Global Voices Online

All over the Singapore blogosphere are commentaries on an unfortunate high school cheerleader, nicknamed “Tammy NYP,” whose cellphone was allegedly stolen by a jealous classmate and whose sex video recorded on that phone is now spreading across the Internet. A post by Book of Aletheia on the topic now has over 150 comments. Tinker, Tailor has a few words on the scorn heaped on the poor girl but not on her male partner. Xialanxue has been following the story, communicating with the victim, trying to persuade a blogger to remove pictures posted from the video, and reflecting on the ethics of the traditional media's reporting on a deeply embarrassing story.

Recent Links also in East Asia

Lawyer and blogger raymiyatake expresses his doubts [ja] over the election of Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). First, he says, Amano was supported by only 23 nations out of 35. Second, he points out the difficult situation that the Agency is dealing with, at present, and the “unfairness” of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which should be applied also to the five members already recognized as possessing nuclear power. Lastly, he suggests that instead of promoting a “pacific use” of nuclear energy, this should be replaced with clean energy sources (such as the geothermal or the aeolian ones).

This year is Mobile Suit Gundam's 30th birthday.
While a giant statue of the robot stands in Odaiba's park (in the Tokyo bay area), in a theatre of northern Tokyo, blogger/actress Rie Takahashi [ja] and her crew pay tribute to the animated television series in stage play Robot.

Bernard Leong observes that Facebook is almost the dominant social networking platform in Southeast Asia. It has overtaken Friendster in Malaysia and is getting more members in other countries in the region.