Global Voices Online

Miguel Octavio's blog, The Devil's Excrement has once again been loaned to ghost blogger, Jorge Arena who tries to understand why Jorge Rodriguez has stepped down in his bid as head of the National Electoral Council (CNE).

Justin at Cosmic Buddha sees the first signs of life—maybe carp, maybe mullet—on the Sumoto River since a disastrous typhoon two years ago.

Colors of Life worries that, as Islamist political power rises in the country, the dice has been cast against a “Malaysian” Malaysia.

Another Hundred Years Hence responds to a reader, a Filipino-American who owns some apartment buildings in New York, who argues that rent control may help the urban poor stay in cities and protect them from gentrification.

The blogger at Pinyin News introduces some new literature on various Chinese input systems. “I certainly don't recommend using zhuyin, [otherwise known as bopomofo] but it's nice to know the information on how to type it (both by itself and for character input) is available and put forward so clearly.”

Singapore's Salt * Wet * Fish reposts a 2004 entry from his old LiveJournal that continues to have resonance: a reflection on a passage by Buddhist nun Thich Nhat Hanh on remembering that spiritual texts are meant to provoke insight, and should not always be taken on face value.

Virtual China's Jason Li dishes out a treat for his insomniac readers with a link to a new section of Chinese-language search engine Baidu which only searches within Chinese government Web sites, which basically means .gov.cn sites and China Central Television (CCTV).

Thai blog Bookish reflects on the beleaguered Thai PM's evasion of a question posed to him on a TV talk show: Did he make a mistake transferring his company's shares to his son rather than to a blind trust, as required by the Thai constitution?

Frances at Supernaut, who returned to Guangzhou this month, posts on the transsexual former PLA soldier Jin Xing, organizer of this year's Shanghai International Dance Festival and her eponymous dance theater.