Global Voices

English

The world is talking, are you listening?

Argentina

Jeff Barry offers an in-depth reflection on the death of 194 young Argentinians who were caught inside the concert venue Cromagnon as it caught fire on December 30, 2004.

Blog de Viajes links to Argentinian tourism statistics for the year 2004 [es] and then questions if Latin America can quicken its pace in promoting tourism [es] and stop slipping behind the rest of the world.

Argenautas implores fellow ex-pat Argentinians to leave a message on Live 8 List [es] and generates some controversy with a message blaming IMF policy for Argentina's poverty.

Barrio Flores and MABB both write on the Bolivian Congresses agreement to hold general elections on December 4th. Meanwhile, Blog de Bolivia announces a return to regular commentary [es].

Fernando Flores has an excellent (though not complete) list of Latin American blog directories [es]. These (and others) will be added to the Bridge Blog Index soon.

VCRISIS features an article by Marta Colomina comparing Venezuela's Military Intelligence with Pinochet's DINA in Chile during the 1970's and 80's.

Matt Lawrence of Havana Journal writes on the House's decision to block efforts to ease U.S. sanctions against Cuba.

Don Xavier writes up a thorough summary of Ecuablogs 2005[es], which appears to have been a much more formal event compared to other blogger meetups. Complete with links to videos of the conference.

Eduardo Arcos complains of tag spam [es] and asks how to convert a Movable Type blog into Spanish [es] (surprisingly, it appears there is no documentation to be found).

Ethiopia

Timbuktu Chronicles passes on some interesting information about a virtual marketplace, enabled by the use of cellphones.

Andrew Heavens of Meskel Square interviews two Addis Ababa university students about Live 8.

Africa Vox is a group blog by African journalists who are covering the G8 summit this year. Via Kenya Pundit.

The BBC has a good roundup of African blog reaction to Live 8; faithful readers of Global Voices Online will note that much of the coverage echoes our own Ethan Zuckerman's ongoing coverage of the same event.

There's a new Lesotho blog directory on the web.

Black Looks laments the fact that W8, a conference about women's rights in Africa, was barely noticed in the mainstream press last week.

This is Zimbabwe posts an article about how the forex market works in Zimbabwe.

China

Danwei reports that a state-owned film company's website has been blocked inside China… because they failed to register the site with the Ministry of Information Industries.

Fons Tuinstra writes about a Chinese-language group blog that's translating articles from English into Chinese.

The Sassy Lawyer announces that she's started writing a regular, dead-tree newspaper column for the Manila Standard. Why? It's simple, she says: “Now I am ready to reach out to the 95 percent of the Filipino population without access to the internet.”

Singabloodypore points to an on-line article that suggests that Lee Kuan Yew should start blogging.

Photograph by Vernon Fowler

India

Rohit Gupta, writing in Chien(ne)s Sans Frontieres, is frustrated by writers of Indian decent who've never lived in India calling themselves “Indian writers”; he's delighted to to read an interview with Rana Dasgupta, who refuses to call himself an Indian writer even though he lives there now.

Youth Curry on how asking questions out of left field tests school applicants' ability to think on their feet.

Tunisia

The Big Pharaoh uncovers the link between Egyptian tomato exports and Secretary of State Rice's calls for reform in Egypt.

At Iran Scan, Hoder notes that the election of Ahmedinejad has been a godsend for Iranian cartoonists.

Ali of Free Iraqi explains what “independence” means for him.

SubZero Blue brings us the tale of a Tunisian writer who's in the middle of a 10-year walk through the Arab nations.

Kazakhstan

Ben Paarmann is adventuring through the Kazakh immigration bureaucracy, in search of the elusive multi-entry visa.

Alan Cordova points out that, as it transitions from a Soviet state to an independent nation, Kazakhstan isn't just trying to decide between a common law system or a civil law system; they're struggling with what the meaning of ‘law' is.

Photograph by Larry Tweed