Arab anti-Americanism; second, can Syria’s campaign against the Arab media revolution succeed in the face of overwhelming popularity? For the latter, he provides a pictorial comparison…
Islamsists in Jordan are apparently calling for an end to co-ed university trips; Natasha of Mental Mayhem politely suggests that they perhaps should focus on more pressing matters.
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 and a short blurb about what it's about!
Central Asia
Hans from Kaukasus reports the news that travel to Georgia (the country, not the state) is now visa-free for visitors from the EU, the US, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, and Israel, and invites tourists to come and visit the scenic Central Asian republic.
Registan confirms that the Peace Corp has decamped from Uzbekistan. They also note a slightly odd story from Kyrgyzstan; apparently the acting president has decreed that all regional leaders have to take—and pass—a physical fitness test.
East Asia
Little Cart Noodles gets to tour the USS Nimitz when it makes a port call in Hong Kong and takes a whole series of neat photographs.
Over on the Korean Peninsula, the Marmot helpfully points to an article that discusses Kim Jong-Il’s favorite foods.
Photo by noe0712
South-East Asia
Kenny Sia writes about the always touchy subject of racism in Malaysia; he looks at the state-sponsored preferential treatment Malays receive over other ethnic groups and wonders if it’s gone too far.
The latest political imbroglio in the Philippines revolves around a tape of a telephone call that allegedly implicates President Gloria Arroyo in election fraud. Except that there’s another version of the tape that apparently proves that the first tape was doctored. Except that others believe that both versions of the tape have been doctored. The one thing that’s clear, according to The Sassy Lawyer, is that someone needs to be in jail… we’re just not sure who. Inside PCIJ has more background on the scandal.
Latin America
The big story in Bolivia is the resignation of President Carlos Mesa. Publius Pundit has a good general roundup of the situation, while Barrio Flores, MABB, and Ciao! have immediate reaction posts up. MABB also has a more reflective post that worries that the country may be on the verge of breaking up, and Open Veins has photographs of some of the protests.
South Asia
Youth Curry reports that the growing trend of efficient discount airlines (think JetBlue or RyanAir) has reached India, and is changing the way Indians travel.
On the lighter side, Chien(ne)s Sans Frontières has a post covering the very latest in Bollywood rivalries, featuring two of the subcontinent’s biggest glamour queens.
Europe
In an only-in-Ireland stunt, a young man recently embarked on a Guinness-only diet for a week (well, Guinness with bread, and a pint of milk and a vitamin C supplement). This being the internet age, the natural thing to do was blog about the experience.
In the wake of the EU Constitution referendums in France and the Netherlands, Heiko Hebig thinks that he “should start referring to the Draft EU Constitution as the ‘Terri Schiavo Constitution’”.
Despite the fact that Finns are found to be very progressive and broadminded as a group, Phil at Finland for Thought is distressed that Finland is still listed as a “Tier 2” country in the United States’ report on human trafficking.
In Hungary, Vandorlo of Central Budapest notes that Hungarians are abandoning fixed-line phones, with only a third of them using them to place their calls.
Late-breaking Hungarian news: Pesticide.hu reports that Hungary has it’s third president of the post-communist era, though the parlimentary vote is not without controversy.
Africa
Mental Acrobatics asks: “What would you say the single most important event of the 20th century was for Africa/Kenya?”
Chanuka wonders why Africa needs more loans and more aid when its leaders drive around in lavish cars while ordinary citizens can barely afford a bicycle…
The Middle East
The famous “should women drive in Saudi Arabia” debate gets a hearing at Crossroads Arabia. Verdict? Well, since women can drive everywhere else, what’s the big deal?
The Syrian News Wire on the Hezbollah victory in the Lebanese elections: “This is proving to be an even more
predictable election than when Lebanon was under
Syrian influence.” That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
Subzero Blue is annoucing plans for the third Tunisian blogger meetup. Sounds like fun, though I don’t think that I can get GV to send me there to cover the event. In other news from Tunisia, the first Tunisian blog in Spanish has been sighted.
