Global Voices

English

The world is talking, are you listening?

Mali-based French expat Mali Café deplores [Fr] that the French election eclipsed the Malian one: ” Malians went to the polls a week day for day after the first round of the French presidential election … Amadou Toumani Touré, the incumbent was elected since the first round with more than 68.5% of the vote for a participation of about 30% … Weird things happened here! Such as electoral cards delivery… One thing for sure, France inspired the Malian model… To make a longs story short, for some in the country, the election was rigged … “

France/Maroc à VTT posts [fr] vibrant pictures of the Souk of Lalla Mimouna and writes of the market: “When I was 15, the Souk of Lalla Mimouna took place on Fridays. Today in Morocco, souks are no longer held on Fridays. The Lalla Mimouna market takes place Saturday and is still as colorful and authentic. Except I couldn't find the tooth puller or the jar seller … “

Regarding an upcoming May 9 Préval visit to the White House, Collectif Haiti de Provence writes [Fr]: ”More than a week after a beneficial tour hand in hand with President Hugo Chavez … this meeting with the most powerful man on earth … could look like a call to order or caution to those who think that it is impossible to lead Haiti without having in mind the desires of our powerful neighbors.”

UDPS Liège posts an interview with Rachel Kabua Atwele, a Belgium-based UDPS sympathizer. She says [Fr]: “Let's not kid ourselves, dictatorship is alive and well. Those who believed in the good faith of Kabila the imposter are already having a hard time: Thérèse Nlandu, Pasteur Kuthino, the coup d'état on the majority through high-level corruption in the pro- Bemba provinces are sure signs of the stifling of the opposition by the AMP camp.”

Says French Caribbean site New Media [Fr]: “Taiwan, through the hand of its Foreign Affairs minister James Huang and his St. Lucian counterpart Rufus Bouquet, has officially signed Wednesday in Castries a treaty reestablishing diplomatic ties between the two countries. China has already stated it feels ‘offended’ by the document.”

En Guyane posts [Fr] pictures of a mangosteen, a local fruit originating from Asia. She calls the fruit “sweet and strange”.

For French Labor Day, celebrated on May 1st, Convention pour une Nouvelle Guadeloupe writes [Fr]: “We … denounce the social model imposed by French authorities of the left and of the right and we … want a new model rooted in Guadeloupean values and founded mostly on the end of welfare, on responsibility, on the participation of workers in management… on union representation in all enterprises regardless of size.”