Global Voices Online

Kaishin in Japundit reports that a samurai theme park is on sale now, and the price is roughly: USD$8,200,000.

One in four households in Japan have no savings, alexpappas blogs about a survey result.

BWG blogs a survey about how parents in Hong Kong react when they got frustrated with their kids' studies: Get out! go away! I don't want to see you anymore.

Ai wei wei discusses the way how the government deal with fairness and justice by presenting two legal cases: Let us discuss fairness and equality, the foundations for social morality. Democracy
and checks and balances are the basic conditions for guaranteeing fairness and justice. Short of these basic conditions, any talk of fairness and justice becomes self-deluding.

Wang Xiao-feng discusses about the fashion of “digital sex” writings and its potential impact on sex attitude in China (zh): some writers pretend to be experts in sex, but the writings are just pornographics.

Lyn Jeffery in Virtual China introduces a new website called “little fatty net”. It is a new generation youth website.

Valentine Michael Smith reports on a meeting convened in Bermuda to discuss the subject of independence, where 23% of the attendeed were “confused expats thinking they were attending a screening of The Sound of Music”.

A Bermudian bishop earns points from the Limey for his refusal to support an interdenominational church service he believes excludes homosexuals.

MTV veejay-turned-Belize eco resort owner Simone Elgeln looks back on her early days in Belize when she and her husband invited a few people to watch movies at their home — and the whole community turned up.

“While our system of education has tragedy written into its script, with a 16 year old having to choose four subjects on which to “concentrate” to the exclusion of others, there is a wider travesty occurring daily in our societies,” writes Jamaica Francis Wade in a post exploring the effects of choosing — or not choosing — work one is passionate about.

Deep Purple is getting ready to rock Almaty for two nights, reports neweurasia.

Geoffrey Philp launches a new writers series called “In My Own Words” with Trinidadian poet Mervyn Taylor.

Onnik Krikorian reports on protests and unhappiness among Georgia's ethnic Armenian community.

neweurasia reports on the correlation between a Central Asian and Caucasus states' levels of corruption and parking violations for members of their UN missions.

Registan.net reports on how the conflict between Georgia and Russia creates problems for Kazakhstan.

Sean Roberts discusses how last year's Andijon uprising is being used to arrest political figures who have fallen from favor.

The Accidental Russophile posts what looks like “a Soviet police memo identifying ethnic types.”

Arellanes.com translates a piece on the Czech Republic's most recent political scandals.

Boo shares her reaction on the murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Csikszereda Musings describes what a visit to a Romanian pharmacy feels like.

Foreign Notes writes about the recent appointments made by president Yushchenko: Vasyl Baziv, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Vitaliy Hayduk.

Chileno clarifies what he thought had been a “mysterious toxic gas cloud in Santiago.”

Alfredo Ascanio gives another first-hand impression of the “avalanche march” by opposition candidate Manuel Rosales.

John Guzman shows a “new” Colombian Bird that even proudly wears the patria.

An American expat living in La Ceiba, Honduras offers two handy posts on “the frustrations of banking” and “how to have a better banking experience” in Honduras.

Indian author Kiran Desai wins the booker for ‘The Inheritance of Loss'. Ultra Brown has some interesting links and Amitava Kumar has a little on the author and her first work.

The peace deal in Nepal has obstacles. One of them being the Maoists' reluctance to give up their arms. Bloggers Nepal has more. “The government wants the Maoists to give up their weapons before joining the interim government in order to assure that the rebels do not have an army when they are in the interim administration, while the Maoists have expressed “strong dissatisfaction” over the SPA’s proposal.”

Of T E C D I G E S T I Ó N [ES] by Alvaro Montes, blogsColombia writes [ES]: “From open source to “digital ecology,” with a critical vision of journalism, technology, and the current state of the digital divide in Colombia and worldwide. Highly recommendable.”

Bilingual Mexican blogger Andrés Bianciotto reminds readers of the reality TV show Fort Boyard? (which was apparently very popular in Argentina) and points them to a post about the fort on Google Sightseeing.

Another tasty Peruvian recipe, this time Don Ball Carbajal tells us how to make Crema de Zapallo.

Patrick of the Guatemala Solidarity Network transaltes a description of the new Guatemalan film, “Las Cruces… Poblado Proximo” from Blog de mi Guatemala [ES]. Patrick also posts the trailer of the film, which is available on YouTube.

Having read a book on consumers in Sri Lanka, indi.ca reflects on the average Sri Lankan. “It’s called ‘Profiling the Sri Lankan Consumer‘ by Uditha Liyanage. It’s not the best written book, but it has a lot of facts. As an example, let’s take the average Sri Lankan male. He probably married around 26 and (taking the median) he’s probably 28 right now.”

