text:
Khalid Jarrar: Iraqi blogger detained · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Blogger Khalid Jarrar, author of Secrets in Baghdad, remains in custody of the Iraqi intelligence service, known as the Mukhabarat.
As we reported yesterday, Khalid's brother Raed says their family was relieved to hear on Thursday morning that Khalid is still alive after going missing for two days. On Sunday, Khalid described on his blog how his apartment in Baghdad had been broken into and his hard drive was stolen. Soon after that he disappeared.
Khalid's family are calling for his release, or at very least that he be charged and tried for something. Raed says: “Our goal now is to ask the mokhabarat to take Khalid to court and reveal what exactly he is being charged with (if anything).”
The Committee to Protect Bloggers supports the Jarrar family's appeals.
Please show your support for the Khalid Jarrar by posting supportive comments at Raed's and Khalid's latest posts. If you're a blogger, please help spread the word by linking to them.


text:
King Leopold’s Ghost, Hypocrisy of Mugabe’s critics and Live8 · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The South African blog Neverness has been reading the book King Leopold's Ghosts, about the Belgian Congo; it's made him wonder about the state of today's Africa.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Paul Frankenstein


text:
LENIN’S TOMB · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

In the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, the blog Lenin's Tomb looks at rising Islamophobia in Great Britain.


text:
Leo Prieto is News: Hoy en Radio Concierto! · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Leo Prieto gets a lot of love from the Chilean blogging community for his appearance on a Radio Concierto program which focused on blogging.

author: David Sasaki


text:
Lynchings in Bolivia · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Both Barrio Flores and MABB comment on the recent flourish of lynchings, or “communal justice” in Cochabamba, Bolivia.


text:
Mexico City Weblogs.Communication Conference · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Today beginning at 4 p.m. is the first ever Weblogs.Communication conference, which will take place at the Foro Cultural Coyoacanense (Allende 36, Centro de Coyoacán) in Mexico City. A list of speakers can be found here and immediately following the conference is a “cervezas, sushi, and blogs get-together” at Kuru Kuru.


text:
Miss Tourism Pageant 2005 Kuching Show · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Popular Malaysian blogger Kenny Sia, armed with “a (borrowed) huge ass digital SLR camera,” crashes the Miss Tourism Pageant 2005 Kuching Preview Show and returns with lots of pictures. The event was not without some controversy; Miss Ethiopia was quarantined at the airport because she failed to produce a medical certificate and Miss Tibet refused to compete because the Chinese government forced to enter the competition as Miss Tibet-China.


text:
My Reelity · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Tomorrow.sg points to the blog of a local Singaporean actor.


text:
Nicaragua: Exotic Living in the Tropics · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Picasso Dreams writes of doing laundry, finding internet, reality television, cheap eats, and generally settling in to Nicaraguan life.


text:
Podcasting/Video Blogging Workshop in Accra Next Thursday · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

I just wanted to let everyone know that I'll be conducting a podcasting and videoblogging workshop in Accra next week. It's currently scheduled for Thursday, July 21 at 14:00 GMT at the offices of African Security Dialogue and Research. Their office is located on Kofi Annan Avenue, just off Atomic Agency Road, North Legon. If you're in Accra and would like to attend, please RSVP to Amos Anyimadu at accraboy @ fastmail.fm, in case the time or location changes. I hope to see some of you there! -andy

author: Andy Carvin


text:
Simon World :: Boring Disneyland · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

SimonWorld reports that the oft-beset Hong Kong Disneyland has now been afflicted with a plague of wood-boring beetles; apparently more than 100 rooms in the as-yet-unopened Disneyland Hotel had to be stripped of furniture and refurnished.


text:
The Arabist Network » Kifaya’s Abdeen Protest Pictures · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Arabist Network has an album of photograhs from Thursday's 500-strong Kifaya protest.


text:
The Evo Morales Debate · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Blog From Bolivia slices and dices the charismatic and ever-controversial Evo Morales, who this post claims “has about as much chance of becoming President of Bolivia after next December’s elections as I have of being Bush’s pick for the US Supreme Court.” Barrio Flores notes that Evo Morales places second in a recent poll.


text:
thunder – ¡Firefox en el Zoológico de Buenos Aires! · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Thunder finds Firefox in the Buenos Aires Zoo.


text:
Uruguay: Actualidad del Software Libre en el Uruguay · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Rodolfo Pilas gives a summary of open source software projects based in Uruguay. [es]


text:
Venezuela: Mision Cultura, the bolivarian cultural revolution · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Daniel of Venezuela News and Views calls Chavez's new initiative, Mision Cultura, a Venezuelan attempt of a Cultural Revolution or Kulturkampf.


text:
Voices from the Wiki · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

Part of the human and technical magic that allows Global Voices to function is a lively wiki, where users around the world are able to tell us about blogs and websites we should be paying attention to, and where we're able to jointly edit documents like the Guide to Anonymous Blogging.
One of the best ways to keep track of our wiki is to follow the “recent changes” page, which generally lists the last 50 pages edited on the wiki. On any given day, about a third of those changes are spam or vandalism, people adding long lists of links in the hopes of improving the Google ranking of their website. (I invite you to join the small but intrepid team of wiki gardeners who recreationally squash spam on our wiki – please see this useful article on rolling back wiki vandalism.)
But the other changes tend to be additions to the Bridgeblog Index, our vast and growing collection of bridgebloggers from around the world. And following the recent changes page (yes, you can subscribe to the RSS feed, if you're so inclined) lets you keep an eye on what countries have been recently edited and what new blogs have been added.
For those who don't find time to make it over to the wiki, I'll be periodically rounding up some of the recently changed wiki pages and featuring countries and blogs on the main Global Voices blog. Here's a roundup of some of the most interesting pages over the past week:
Our friends in Cambodia have been letting us know about an explosion of excellent Cambodian blogs, in English, French and Khmer. One of the most widely linked is King Norodom Sihanouk's website. It's not quite a blog – no RSS feed, for one thing – but the “daily documents” section is organized in reverse-chronological order and looks like a blog to me. There's even a photoblog of sorts – a record of His Majesty's daily activities in pictures. HM is evidently quite a music fan – many of the posts reference compositions or dances in his honor, and there's a collection of songs performed by the king available for streaming by Windows Media users.
I'm taking a wild guess that the folks at Cam-Blog are Global Voices fans. Their motto sounds a little familiar: “For All Friends! The World is Reading, are You Ready to Write?” The twelve authors listed on the group blog are, providing news and pictures from around the country, as well as a useful list of “Clogs”, Cambodian weblogs.
Representing Cambodian youth overseas (and at home) are the Khmer-Girlz and Khmer-Boyz blogs, which index profiles and links of young Cambodian bloggers, especially in France, but also throughout the world.
I've added ThaRum, a prolific and articulate Pnom Penh writer, to my aggregator. His recent post on the importance of local content in Khmer is very much worth reading.
The wiki page on Argentina is getting increasingly rich, with a number of rich, photographic blogs. One of the very best is Jeff Barry's “Buenos Aires: City of Faded Elegance”. An American expat, Jeff is clearly in love with the Argentine capital and does a great job of sharing his enthusiasm.
Blog de Viages is an excellent Spanish-language travel blog, covering adventure travel and tourism as a whole in South America. And for a comprehensive view of Argentines living aborad, group blog Argenauts covers “Argentinos desparramados por el mundo” (Argentines scattered around the world).
The richest page in the wiki may be the entry for India, which now features local blogs in English, the Indian Diaspora, Hindi Blogdom, and “Blog Directories and Cliques”. There's tons to explore here – groupblog DesiPundit is a great start, and my dear friend Dina Mehta's blog is completely indispensable.
Some other recently added gems:
– PolBlog – a “24/7″ source for news from Poland, in English
– Taiwan Tiger – a beautiful photo-heavy blog from an expat student in Taiwan.
– A great collection of Tunisia links, including the always lively Subzero Blue, and free speech proponent Neila Charchour Hachicha's french-language blog.
(Subzero Blue appears to be “suspended” – I greatly hope this is temporary.)