In reporting on the murder of a Libyan journalist, Abu Aardvark suggests that “if Moammar Qaddafi is going to be drinking tea with Tony Blair, and celebrated in Washington for giving up his non-existent nuclear program in order to vindicate the invasion of Iraq, Libyan journalists who criticize official corruption shouldn’t be showing up dead, riddled with bullets and their fingers cut off.”
Photo by Aaron Schaub
Africa
This Is Zimbabwe reports from the site of a so-called police ‘clean-up’ operation. As the title says, if selling flowers was illegal, then why didn’t they stop it 100 years ago?
“Where are you really from?” asks Black Looks. What’s she’s really asking is, of course, “What makes you the nationality that you are? Where does that line end and where does it begin?”
South-East Asia
The Sassy Lawyer takes wonders why the government, since it’s so intent on censoring TV and film, does nothing about suggestive advertising.
The fact that Singapore has one of the highest numbers of bloggers of any country in the world (on, of course, a per-capita basis) was a topic of much discussion at the first Singapore Indian Blogger’s Meet, according to Kaps of Sambhar Mafia.
South Asia
Over the weekend, Nepalese lawyers staged a rally in Kathmandu, protesting the royal family’s seizure of power. United We Blog! has photos of the protest. The comments are running mostly royalist, however…
India Uncut takes a gander at a badly-abbreviated headline and lets his imagination take over from there.
Europe
In the wake of the French and Dutch defeats of the EU constitution, the group blog A Fistful of Euros notes that this may slow the Turkish drive to enter the EU while also observing that the UK has taken the opportunity to shelve Britain’s vote on the EU constitution. Elsewhere, the site also ponders what impact Kurdish national ambitions might have on Turkey’s EU application.
East Asia
Over at Big White Guy, Randall van der Woning writes about an expat Tiananmen protestor who climbed atop a giant TV screen in downtown Hong Kong and stripped off to reveal a Spider-Man costume. As Mr. van der Woning notes, activists are starting their June 4 protestors early this year, since June 4 itself falls on a Saturday.
Glutter reports that Hong Kong legislator Leung Kwok Hung (aka “Long Hair”) just called Chief-Executive-Apparent Donald Tsang “a shoe-shine boy”.
Photograph by Jessica Lim
Africa
The Black Star Journal raises the alarm on the hunger emergency in Niger.
The problem of violence against women in Nigeria is highlighted by Black Looks.
The Thinker’s Room profiles typical Kenyan MP, Jack Arse.
Congo Girl found a gallery of photographs of Kinshasa—or Leopoldville, as it was known at the time—from the 1950s. It’s remarkable how many of the buildings could be exchanged with their colonial counterparts in Hong Kong, Hanoi, or Kuala Lumpur; there seems to have been a certain sameness in the architecture of empire.
Friends of Ethiopia has coverage of election protests in London as well as Berlin and Atlanta. They also point to a lengthy profile of Elias Wondimu, a Ethiopean-born writer and publisher who is trying to raise cultural awareness of East Africa in the US.
Middle East
The Lebanese Blogger Forum reacts to the murder of Samir Kassir.
On the growing influence of Lebanese pop stars: not only are they selling out tours all over the Arab world, but they’re also causing the downfall of a “generation of Arabs”! If memory serves, weren’t the Beatles and the Rolling Stones supposed to cause the collapse of Western Civilization?
In more serious news, Mustapha at Beirut Spring tries to analyze what the Kassir murder means for Lebanese politics. There good discussion in the comments, too.
Latin America
Riots in La Paz: reports from Life in Bolivia and Miguel Centellas’s Ciao!. Because this is a story that’s completely ignored flown under the US press radar, you might want to check Google News for background.
Babalu Bloglooks at the potential for Castro’s brother to succeed him in Cuba and doesn’t like his chances.
Central Asia
Blogrel has found an Armenian-language blogger!. Unfortunately, Global Voices lacks an Armenian-speaking staffer, so we can’t tell you what he’s actually blogging about. In more serious from Blogrel, it notes that Armenia Today is running a series of articles about World Children’s Day.
Registan is reporting that Israeli Embassy staff and families are being evacuated from Tashkent. Doesn’t look good for Uzbekistan right now.
