Global Voices

English

The world is talking, are you listening?

Tunisia

Tunisian blogger Astrubal writes[Fr]: “Tunisian blogs and sites have been censored, then those of civil society, then those of LEGITIMATE political parties, now the stupidity of Ben Ali's regime is attacking Dailymotion, one rare remaining space of freedom for Tunisians… Yesterday (April 1st), the Ben Ali dictatorship decided to behead Dailymotion in public .” The blogger posts a Dailymotion clip of a 2004 Bush-Ben Ali conference.

Burkina Faso

Demain le Congo Brazzaville posts [Fr] a complaint lodged in the French accusing of embezzlement African leaders such as Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassoun Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville and Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso. The complaint acknowledges that a French judge cannot adjudicate on salaries of African dictators but emphasizes the massive amounts of real estate owned by the accused African leaders in France.

Updates

Cricketwukup.com rates various aspects of Sunday's Cricket World Cup match between the West Indies and Sri Lanka. The highest marks go to the crowd, for “bravery in the face of the adversity”.

Cuba

Claudia4Libertad links to a petition requesting that Cuban-American music star Gloria Estefan reconsider having Carlos Santana appear as a guest artist on her tribute to Cuba album “90 Millas” on account of Santana's professed admiration of Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

Guyana

Andy Moonsammy posts a video mashup on YouTube mixing video from the show “Riverdance” with tassa drumming and Indo-Caribbean chutney music.

Guyana

Guyana-Gyal's mother's hoarse voice - the result of a foreign “taliban flu” - reminds Guyana-Gyal of the voices of the vendors on Water street who “don’t talk to one another. They shout.”

Vietnam

Vietnamese God takes us to a friend's wedding in the Vietnamese countryside.

Thailand

Stuart Towns comments on the recently announced Internet usage tax in Thailand. “And it only gets worse: “In addition to the bandwidth tax, an extra usage tax of 490 Baht (US$14)will be levied on those using Bittorrents and surfing foreign language internet forums.” Unbelievable!”

update: Thai blogger iteau exposes this is an April fool prank.

Kazakhstan

Leila Tanayeva reports on a new, ultra-moder construction project for Almaty's Republic Square.

Singapore

Culture Shiok comments on the decision by the Singpore's health authorities to show an anti-smoking advert after 8 PM as some children found the advert too disturbing. “Airing the advertisement late at night may spare some children from having nightmares (Do Singapore youngsters go to bed that early?). We'll just have to wait and see how this will change the smoking trend in this small country.”