author: Ethan Zuckerman


text:
Flickr Pick  from China · Global Voices
L L

“Musical man” by Nathan Nelson

author: L L


text:
· Global Voices
Ahmed Al-Omran

Mohammed is trying to find the origin of the Kefaya movement name. He thinks it was used for the first time by an Egyptian writer in December 2004.

author: Ahmed Al-Omran


text:
Afghanistan: 23 Girls Graduate After 11 years · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Afghan Warrior celebrates the fact that, after 11 years,  23 girls have graduated from high school in Kandahar City.


text:
Argentina: Argenautas.com Flickr Group · Global Voices
David Sasaki

The group blog Argenautas now has a Flickr group to create a greater sense of community among Argentinians living outside their native country.


text:
Bangladesh: Tagging Islam · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Bangladeshi blog The 3rd World View asks why Flickr images of the 7/7 bombings are being tagged “Muslim”.


text:
Bolivia, Chile: MABB: Bolivia-Chile Relations · Global Voices
David Sasaki

MABB does an excellent job summing up Bolivia-Chile relations as both countries approach important presidential elections.


text:
Bolivia: More Bolivian Movies · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Barrio Flores follows up on Bolivian cinema with the recent release of “Di Buen Dia A Papa”.


text:
Bolivia: Museo de Coca · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Ray's Journal sums up his thoughts on the Museo de Coca in La Paz, Bolivia.


text:
Brand New Malaysian: Guest Editorial – Dr. Farish Noor · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Brand New Malaysian has a great guest post about Islam and terrorism up on his front page.


text:
Caribbean Free Radio · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Caribbean Free Radio has a podcast dedicated to tracking Tropical Storm Emily's damage to the Caribbean.


text:
Chile: Blogger Invited to Citizen Journalism Forum in South Korea · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Chilean blogger, María Pastora Sandoval Campos, was invited to Seoul, South Korea for an OhmyNews sponsored forum on citizen journalism. You can read a piece she wrote for OhmyNews about Latin American political culture.


text:
China: Debunking · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

China Herald debunks an article in the Independent about Chinese blogging. Fons, the author, says “mostly I try to ignore this level of nonsense. But in this article too much ignorance comes together.”


text:
China: Repot: July 17th · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

This weekly roundup of some of the goings-on in the Chinese-langauge blogosphere points out, among other things, that there will be a Chinese blogger confernce in Shanghai in early November.


text:
China: Two from EastSouthWestNorth · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

EastSouthWestNorth looks at the press coverage of an incident where a man held off the police with molotov cocktails for nearly 11 hours and discovers, once again, that there's more to the story than was being reported. He also translates an article about search-engine spam; it's an interesting read to see it from the Chinese perspective.


text:
Colombia: La Ciclovia · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Bloggings by Boz explains La Civlovia, a Sunday morning tradition which “shuts down several major roads and allows people to bike, rollerblade and run.” Eduardo of Barrio Flores comments that a “Pedestrian Day” is held once a year in Cochabamba, Bolivia.


text:
Colombia: The Anguish of Living Displaced · Global Voices
David Sasaki

John Guzman of Logtar's Blog has translated a poweful piece on what it's like to be displaced from Colombia. Guzman, himself a Colombian living abroad, says he relates to many of the author's observations.


text:
Costa Rica: New forum on Costa Rica debuts · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Neville Hobson reports of a new Spanish-language forum on Costa Rica started by his wife, Marie Alden, a Costa Rican living in the Netherlands.


text:
Cuba: Ignoring embargo, Americans film in Cuba · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Both Havana Journal and Babalu mention the an American film which was shot in Cuba thus ignoring the embargo. Babalu's post, though brief, has generated an impressive response about both the film itself and the embargo it ignored.


text:
Egypt: Al-Qimni Surrenders · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Big Pharaoh writes about an anti-fundamentalist author who caved into death threats and repudiated his writings. Did he do the right thing?


text:
Egypt: Know Your True Enemy إعرف عدوك الحقيقي · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Egyptian Person asks Palestinians if they really know who their real enemies are.


text:
El Salvador: People making a difference · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Tim links to
people and programs making a difference in El Salvador.


text:
France:  Fête nationale/Bastille day · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

In beleated celebration of Bastille Day, Blogging in Paris points to some photographs of Bastille Day fireworks.


text:
Germany: Ebay’s German success story by Heiko Hebig | hebig.com · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Heiko Hebig points out that 51% of German internet users used Ebay.de in the month of May. That's really amazing.


text:
Hungary: Choose your 3rd child’s sex by SMS · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Central Budapest finds the cabinet's decision to poll the public via SMS on whether or not Hungarians should be allowed to choose their child's gender to be a bit disturbing.


text:
India: Tag Cloud on DesiPundit · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

DesiPundit has added a tag cloud reflecting recent topics of discussion; apparently they've been talking a lot about Harry Potter…


text:
Inside The Japanese Blogosphere · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Ra, a third-generation Korean resident in Japan, who “has a Japanese name, has the same color of skin, the same way of speaking, and watches the same television” as the Japanese, and even so, is still considered a “foreigner in his home country”, is looking for help translating his popular blog Korean The Third(日本語) from Japanese into English and other languages.
Ra hopes his blog, which offers plenty of insight into relations between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, will help promote rational discussion regarding recent anti-Japanese protests in East Asia.
A Beginner's Guide to Convenience Store Hassles(日本語) is a bridge blog that documents the problems konbini employees and franchise operaters in Japan encounter when dealing with the large companies, such as 7-11, that dominate the crowded convenience store sector in that country. Typical issues include sub-par logistics, market over-development, and dodgy pricing schemes, with the end result that it's very difficult to make a living operating a convenience store franchise in Japan.
Takafumi Horie, 30-something CEO of Livedoor, one Japan's most influential ISP's,  offers career advice in a Q and A format to any and all on one of his weblogs. It's significant because Horie stresses that, instead of joining a company and doggedly working one's way up the corporate ladder the traditional way, individuality, creativity, and vision (and some good old-fashioned Japanese hard work) are all it takes to become a success in post-bubble Japan.
Cyber Agent president Susumu Fujita also has a blog, Diary of a Shibuya Company President. Fujita, then 26, started Cyber Agent in 1998 as an internet ad agency, and the company successfully weathered the tech meltdown.  Cyber Agent now offers Ameblog, a popular blogging tool .
While Fujita's blogging style is somewhat staid, Cyber Agent, like Livedoor, is another Japanese company that cultivates the individual intiative and business acumen of its employees, and seems to be popular with career-oriented young women in Japan.
Blogs were discovered at Ninki Blog Ranking.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Iran: One Dilemma Too Many · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Free Thoughts on Iran looks forward to what a Ahmedinejad presidency might bring and is not encouraged.