Europe
A venn diagram that distinguishes between England, the UK, and the British Isles.
And, in Ireland, Piaras Kelly observes that Budweiser has been sponsoring rock concerts… but the only beer available for sale at those concerts is, you guessed it, Budweiser. Given that Ireland is the land of Guinness, Harp, Kilkenny, and all manner of good beer, that’s a business decision that just doesn’t make sense….
Central Asia
The Kyrgyzstan Kid attends the wake of a stranger in a small town in northern Kyrgyzstan.
Registan.net comes in with two interesting stories: first, the US State Department has ordered Embassy families to evacuate Tashkent, and it looks like the Peace Corps may be evacuating soon, as well; and second, internet cafe fines for viewing political websites are higher than fines for looking at porn in Tashkent.
Photo by TKnoxB
East Asia
Peking Duck reminds us that June 4 is coming up again soon, and suggests that the Ching Cheong arrest was part of the annual crackdown.
New Mongols notes an article that outlines increasing democratic trends in the homeland of Genghis Khan.
Southeast Asia
The Aseanist responds to a thought-provoking comment with a long, well-reasoned post about the upsides—and the downsides—to regional integration.
From the Philippines comes mp3s of the sessions from iBlog, the Philippines’ first blogging summit. Also, Crainial Cavity looks at what it takes to be a Filipino journalist—donning disguises, different routes to work, and, if all else fails, skipping town seem to be the recommended modus operandi…
South Asia
One of the biggest stories to hit the subcontinent this week has been the Indian government’s decision to ban smoking in movies and TV shows. Even movie stars are denouncing the law, though at least one blogger has issues with the actor’s quick response.
Photo by Steve Evans
Middle East
Several Egyptian bloggers have posted their thoughts on the assaults on women demonstrating against the Mubarak regime last week, and the “Protest in Black” demonstration yesterday in response to the attacks.
Meanwhile The Dumb North African reports on statistics on quality of life and inequality in Egypt and asks, “Just how representative do the likes of us bloggers think we are?” — leading to lively discussion in the comments.
In Iran, DoctorZim points to a survey claiming that 92% of Iranians will not vote in the upcoming presidential election, while IranScan discusses an article arguing that the elections don’t matter, because presidential power is so weak. Congrats to GlobalVoices participant Hoder, who was recently featured in several mainstream news articles.
Mahmood Al-Yousif in Bahrain is concerned about the impact of Western-funded development projects on the local environment. Omar from IraqTheModel asks if the “Integrity Committee” is the right way to fight government corruption in Iraq. And Beirut Spring has changed his blog photo for 5 days in protest of the murder of journalist Samir Kassir.
Africa
Ory blogs about the politics of foreign aid in Africa and Jeffrey Sachs’ new book. Ethiopundit discusses revolutionary democracy in Ethiopia and The Emperor’s New Clothes. And Black Gold reacts to a Human Rights Watch report about violence around the gold trade in the DRC.
Europe
Afoe does its own roundup
on why the Dutch rejected the Constitution treaty, including the interesting stat that 80% of young people voted against the treaty. AFOE also rejoices that the Bavarian cabinet may permit carwashing on Sunday afternoons.
Finland for Thought is happy that deregulation may permit shops to be open on Sundays.
A young boy playing outside in Hungary came across several skulls and bones, and the construction company responsible for recently filling the lot with fresh dirt disclosed that earth had come from a nearby graveyard. Pestiside describes the scene.
Norway's Fjordman reflects on the significance of the French and Dutch votes — “Whatever you think of European integration, there is something inspiring about 20 million people who, having been told what to do by their most respected politicians and after listening attentively, then do the exact opposite. This week’s referendums in France and the Netherlands are probably the most significant event in European history since the end of the Cold War….”
HispaLibertas celebrates “Don Quichotte du Non,” a blogger who “took on European elites.” Find out more by reading HispaLibertas.
Today's blog roundup by Amanda Michel, Erica George and Paul Frankenstein
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"the unfounded assumptions and allegations" you are talking about are some French bloggers 'opinions and...
maybe you should know that your unfounded assumptions and allegations have started a pointless debate...