Global Voices Online

Ben Paarmann has his fifth and final post on the determination of national borders in Central Asia.

Carpetblogger, who recently gave a bad review to the city of Batumi, sings the praises of Georgia.

It would seem that the marketing department of Monterrey's Sultanes got some creative inspiration from the New York Yankees.

Regarding those vexing agents of the internet underworld, Roberto Arancibia writes in “What to do with the trolls?” (ES): “This is my blog. My world. My space. My house. And I write what I want, when I want, and how I want. If someone, sometime, finds a word or two here that serves them, then OK. If they don't like it, there are more than 50 million blogs on the planet. If I want to have a blog with “red lettering” then I do it with a click. If I want to erase my entire blog, I do it with a click. And if I want to erase comments from trolls, I do it with a click. It's that plain and simple.”

Fayyad analyzing news from Israeli media noticed that there are some indications that Israel is becoming increasingly isolated and sanctioned. His first example is the news that several European countries have banned Israeli Airlines El Al from landing in their airports if they are carrying IDF cargo, and the second example is the news of the ghost of prosecution for war crimes that is chasing the commanders of Israel's army.

Amechad says that the morality of business is the problem of Israel. “It lacks equality under law but has this idea of income equality that serves to weaken those better off instead of strengthen those worse off, which in the end, also weakens those worse off — making Israel a far worse country than its potential could be if all sectors of its society joined the Western Capitalist model including a philosophical backing in the liberal tradition.”

A newspaper report that statistics show Indians and Pakistanis in Dubai are the worst drivers and caused most accidents in Dubai in the first half of the year. Seabee wonders why accidents need to be presented by nationality. “If statistics are going to be presented in that way, then let's have the full picture so that they actually mean something”, Seabee said.

IraqPundit reminds Iraqis that Iraq has no choice but to stick to the plan for democracy. On the other hand, however much Iraqis might sympathize with the inexperienced members of parliament they voted into office, but IraqPundit says that they are tired of hearing them evoke Saddam Hussein’s regime to justify their ineffectiveness. “Iraqis would like them to put the past behind them and, to use an Americanism, move on.”

Another train accident in less than two weeks from the previous one. Zeinobia says that some of the reasons are the condition of the train drivers, which obtain small salaries that barely meets the high requirement of living conditions in Egypt and the very hard work conditions with trains that are very old.