text:
Iran: Petition for Khalid · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Committee to Protect Bloggers points out that petition to free imprisioned Iraqi blogger Khalid Jarrar has been set up. At post time, it had more than 400 signatures.


text:
Iran Scan – The democratic future of Iran · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Iran Scan is reporting that hunger striker Akbar Ganji has been transferred from prison to a hospital.


text:
Iraq: Raed in the Middle · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Khalid Jarrar's brother, Raed, continues to blog despite his brother's imprisonment: here, he condemns targeting Iraqi civilians, while here he points out that food rations are either getting smaller or just being terminated.


text:
Lebanon: Liberation of Dr. Geagea: A Victory for Lebanon · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

One of Lebanon's major political prisoners won ammesty in the Lebanese Parliament today; Lebanese Political Journal believes that “Lebanon is on the verge of materializing a huge step towards national unity.”


text:
Mexico: Weblog Conference Reflections · Global Voices
David Sasaki

ALT1040, Isopixel, and eCuaderno all write their initial reflections on the first annual weblogs.communication conference that took place in Mexico City on Friday evening.


text:
Nicaragua: Virgins, Bulls, and Small Town Living · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Picasso Dreams keeps the prolific reflections coming after recently moving to a small town in Nicarugua.


text:
Philippines: Parliament of the streets · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Sassy Lawyer (featuring a nice new redesign) notes that the famed ‘parliament of the street’ has lost its credibility.


text:
Saudi Arabia: Anime Culture · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Who knew? Saudi Jeans reports that anime culture is making inroads in the kingdom.


text:
Singapore: Bloggers.SG · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Bloggers.sg, the Singaporean blog conference, seems to have been a smashing success. Mr.Brown has his intial reactions and a lengthy list of Singapore blogs commenting on the event; this trackback list from Tomorrow.sg lists more blogs commenting on the very popular event. It even spawned its Wikipedia page! Daryl Sng also put together a Flickr photoset documenting the event…


text:
South Korea: A note on Bubbles and Forgetting · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Blogcount looks at Korea as a blogging nation, and, taking John Dvorak's lead, wonders if the blogging numbers for Korea are inflated. (via asiapundit)


text:
Sudan: Rainy Season · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Humanitarian Hijinks, the anonymous blog of a relief worker in Darfur, notes that it's only a few weeks into the rainy season but it's already starting to flood–not to mention the increased mosquitoes and the attendant malaria risk.


text:
Uzbekistan: The Americans will not leave. Don’t even ask · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Uzbek blog T-Moor translates an Kazakh newspaper article about the US presence in Central Asia. It's an interesting look into how Central Asian countries view US motives and intentions.


text:
Tunisa: Comparing civilities · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

It's the little things: Tunisian blogger Neila Charchour Hachicha wrote the British ambassador after the 7/7 bombings, expressing her condolences; the ambassador wrote back with a short but sincere note of thanks. Were that all western powers so careful about nurturing support in the Arab world…


text:
Venezuela: The Sumate Files · Global Voices
David Sasaki

A new group blog, The Sumate Files has been set up with the purpose of: “compiling the most important articles appearing anywhere on the net and in English mostly. Our objective is to help Sumate resist the witch hunt that Chavez and his followers want to subject Sumate directors to. We will publish mostly articles favorable to Sumate but we will consider negative ones.” Submissions are encouraged.


text:
Zimbabwe: Farmers urged not return · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Zimbabwean Pundit is reporting that a farmer's rights group is urging its members to not cooperate with the government's proposals to return the farmers to their land.


text:
Argentina: AMIA bombing, 11 years later · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Jeff Barry has another excellent post, this time looking back on the 1994 terrorist bombing in the Bueno Aires neighborhood of Once.


text:
Argentinga: Juan Manuel Fangio · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Doug of all-encompassingly pays tribute to Argentine racing legend Juan Manuel Fangio.


text:
Azerbaijan: Election Monitor · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Here's a great new blog that'll be covering the upcoming elections in Azerbaijan. It apears to be affiliated with a new on-line effort to cover Central Asia called Thinking East. (via oneworld)


text:
Bangladesh: Blogs in the newspaper again · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The 3rd World View points out an article about blogging in a Bangladeshi newspaper that features his site.


text:
Bolivia: Cochabamba Poll · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Barrio Flores reports that in the latest, local Cochabamba poll Evo Morales and Tuto Quiroga are running neck to neck.


text:
Bolivia:  Guns, Germs & Steel – And Bolivia · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Boli-Nica has a Bolivian-centric summary of the recent PBS documentary based on Jared Diamond's book, Guns, Germs, and Steel.


text:
Bolivia: Two Important Stories to Track Down · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Blog from Bolivia is keeping tabs on what seems to be a US backed militarization of Bolivia as it approaches it special elections in December.


text:
Brand New Malaysian: Micheal Soosai’s Website under investigation: This blog instructed to remove all links · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Brand New Malaysian has been ordered to removed all links to Micheal Soosai's website due to an ongoing investigation. Soosai faked his own death a few years ago and later resurfaced with a website alleging massive police corruption.


text:
Carribean: Tropical Storm Tracking Software · Global Voices
David Sasaki

After a batch of hurricanes and tropical storms, Caribbean Free Radio links to an open source tropical storm tracking software program.


text:
Germany: Life Expectancy in East and West Germany · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

A Fistful of Euros looks at demographic information that examines the closing gap in life expectancy for west and east Germans.


text:
Guatemala: Mining, Genocide and Human Rights · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Upside Down Blog has a two part series written by Cyril Mychalejko about an “Anti-Mining Coalition Meeting” in Guatemala.


text:
Hong Kong: Teacup in a storm · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

SimonWorld looks the complicated world of press freedom in Hong Kong.


text:
Iraq: Corruption, thieves · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Sami of An Iraqi's Thoughts laments continued corruption in Iraq: “The collapse of Iraqi society in front of your eyes is sad, sad because the end of the tyrant was meant to bring a new beggininng.”


text:
Iraq: Horrors of War and Terrorism · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Husayn Uthman, who writes Democracy in Iraq (Is Here!), compares the London bombings to daily life in Iraq: “I am very sad to see what happened in London, but for me, it is nothing new, those of us in Iraq have become used to tens of people dying on a daily basis, it is sickening, as I think we have become used to it, almost as if we are losing our humanity in the midst of so much death, pain and agony.”


text:
Iraq: Saddam, The US, and their Victims · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Raed Jarrar writes that “I used to daydream during my high school years in Baghdad about the day that Saddam will fall; it was one of my fantasies. I wanted to know all the secrets behind his irresponsible and aggressive decisions since he came to power in the early eighties.” He's afraid that the trial against Saddam will prevent the truth about his other atrocities from coming to light.


text:
Indonesia: Turn off the TV! · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

In an apparent bid to reduce energy consumption, the Indonesia government has ordered television stations to stop broadcasting between 1 and 5 a.m. for the next six months, reports Jakartass.


text:
Japan: Who is that masked man? · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Japanpundit brings us the tale of a
professional wrestler-turned-politician who is accused of using public funds to travel to a wrestling match. The wrestler/politician–who refuses to take his mask off during legislative sessions–denies the charges.