Shirazi on Gulzar, a newspaper forwarding agent. “That was a place from where he arranges the dispatch of newspaper and periodicals to the agencies in over 200 stations (including remote villages, towns and small cities). He uses railways, road transport and airlines of that purpose. He has employed 11 workers, one motor rickshaw and a Suzuki pick up for the job.”

LankaWatch on the post-Tsunami money that was streamed into Sri Lanka and how NGOs cannot account for the money. “Almost 2 years on, most NGOs are not able account for the millions of dollars that poured into Sri Lanka after the devastating Tsunami that hit in December 2004.”

Zannevesht has published a link to National Geographic prize winner's, Newsha Tavakolian, photos. Newsha Tavakolian has been selected as a 2006 All Roads Photography Program award-winner for her photo essay entitled Iran: Women in the Axis of Evil.

Nas reports that the Jordanian government has decided to “Jordanise” the workforce by creating a 'strategy' that includes using the municipalities to employ Jordanians through a direct application process. If all goes according to plan, some 40,000 foreign workers will be replaced with Jordanians.

Speaking as a former Muslim extremist, Ammar contribute a few personal insights into the making of the would-be suicide bomber– the fate that he was lucky enough to elude.

Last sunday a peaceful demonstration was organized in the village of Al Khadr located on the outskirts of Bethlehem. One of the main food items to be produced by Al Khadr is grapes. The potest concerned the increasing ghettoization of the village which preventing access to external markets adding to already high levels of poverty in the area, Gaialing reports.

Photos on flickr by tomato umlaut caputing Mumbai at night during Ramadan. Wonderful photographs from the street, as food gets cooked for the faithful.

Myouez at Blog of Nyein Chan Yar is reporting that he is hearing news of heavy rains and flooding from the people living in upcounty Myanmar. The state controlled media is silent. “The region around Mandalay is flooded due to heavy rain these days. After very heavy rain on the night of October 8, Nga-pyaung dam was broken and villages in Kyauk-sae Township were flooded severely according to the news I got from people living there. The condition over there is pretty bad but no rescue for the people was made by authorities. In Yay-won village, water level is around 15 feet and all (one storied) houses are under water now. It was said that more than 150 people are still missing. The flood is getting worse after excess water level in Kin-Dar dam was released the next day. “

Politics.za reports the continuing bickering in South African politics: “Following Thabo Mbeki’s criticising of SACP leader Blade Nzimande the Feud That Will Not Die™ now enters another messy chapter. Of course the Young Communists League responded in a quiet and dignified manner which then caused the ANC to criticise them further.”

Meskel Square writes about publicity war over a port:”Once upon a time Ethiopia only had access to one port. If you wanted to get your goods delivered in bulk, you had to pack them in containers and send them through Djibouti. Then Ethiopia did a deal with Somaliland and its port at Berbera. And suddenly there was competition.”

Gilbert Veisamasama, Jr in Fiji writes that Singapore has displaced Australia and New Zealand to become Fiji's biggest source of imports.

Indoneisa matters links to a Washington Post story on a Indonesian rock star. Ahmad Dhani, frontman of the group Dewa is trying to keep Indonesian youth away from the influence of radical Islam.

Popagandhi writes about Malaysia setting a special unit to find and fine people who mix Malay and English in their conversation.

Monday, October 9, 2006 was the 1st African Women’s Carnival focussing on Blogging and Identity.

Madyjune in Myanmar talks about her first Korean language class. Younger people in Myanmar have taken to Korean pop-culture in a big way.

A Tanzanian photoblogger, Issa Michuzi, posts a photo of the American singer, Beyonce, dancing Sindimba, a popular traditional dance from Southern Tanzania, during her recent visit to Tanzania.

Liao Zusheng's son was beaten to death at school in Fushan. Liao opened a blog in sina claiming that his son was murdered by teachers and staffs because of his criticism on the school fee and administration in the newspapers. He pleads the central government to intervene.

One man bandwith blogs another teacher murder case in Hunan, when the teacher get away from the prosecution by schizophrenia.

After the plan of expelling rural migrant workers, Beijing government is preparing to expel “mentally ill” people out of the city before the Olympic. The angry Chinese blogger reminds us that “Beijing has a known history of using ‘mental illness' as a political tool to silence protesters…”

Shang Tiff in Shanghaiist introduces the Lesbian or lala culture in Shanghai.

Many people find out that they can visit wikipedia since yesterday. Shanghaiist also tests it but not sure how long will it sustain. .

Simon world comments on the Chief Executive, Donald Tsang's recent speech on replacing of “positive non-interventionism” with “small government, big market”: Thanks God we're not (yet) Singapore!

Shih Ming-de is the leader in the anti president campaign in Taiwan, ESWN translates an open letter from his daughter on her expectation of her father.

Judy p in interlocals.net points out that on October 15, it is the World Rural Women's day, however, the women themselves are not celebrating. So who are celebrating?