Global Voices Online

After the July 1 rally, Anson Chan continued to promote democratic reform in Hong Kong. T-salon puts together her speech on discourses on Hong Kong's Democracy and Financial Times comment on her recent move.

July in the Chinese Lunar Calendar is the ghost month. In Taiwan, municipalities are searching for ways to reduce the air pollution from thousands of people burning ghost money at the same time. Micheal turton from A view from Taiwan suggests to introduce ghost credit cards.

In light of the report that only 19% of black Bermudians supported a recent bid to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the Limey wonders about the roots of black homophobia.

Linda Thompkins reports on Exclusive Caribbean Cotton Inc's plans to process Barbados's home-grown Sea Island cotton — “one of the most valuable and pricey cotton varieties” — at home instead of exporting the raw material to the US.

Pac MacLaurin posts a photo of three Cuban store clerks and comments on the country's labour inefficiencies: “A friend of mine once told me that when he was working in Havana as a press photographer there were two people in the elevator of his hotel at all times. One person asked “What floor?” Then, the other person pressed the button.“

Guyana-Gyal wonders whether her nosy yet unfriendly new neighours — a group of men — might be in “purdah”.

As a result of general comments made by a government minister about blogs and accountability, Barbados Free Press pre-emptively defends its right to exist: “Welcome to the new century - where ordinary people can now own a press on the internet. We can think of no more healthy development for democracy and for Barbados.“

Vadim has a roundup of news and blog posts concerning Tajikistan.

Yulia translates a Russian language post on the difficulties disabled Kyrgyz citizens have in receiving support and how NGOs are making up for inconsistency from the state.