text:
Jordan: Quoted in The Times · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Jordanian blog Mental Mayhem discovered that she had been quoted in the Times of London. Unfortunately, they got her URL wrong…


text:
Kenya: Poor Governance · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Bankelele has a brief rundown of the mismangement charges levied against the Central Bank.


text:
Macam-Macam: Peace for Aceh · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Macam-Macam reports that a tentative peace deal in the war-torn Indonesian provice of Aceh has been reached.


text:
Peru: The Incan Trail · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Don Ball Carbajal reflects on his trip up the Incan Trail in Peru.


text:
Philippines: Stories behind our stories » President says she will create commission · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

According to Inside PCIJ, President Arroyo has announced that she will create “a commission or similar body to look into the truth behind issues recently raised against me.” The wording of the statement seems to suggest that the purpose of any such commission will be the investigation of the actions of the President's opponents during the scandal…


text:
Pssst…wanna buy a Harry Potter? – Sepia Mutiny · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The group blog Sepia Munity notes that it only took 48 hours for pirated copies of the latest Harry Potter epic to appear on the streets of Mumbai.


text:
Saudi Arabia: Women’s Driving: Do We Need Another King Faisal? · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Saudi Jeans is discouraged by the latest skirmish in the ‘Should Saudi Arabia allow women to drive’ debate.


text:
Singapore: Digital Life on Bloggers.SG · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Mr.Brown reviews the Straits Times coverage of Bloggers.SG 2005, as does Tomorrow.sg.


text:
Smartphone+Bluetooth: Ghanaian Video Blogging Paradise · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

A few moments after I posted my blog entry about the potential use of smart phones and Bluetooth wireless as a workaround for Ghanaian video bloggers, lo and behold I was approached by Lebanese blogger Mustapha, who introduced himself and sat down to chat, one Mac owner to another. He then pointed out he had the new Handspring Treo 650 smart phone, which just so happens has both video and Bluetooth capabilities. Lightbulbs went off, and in a matter of a few minutes we were able to post the following video clip. I wonder if it's the first smart phone video blog entry from Ghana?
Andy and Mustapha try video blogging from Ghana with a smart phone:
Low bandwidth clip
Medium bandwidth clip
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS


text:
The Beirut Spring: A Taste of Fame · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Beirut Spring‘s “No To Terrorism” banner has made an appearance on the BBC's website.


text:
The WSIS Youth Caucus in Ghana · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

I've just completed an interview with Leopold Armah and Regina Banini of Ghana's WSIS Youth Caucus, chatting about the role of African youth in the UN's World Summit on the Information Society. Have a listen to the podcast. -andy
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS


text:
United Arab Emirates: Banned in Dubai · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Gulf News is reporting that the UAE blog Secret Dubai Diary has been blocked by the state telecommunications company. This is believed to be the first blog blocked by the UAE.


text:
Venezuela: Chavez Police Cars · Global Voices
David Sasaki

The Devil's Excrement isn't happy with the new Chavez covered Metropolitan Police cars in Caracas.


text:
Video Blog Test from Accra · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

It's my second day at the BusyInternet cyber cafe in Accra, Ghana, and I'm expermenting with video compression to see if I can work out the ideal size for uploading and downloading video clips. The bandwidth here is  slower than in the US, so I have to be careful about how large a file I post.
Here are two versions of some footage from  BusyInternet, one low bandwidth and the other medium bandwidth. The low version is around 600k, while the medium version is 1.3 megs. (For those of you keeping score, the uncompressed version of this 40-second clip is over 30 megabytes – pretty useless here in West Africa.
Anyway, here are the results. Click on the appropriate link to try each version.
BusyInternet montage:
Low bandwidth clip
Medium bandwidth clip
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS


text:
A unique view from Darfur: Sleepless in Sudan · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

The news stories go by – the London bombings, the G-8/Live8 focus on Africa, the six month anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami – and Darfur remains. As it's become abundantly clear that the US won't have major involvement with the Darfur situation, it's less commmon to see news stories on Western Sudan in the mainstream press. After all, “Millions of Darfurians still living in camps, still dying slowly” doesn't make for much of a headline.
For folks interested in what's going on in the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps in Darfur, the blog “Sleepless in Sudan” has become required reading. We know that “Sleepless” is an “Aid worker, female, 31, extremely single,” living and working in Darfurian IDP camps. We also know she's got a sharp eye, a still-functioning sense of outrage, and a gift for making real the horrible conditions hundreds of thousands of Darfurians are living under.
Sleepless's recent posts have been about the Kalma camp, which houses about 150,000 IDPs. The Sudanese government is interested in breaking up the camp, either for the legitimate reason that it's in danger of flooding (a recent post describes Khartoum as a “veritable African Venice”, with cabs and tuk-tuks stuck in an underwater traffic jam) or out of fear that rebels are training and regrouping within the camps.
The effort to migrate Kalma residents to a new, smaller camp at Al Salam has involved cutting off “black market” food – i.e., anything to supplement the basic foods the aid agencies are handing out and threatening to bulldoze the camp. According to Sleepless, a grand total of one person has relocated to Al Salam so far.
The reason is simple – concerns for security. Despite the fact that shootings occur every day in the camp and nearby towns, they're considered vastly safer than the villages the IDPs have fled, which are held by the Janjawid who initially chased the villagers out. This leads to situations like the one describeda sad meditation on mangos, posted about a week ago:
“Well, we always used to plant mangoes,” I'm told by one of the locals (who has himself been displaced by the fighting and lives with his family in one of the camps). “This season, I even took the risk of walking back to my field from the camp just to plant. But in the past few weeks it's been too dangerous to go outside of the camp with all these shooting and attacks against people like us. So I can't go and harvest anything, and now the new people from other tribes who've moved into my village and taken over my fields are selling me my own mangoes in the market.”
We all have to laugh – there is no other way to deal with the absurdity of the situation, even though I'm sure that's the last thing my colleague feels like doing when he is actually paying the man who hands him his mangoes in the market.
He just shakes his head. Then he laughs again. “You know, it is even worse for my cousin. He bought some mangoes from the people who are now farming his fields, and then as he was walking home along the outskirts of the camp, some bandits started pushing and harassing him. They took his money, and the mangoes too. So he has planted them once, paid for them once, and still he has no mangoes.”
We can't help but laugh again, but sadly, I have to admit that today's sweet mangoes leave me with a more bitter aftertaste than usual.
Alas, Sleepless's stories are often ones you can't laugh about. She's hearing reports of women being beaten and raped as they leave the camps to collect firewood. She raises the horrific possibility that these attacks are being perpetrated by the anti-Janjawid, anti-Khartoum rebels, in part to help keep aid dollars flowing to the area:
The discussion goes back and forth, but finally I establish that a lot of the men feel that the rebels are intentionally letting a small number of militias stay in the area to make sure the security incidents don't go away COMPLETELY.
“If there are no deaths, no rape, nothing, then you khawajas [foreigners] will not come here, they are saying. It's just a tactic that the rebels are using.”
Sleepless in Sudan is by no means an easy or comfortable read. But the author is taking a great deal of personal risk to tell us these stories and is clearly hoping that someone is listening.
(For more background on the situation in Darfur, you may want to read the New Republic's blog this week, which is featuring pieces by Professor Eric Reeves from Smith College, who is following the situation in Darfur very closely and has an excellent explanation of how the situation came about.)


