Global Voices Online

Bali Blog says that while the MSM will say tourists have fled following the suicide bombings, the Kuta and Seminyak tourist areas of Bali are quiet because of Galungan, a period of 10 days when the ancestors return to earth and are feted with offerings.

China Digital Times reports on the closure of the popular online Chinese discussion forum, Yannan.com, and points those interested in the direction of archived posts from the site dating up to May 15, 2005.

Musing Under the Tenement Palm posts a digest of China's English-language news media's coverage of the 50th anniversary of Communist Party rule in the northwestern, mostly Muslim, region of Xinjiang.

Sokwanele Civic Action tells a tale of ambulances that won't respond to emergency calls where lives are at risk because they have “no fuel”, but which are later spotted picking up employees' children from school.

“I read and hear descriptions of killings, rape, indiscriminate shooting and burning of houses or shelters just like the ones in the African Union (AU) statement on a regular basis,” writes Darfur-based aid worker Sleepless in Sudan in response to the AU statement. “It's just that I cannot share them…in any format other than a blog that cannot be traced to me or to my employer.”

saad of The World from Rabat reports that some 30 prisoners, who have been on hunger strike for almost two months in Western Sahara, have agreed to take food again. They ended their hunger strike because of their families' fears for their lives, the Moroccan Human Rights Association (AMDH) said. Most of the prisoners were arrested in the anti-Moroccan riots in May in the main Western Sahara town of Laayoune.

The Muscatis says that 20 years ago, Sultan of Oman waived to him while he was stopping next to him at a traffic light in Muscat. However, last week, The Muscatis got stuck in traffic because the roads were closed in Muscat while the Sultan was going to address the Oman Council with his annual speech. Time Changes!

ThaRum answers Beth Kanter's query about cheap laptops with this post about MIT Media Laboratory's plans to unveil a Linux-based, hand-cranked U.S.$100 laptop in November, inspired by a visit to a Cambodian village.

UgandaCAN recommends that anyone interested in learning more about the GuluWalk awareness event, as well as night commuters and child soldiers in northern Uganda watch the documentary film Invisible Children.