Global Voices Online

Dawn describes the unique graduation ceremony in Myanmar. “Myanmar graduation ceremonies are different from western ones. There are two days: rehearsal day and the actual ceremony day. I don't know who started this rule, but for the two days, most wear two different suits. On rehearsal day, we don't need to wear the black robe, so that day is the best day for the girls to show off themselves. But for both days, females have to wear Myanmar traditional dress, while males can wear either full Western suit, or Myanmar traditional suit.”

After looking for a simple clean application to hold his books collection and coming up empty, Ahmed El Zein decided to write his won application. It is written in Ruby on Rails (ROR) and is Open Source. Find some snapshots here!

Moryarti explains why Road Toll is the solution for horrible roads traffic between Dubai and Sharjah. “If you live in Sharjah, you pay less rent, but in return you get stuck in traffic for at least 3 hours more every day. But with Road Tolls, main roads will clear out big time because the ones who can't afford them will chose other alternative roads. If you can afford to pay Tolls, don’t even think of taking alternative roads. As a matter of fact, if you pay Road Tolls twice a day, 7days a week for a whole year, the difference you will be paying will not even be a fraction of the extra cost you will have to bare if you decide to move back to Dubai…”

Sound interesting!

Omar put a petition which asks MBC 4 Channel (a Saudi Sponsored TV Network) to stop constantly and repeatedly broadcasting the Western view point (constant broadcast of American produced news).

“We do not accept the flimsy disclaimer that MBC 4, for example, has chosen to hide behind stating that American news broadcasts on the channel do not reflect the channel's own opinions. The size of the tiny disclaimer insults our intelligence, and it's very existence offends our sensibilities, and we hereby assert that aside from insulting mature viewers, these broadcasts are conditioning our children and youth towards a view of reality to which we do not subscribe,” Omar said.

Election ‘coverage and monitoring‘ does seem to be the buzz of the Bahraini blogsphere.

“Many people were upset about the fact that Olmert was invited to address the OU Orthodox Union Convention in Jerusalem because of his anti-Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) and anti-democratic policies. He wasn't the only Israeli official who spoke. After Jewish Agency Chief Ze'ev Bielski's call for American Jews to immigrate to Israel, outgoing Israeli Ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon, told the attendees not too, that they are needed in America to pressure the powers there,” Batya said.

Pierrot Dupuy writes (Fr): “I am learning from different sources, some of which are close Parisian relations of [French Interior Minister] Nicolas Sarkozy, that if he is elected President, he will offer a minister job to Nassimah Dindar … Is the best way to avoid Nassimah the minister for Sarkozy not to be president?” (Nassimah Dindar is President of the French Regional Council encompassing La Reunion.)

Black Looks has an update on the mistreatment of Kenyan academic and novelist, Professor Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Zaynab A. Omaki writes about Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry, in the sub-Saharana Africa roundtable, “For all is flaws, however, Nollywood has been able to create a sense of nationhood. Nigerians identify their film industry as being wholly their own, even if they don’t identify with its productions. That’s why Nollwyood, with some work on its vision, objectives and originality, can eventually blossom into a positive influence on its consumers and present a more complete image to the outside world.”