text:
Africa: Africans and the European Soul · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

African Bullets & Honey, noting that African churchs are starting to do missionary work in Europe, wonders if the once-colonized will become the colonizers.


text:
Africa: Condi In Africa · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Githush wonders why it took Condi so long to go to Africa. In the same post, he points out that First Lady Laura Bush and daughters have been in Africa the whole past week, but that hasn't exactly been well-covered in the United States.


text:
Andean Nations: Andean conference · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Boz is keeping his eyes out for English-language coverage of the Community of Andean Nations summit in Lima. So far, it seems to be scant.


text:
Argentina: Caminito de La Boca · Global Voices
David Sasaki

This Delia Thing has some excellent photographs of La Boca district in Buenos Argentinas and concludes, “even though I know this was a tourist trap this was one of the best days I have had in Argentina.”


text:
Argentina Feliz dia amigos · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Argenautas points out that today is official Friend Day in Argentina


text:
Bahrain: Bahrain takes first step to separate Mosque from State · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Mahmood's Den notes that  the Ministry of Islamic Affairs has said that mosques should not be used for political purposes; perhaps this is the first brick in the wall that divides church and state?


text:
Cambodian Blogosphere: Training + Khmer Language Software = More Dialogue? · Global Voices
Beth Kanter

"Internet cafés are springing up like mushrooms in rainy season in the heart of Cambodia, Phnom Penh in recent years."  – Tharum
Also, a perfect metaphor for the Cambodian blogopshere!
The Cambodian blogosphere is growing, but also getting more organized and connected.  Last month, bloggers in Phnom Penh met in a local bar for their first ever bloggers evening. (Maybe next month, they will gather at the NGO TECH restaurant?)  Jinja, one of the organizers, has added dozens of blogs to the Cambodia page in the Global Voices Wiki, making it easier for "cloggers" (Cambodian Bloggers) to find and converse with one another.
Tharum,  a self-described “It Catcher,” started his blog in June 2004 while a student at the National University of Management and working for the Open Forum for Cambodia, the organization which first brought email to Cambodia in the 1990s and now working on  Khmer-language portals and will soon launch khmer language blogs. Tharum's blog was recently featured on the front page of the Cambodia
Daily with the headline "Nation's ‘Bloggers’ Hope To Facilitate Dialogue."
While difficult to prove, Tharum is probably the first Cambodian in Cambodia to publish a blog using blog software. (The first Cambodian blogger, of course, is Cambodia's former monarch, King Sihanouk, whose web site has published bloggish like posts for at least three years according to a recent AP article)
The Ex-King's "blog" has inspired more Cambodian Blogs.
As part of a project launched by a pro-democracy nonprofit, IRI, Lux Mean conducted training workshops in Cambodia's provinces for approximately 60 high-school and university students on  how to publish an English-language blog.  Held in regional Community Information Centers, the workshops have spawned dozens of new blogs written by Khmer people outside of Phnom Penh. According to a recent article in Wired, Lux Mean said that the most common question from the those being trained was whether people in other countries could read their blogs.  The IRI is exicted by the potential for these Cambodian blogs (and others) to generate more political dialogue.
But even outside of these larger training initiatives, little by little and sometimes with the help of others, younger Khmers are publishing blogs.  Take for example, Yourath, who lives in Siem Reap.   She was taught how to blog by Elizabeth Briel, an American artist and expat in Siem Reap working on a project, Cameras for Cambodia.
Time will tell if Cambodian blogs will facilitate more dialogue.  As Tharum notes, "Blogs are easy to start and stop."
Will blogs in the khmer language help sustain the dialogue and encourage more voices? (or as Virak says, "Technology can help Cambodian people loud their voice to the world.")  The Open Forum of Cambodia’s Open Software Initiative hopes so with the launch of their Khmer-language bloggings software.  It will be interesting to watch how the government reacts to bloggers opinions and whether or not they will get shut down.
Maybe Global Voices will need a khmer-language bridge blogger soon!

author: Beth Kanter


text:
Chile: Five Bloggers on Television · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Roberto Arranciba has the low down on five selected Chilean bloggers to appear on Cable 13 in Santiago as part of the program We Are Connected. Hector Vergara recorded the first 23 minutes of the program which he has uploaded and made available.


text:
Chile: Sebastián Piñera Photos · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Christian Ocampo has a set of photos of Chilean presidential candidate and blogger, Sebastián Piñera from his visit to Rio Bueno.


text:
Economics With A Face: Cuba Archives · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Peter Mork and his wife, Emily Marie Stremel Mork have an amazing series of posts and photographs on their recent trip to Cuba. You can be sure Peter, an economist, will soon be posting some more reflections on their visit to the socialist island.


text:
Flickr Pick from Indonesia · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Photograph by Jessica Lim


text:
Georgia: The red menace returns to Georgia · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Siberian Light reports that the scourge of illegal tomato plants has suddenly manifested itself in the shadow of the Georgian Parliament building. Registan adds the overlooked tidbit that there may be political overtones to the contraband fruit; after all, the original news story notes that “in recent months tomatoes have become the missile of choice for protestors in a number of former Soviet states.”


text:
Guyana: St. Joseph Mercy Wings Vocational School; The Computer Lab · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Taran Rampersad describes his experience at the St. Joseph Mercy Wings Vocational School's computer lab in his ongoing quest to help bridge the digital divide.


text:
Haiti: Free Haiti – More Campaign Update · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Charles Norman Todd of Freiheit and Wissen has an excellent collection of links on the civil strife in Haiti.


text:
Hong Kong: Candlelight Vigil For Freedom of the Press · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

T-Salon on a Hong Kong vigil for free speech.


text:
India: Bridges · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Indian blogger Dina Mehta points us to a website called Bridges, an attempt to use photography and storytelling to build cultural bridges among children.


text:
Iran: The Iranian young; grown up in tyranny, treated with cruelty! · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Mr.Behi passes along the news of two young men who were hung for the crime of being homosexual. One of the victims was under the age of 18.


text:
Iraqi: KJ Update · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Iraq Blog Count tell us that the number of signatures on the petition to release Khalid Jarrar has risen to well above 600.


text:
Kenya: Kenyans protests and massacre · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Black Looks covers protests in Kenya. The main sticking point seems to be that the current President was elected on a platform to reduce presidential powers within 100 days of the election; unfortunately, that was back in 2002.


text:
India: Blogger Meetup · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Kiruba Shankar announces that there'll be a Chennai Blogger meetup this weekend.


text:
Kyrgyzstan: It’s not Kafkaesque, but it is boring · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

David Read, who writes the Kyrgyzstan blog Pretend You're Dread, has been trying to get a birth certificate for his son and get married to his girlfriend. Unfortunately, the Kyrgyz bureaucracy isn't quite flexible enough to deal with his situation…


text:
Philippines: Wily, Wily Gloria · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Sassy Lawyer points out that the Philippine government has all three branches independently investigating the same scandal. In the meantime, Inside PCIJ looks at what the on-going crisis means for US interests.


text:
Singapore: Bloggers.SG 2005 Photos · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Speaking of Bloggers.SG, the Singapore blogging conference, Tomorrow.SG has posted links to a number of photo galleries documenting the event.


text:
Singapore: Blogging’s potential for S’pore politics not fully realised · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

In the wake of Bloggers.SG 2005, Omeka Na Huria is calling for more bloggers to get involved in Singaporean politics.


text:
Skypecast: Andrea Monti of ICTlex · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Lawyer Andrea Monti, who blogs in Italian at ICTlex, is winner in the Europe category of this year's RSF Freedom Blog Awards.
Monti is concerned that people in Western democracies are not sufficiently aware of the extent to which their freedoms of speech are being eroded – and while the erosion starts online in the virtual world it has real physical implications.  He argues that people need to stop thinking about online space as something “less real” than physical space, because as far as the law is concerned, rights and freedoms on and offline are the same. The problem is even more extreme, he believes, for people who do not live in democracies. He hopes more people will blog about these issues and raise awareness.
I spoke to Andrea via Skype, recorded the conversation and uploaded it here as a podcast. Click here to listen (MP3, 13MB).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

author: Rebecca MacKinnon


text:
South Africa: $1 Billion is a lot of money · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Commentary.co.za is flabbergasted that South Africa is even thinking about extending a $1 billion loan to Zimbabwe.


text:
Taiwan: It’s a mess! 亂七八糟 · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Taiwan Tiger has a brief report on the aftermath of Typhoon Haitang.


text:
The State of Free Culture in Latin America · Global Voices
David Sasaki

This past weekend at the Contemporary Cultural Center in Barcelona, Spain, an international and multi-lingual group of bloggers, artists, musicians, and lawyers met to discuss the Free Culture movement which aims to reform intellectual property law into a workable paradigm for the digital era.
More than just another intellectual property geeks’ get-together, however, COPYFIGHT was also an important bridge conference between today's English and Spanish speaking copyright reform proponents on the internet.
Unfortunately, many of the staunchest Free Culture proponents throughout Latin America were unable to attend the conference. Timing was especially inopportune as it coincided with the Weblogs.Comunicacion conference in Mexico City which also attracted many Free Culture heavyweights from the region such as ALT1040, Isopixel, and eCuaderno.
Leading up to COPYFIGHT, the Spanish blog, Elastico, ran an excellent series introducing English speaking activists to a Spanish speaking audience. With that in mind, it seems like a worthwhile endeavor to travel through Latin America – virtually, of course – and take an abbreviated survey of the Free Culture movement and the voices behind it.
Beginning in the Southern Cone, Chile and Argentina are, arguably, the most active Latin American countries in pursuing copyright reform and the adoption of more flexible Creative Commons licenses. Chilean senator and co-author of the Ludicorp inspiring book,  Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action and the Cultivation of Solidarity, Fernando Flores has done much to spread the awareness of Creative Commons in Chile. Stanford Law Professor, Lawrence Lessig was not shy in his admiration of Flores after visiting the senator's country to discuss Creative Commons licensing:
Senator Fernando Flores was the first surprise. Flores was one of the youngest members of the Allende government. He was with Allende on Chile's September 11th (1973), when Pinochet executed his (American supported) coup. Flores has since had an extraordinary career — prison, exiled to America, time as a scholar studying philosophy and computer science, fantastically successful career in business, exploiting the insights he drew from academics, and now as a Senator (and one time candidate for President).
Another Chilean blogger, Roberto Arancibia, describes his thoughts about licensing clearly and effectively. He says:
what you want, but let me know, cite me, mention that I'm the author, play, change, inspire yourself, modify what you'd like, add things, take them away, but don't sell it and don't charge to show it to others. Oh, and you can share it, but with the same license.
This is my license. There are others, they all include attribution, permit or don't permit derivative works, fees, etc. And this is the spirit of the Creative Commons licenses, recently inaugurated in Chile. And for everyone with blogs or that do poems, fiction, music, video, photos, or anything creative, should have one.
On the Chilean technology weblog, FayerWayer, a long discussion/argument is still underway over the effectiveness and objective of Creative Commons licensing in Chile. Derechos Digitales and Atina Chile (from which you can download Lessig's presentation in Chile) and, of course, Creative Commons – Chile are also rich resources of information regarding copyright law and copyright reform in Chile.
Moving on to Argentina, Jorge Gobbi gives a well articulated account of Lawrence Lessig and James Boyle's visit to the Buenos Aires Sheraton to speak on behalf of Creative Commons licensing which will officially be implemented in Argentina sometime in late September.
A lot of people – the organizers spoke of 1500 attendees – filled the biggest salon of the Hotel Sheraton Retiro in Buenos Aires.
Frankly, I was really surprised by the large attendance. It remains auspicious that something so dry as a legal license has generated such interest. It must be recognized that the people of Creative Commons have done a great job to that respect; of showing that their project is, before anything else, a form of supporting innovation and the possibility to freely produce content without the legal threat of large corporations.
Argentine blogger Fernando Cassia also has an excellent write-up of the event in the English-language publication, The Inquirer. He concludes:
The “Creative Commonists” seem to be taking the world by storm, and they certainly seem to have made an impact on the local audience, including myself. I will be eagerly awaiting their visit next September for the launch of the local CC license, which is getting worked on with the help of the OSDE foundation.
It is Ariel Vercelli, however, who undoubtedly has the most informative collection of posts regarding copyright reform in Argentina, including this post entitled, A Revolution Not to be Ignored. You can download video footage of the Creative Commons event in Buenos Aires in both English and Spanish from Terra.
The awareness of the Free Culture movement in Uruguay appears to be extremely limited. Rodolfo Pilas, however, is always a dependable source on the Free Software movement and Indymedia Uruguay does have a guide explaining Creative Commons licenses.
When Ecuadorian blogger, Eduardo Ochoa, made a flash movie poking fun at the aggressive ad campaign of the telecommunications giant, Movistar, he was immediately sent a cease and desist letter from Movistar's lawyers. Upon reading the news, Mexican blogger and Free Culture enthusiast, Eduardo Arcos found the relevant text in Ecuador's  law and advised Ochoa he was well within his rights. Ochoa's post has generated a large amount of commentary and legal advice, but he has yet to re-post his parody.
Speaking of Eduardo Arcos, his blog, ALT1040 has become one of the major outlets of the Free Culture (Cultura Libre) movement in Latin America. He recently reported that the Mexican version of the RIAA – SOMEXFON – was planning an aggressive campaign of enforcing copyright royalties which included “the use of songs in establishments like restaurants, gymnasiums (including trainers who put on music), bars, hotels, commercial centers, hospitals, school dances, buses, urban transport, party halls, among others.” Arcos lists an example of prices which includes US $370 to listen to music at a party of more than 200 guests and US $1,650 a year to play music in a cafe. Then, pro-actively, he finds a Mexican senator in disagreement with SOMEXFON's fees and encourages his readers to write the senator encouraging reform.
Creative Commons is currently working with Fulton & Fulton, S.C. to implement Creative Commons licensing in Mexico. You can read an English-translated version of the proposed license (PDF).
Of course, it is Brazil who has been the Latin American poster child for Creative Commons and the Free Culture movement. With the support of former musician and current minister of culture, Gilberto Gil, Brazil has become a mecca of freely shared creativity. You can learn more by downloading a short film about Creative Commons spreading to Brazil as well as staying tuned for these forthcoming documentaries on digital culture in Brazil. Wired Magazine also has an informed piece on Free Culture and Open Source Software in Brazil.
In putting this together, I have tried to concentrate on the most important developments regarding Free Culture in Latin America. If, however, I have neglected any information or important links, please feel more than free to leave them below as a comment.


text:
United Arab Emirates: Banned Blogs · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Yesterday, we posted a link that said that Secret Dubai Diary was the first blog to be banned in the UAE. As pointed out by Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al-Yousif in the comments, we were wrong; the Arabic-language blog The Land of Sands was the first to be banned in the Emirates.


text:
Venezuela, Cuba: Cubano docs in Venezuela · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Boli-Nica writes about the large number of Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela.


text:
Bahraini: Food Fight! · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Chan’ad Bahraini will be taking a blog-vacation for a couple of weeks, but before he left, he couldn't help but to bring us a photograph of a scuffle that took place on the floor of the Bahraini parliament. Apparently one MP took exception to the statements of another MP and fisticuffs ensued. Nothing quite like vigorous democracy in action.


text:
Bolivia: Cochabamba Impressions · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Ray takes notes on his initial impressions of Cochabamba and gets into Bolivian history.


text:
Bombings, what bombings? · Global Voices
Luke Razzell

London gasped in horrified anticipation, then shrugged collectively as four more bombing attempts fizzled out harmlessly today.
Bignoseduglyguy at London Metblogs responded quickly to the breaking news. Wikipedia has an amazingly comprehensive page already up—hat's off. And there's a detailed, blow by blow account with quotes from the mainstream media's responses to the events at perfect.co.uk.
And Pinkfairycat, also at London Metblogs, panicked for ten minutes, then decided to make dinner and have a bath. Those of us who lived through the IRA attacks on London at the end of the last century feel right at home, in the most unfortunate way.

author: Luke Razzell


text:
Cambodia: Barang Cheh Kmai · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Jinja, of Webbed Feet, Web Log, writes about what it's like being a tall red-headed foreigner in Cambodia.


text:
Cambodia: Interview with Lux Mean: Teaching Cambodians in Rural Areas To Blog · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Cambodia4Kids has an interview with Lux Mean, the man who's going around Cambodia teaching people how to blog.


text:
Central Asia: Bush Grenade Suspect Captured After Shootout in Georgia :: July :: 2005 · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Oneworld Multimedia has been doing yeoman's work covering the story of the suspected Bush grenade-thrower. He also covers local press reaction to the story, the news that the suspect is in the hospital, and further web coverage.


text:
China: Real name registration for instant messenger · Global Voices
Frank Dai

Real name registration has been hot topic for Chinese bloggers since most of BBS owned by major colleges were closed down or restricted access by government in March. People generally thought it was bloggers who should register themselves first if regualtions  requiring every internet user’s real identity take effects. But such guesses prove to be wrong now.
Yesterday according to an announcement from QQ.com, largest Instant Messenger services provider with its primary product named QQ, it will required the administrator and creator of QQ group, a multi-users chat device based on the IM software, to give in their real personal information. Such rules were under the request from ShenZhen Administration of Public Security. Here is the authorizing document. The QQ group is more like a mini BBS and only users with a membership in that group can type their message to other users of the group.
Chinese Bloggers are reacting quickly to the event. WangYi, an IT journalist said the total amount of groups is too much to collect and calculate one by one and the workload must be unimaginable. He himself had 8 QQ accounts and he set up 4 groups for each account, so it would be a real headache for him to register them all.
DingYong has raised the legal question of such rules. He pointed out that although the QQ Company was located in ShenZhen but its user came from all over the country and requiring their information like ID card seems beyond the jurisdiction of ShenZhen government. It should be noted that the two above-mentioned bloggers are using their real name willingly.
The ultimate outcome of such rules is still unclear but we can foresee a more rigid control over internet implemented by Chinese government coming up. We will keep an eye on the event.

author: Frank Dai


text:
Cuba: Blackouts Continue · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Mora reports on Babalu Blog that the blackouts are continuing throughout Cuba as the island tries to get back on its feet after a series of hurricanes and tropical storms.


text:
Egypt: Was Iraq the cause of 7/7? · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Big Pharaoh asks if the war in Iraq was the real cause of the London bombings.


text:
Egyptian Bloggers on the Radio · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Congratulations to Big Pharaoh and Mohammed of From Cairo With Love for their appearance on NPR today (audio is also archived on the site). NPR correspondent Eric Weiner (who I knew in Tokyo) did a nice job mixing the sound of these two bloggers reading some of their posts, I thought.
We link to both of these guys a lot. I hope they'll keep on posting… Mohammed sounds like he's got a bit of blog burnout, judging from his latest post, which is understandable. It's hard to find the right balance between blogging about life and events – and actually being engaged in them. We don't want to put pressure on him or anything, but hope he'll find the inspiration to keep talking to us, and sharing with us how the world looks through the eyes of an Egyptian blogger. We are interested and we do care.


text:
El Salvador: End of two party system · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Tim's El Salvador Blog discusses the possible end of a two party system in El Salvador as both ARENA and the FMLN lose support.


text:
Ghana: Life in a Liberian Refugee Camp · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Andy Carvin visits a Liberian refugee camp in Ghana. It's an amazing story.


text:
Guyana: Skyping the Remote Guyanese Interior · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Caribbean Free Radio links to a Skype interview with “Guyanese adventurer Duane de Freitas, who lives in the Guyanese interior and uses a satellite internet connection to communicate with the outside world.


text:
Hungary: Hopes Dim as US Ambassador Opens Big Fat Mouth Again · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The irreverent Budapest-based blog Pesticide documents a faux pas by the US ambassador to Hungary.


text:
India: Blogging backbiting · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Dina Mehta on hostility in the Indian blogosphere.


text:
India: Fair = Lovely · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Indian blog Vislumbres looks at the country's obession with light skin color.


text:
India: July Blogger Meets · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The dates, times, and locations of the upcoming Bombay bloggers meet of July 2005 and the Chennai bloggers meet have been announced and posted. Via Desipundit.


text:
Iran: Between David Copperfield and Harry Potter · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Webgardian is astonished to hear that Iran is missing $2 billion in oil revenues… not a good sign for a country that relies on oil as a driver of its economic engine.


text:
Iraq: Constitution finished early? · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Iraq the Model is reporting that work on the proposed Iraqi constitution may be finished by the end of July, and thus won't need to use a proposed 6 month extention.


text:
Japan: Atom and Anne · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Tokyo Times brings us news of a manga version of the Diary of Anne Frank.


text:
Japan: Skypecast from the sky · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Taking advantage of Lufthansa's in-flight internet service, Joi Ito has just recorded and posted the world's first in-flight Skypecast.


text:
Malaysia: Are we staring at RM3.20? · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Malaysia lost no time in following China's move to decouple its currency from the US Dollar; Jeff Ooi reports that Bank Negara Malaysia
has abandonded the US Dollar peg, replacing it with a managed basket of currencies, effective immediately.


text:
Nepal: People’s sovereignty and Empowerment · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

United We Blog! posts an article about the historic development of the rights of the people in Nepal.


text:
Nicaragua: Voting Machines and ATM’s · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Picasso Dreams reports that the same company that makes ATM's in Nicaragua made the electronic voting machines in the last US presidential election. Jokingly she writes, “I found it ironic when it asked me if I wanted a receipt for the transaction, as Diebold executives claimed it was impossible to create a voting machine that left a paper record.”


text:
Pakistan: That Terror Thing IV · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Chapati Mystery, a group blog written by overseas Pakistanis, tries to unravel the jihadist agenda.


text:
Peru, Chile: Quecha and Mapuche · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Roberto Arancibia notes the rise [es] in websites dedicated to indigenous language pointing both at a new Peruvian blog which aims to teach Quecha [es] to Spanish speakers as well as a Chilean site dedicated to explaining Mapuche [es].


text:
Peru: Protest Against Corruption · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Both La Morena Escribe and Jomra are disappointed with the turn out of a protest in Lima, Peru against corruption.


text:
Pick of the Day from Argentina · Global Voices
David Sasaki

“Yellow and black taxis” by Larscapes.


text:
Russia: US Ambassador’s closing remarks · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Siberian Light covers the departing remarks of Alexander Vershbow, the outgoing US Ambassador to Russia. He also points to a short profile he did of incoming ambassador.


text:
Singapore: Xiaxue hacked · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Daryl Sng is reporting that popular Singapore blogger Xiaxue has had her blog and email broken into. Mr.Brown notes that another Singaporean blogger also had her blog hacked and recommends that Singapore bloggers change their passwords (he also gives good hints on how to pick a good password).


text:
Trinidad and Tobago: Hindi Dictionary Updated · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Taran Rampersad discusses Hindi in Trinidad and Tobago.


text:
Ukraine: The WTO Debate · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Orange Ukraine follows the twists and turns of passing the legislation needed for Ukraine to join the WTO.


text:
Venezuela: Confusing Terms · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Tomas Sancio discusses the manipulation of economic terms in the Venezuelan newspaper, El Nacional. Complete with translations.


text:
Venezuela: From the Left and Right · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Venezuela News and Views takes a look at the coverage of Venezuela amongst the most popular liberal and conservative blogs in English. His conclusion: “Venezuela is indeed only a blip on the US public opinion radar and my blog a niche blog as a reader once told me.”


text:
Venezuela: VOA for Latin America · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Boz responds with scepticism to a US House approval of specifically focusing Voice of America-like broadcasting at Venezuela, which will soon begin its own hemisphere-wide cable television channel.


text:
Zimbabwe: Riot Police hit Churches · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

This is Zimbabwe is reporting that riot police have forcibily removed homeless who had found housing in churches–most, if not all, of whom were made homeless by “Operation Cleanup”–from their temporary shelter.


text:
Accra Update · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

Here's an extended podcast updating my whereabouts in Ghana. Special thanks to Alula Records for allowing me to use music from Ghanaian musician Obo Addy. I'll be featuring Obo's work in future podcasts and videos as well. -andy
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS


text:
Central Asia: Updates on Georgia Grenade · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Blogrel has a pretty comprehensive update on the Georgian Grenadier.


text:
Colombia: El Tiempo RSS feed · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Boz says Colombia's biggest paper now has RSS feeds.


text:
D.R. Congo: Too much time on my hands · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Congo Girl reflects on the cultural adjustments she had to make when she came to Kinshasa.


text:
Egypt: What the Mubaraks own · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The Arabist Network takes a look at what the Mubaraks own. Apparently, they own quite a lot…


text:
England: Liveblogging London · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The English blog perfect.co.uk has spent the last two days live-blogging on-going developments in the London terror case. (via a fistful of euros)


text:
Flickr Pick from Azerbaijan · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

“Apple Basket” by Martin Talbot


text:
Ghana: Identifying a Murdered Liberian · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

A photographer circulates photos of a murdered Liberian man found outside the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. The actual photos are not shown in the video.
Video: Identifying a Murdered Liberian
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS


text:
Ghana: Life in a Liberian Refugee Camp · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

Buduburam Refugee Camp
We drove along the main road linking Accra to Takoradi and the Cote D'Ivoire border, heading towards the Liberian refugee camp in the town of Buduburam. Traffic was busy, but far from gridlock, and generally we made good time along the way. We'd probably arrive at the camp in about an hour. Much of the second half of the trip left us caught in a cloud of gravel and dust, as the road was being repaved, forcing us to follow a dirt track while construction continued.
Approaching 2pm, we found ourselves in a stretch of road lined with tightly packed stalls selling goods of all imaginable shapes and sizes. Vendors on foot went from car to car, hawking cases of toilet paper, freshly peeled pineapples and a spectrum of snacks. David pulled over for a moment and motioned to one young woman, who was balancing a pyramid of cookie boxes and peanut bags in a wide metal tray on her head. David placed his order, speaking to her in Akan, and she nonchalantly tipped her head, almost as if to make a facial gesture; a single pack of peanuts tumbled from the tray. She didn't even break eye contact with David; the peanuts landed right in her hand, ready to pass it through the window for a couple of crumpled cedi notes.
A few minutes later we arrived at the entrance to the camp. From the outside, it looked almost like we were entering the same neighborhood as my guesthouse. There was a dirt road sloping up a small hill, past several rows of cement huts and shops. Two UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) vehicles left the entrance as we pulled in; David parked outside the UNHCR office so we could figure out where to go next.
A young African man in a UNHCR t-shirt came up to us to see if we needed any help. I told him we were there to meet a group of volunteers and Liberian NGO workers for a tour of the camp. At first he seemed to have no idea whom we were looking for, but eventually he offered to jump in the back of the truck and lead us to the right place.
We drove deeper and deeper into the camp. The further we went, the more surprised I became. To be honest, I had no particular expectation of what the camp would look like. What I found was a hotbed of human commotion – countless shops, children playing soccer, young men playing backgammon, women getting their hair done. This was a vibrant and surprisingly cheerful place. I wondered what other surprises might be around the corner.
Soon we reached a building with a small sign marking it as the volunteer headquarters. I went inside and introduced myself to an international group of young people, none of whom seemed to be expecting me. I then pulled out the only name I could recall from the flutter of emails over the last week.
Jeremiah, one of my hosts at the refugee camp
“Is Jeremiah here?” I asked. “He should be expecting me.”
“Sure, he's in the back,” an Asian American woman said. “You'll be able to find him there.”
I stepped into the room and found a young Liberian man hunched over a laptop. He was wearing a bright, white polo shirt, sporting closely cropped hair and a goatee.
“Andy!” Jeremiah greeted me, warmly. He shook my hand and gave me a hug, like an old friend. We talked for a moment about the drive from Accra, then planned our itinerary for the afternoon.
“How much time do you have?” he asked. “You must be very busy; if you can only spare 15 minutes….”
“I have as much time as you need,” I replied. “Even if it's an hour or more, whatever is best for you. David and I are not in a rush to return to Accra as I'm done with my appointments for the day.”
“Wonderful!” he replied. “Let's go outside and wait for Hisenburg to come, then we can walk around the camp.” Jeremiah was referring to Hisenberg Togba, founder of Movement for the Promotion of Gender Equality in Liberia (MOPGEL) and one of the camp's computer literacy coordinators. “I know Karl William would like to join us but he isn't available now – maybe we'll find him before you leave.”
Outside, Jeremiah introduced himself to David while I strolled around the block. A few buildings to the left, in a small courtyard, a group of children played a game reminiscent of marbles. At first I was hesitant to take their pictures, as I had been warned that the refugees were often not comfortable in front of the camera.
Liberian Kung Fu Masters
Soon, though, the kids made out my intentions, and immediately started to pose for pictures, striking the international pose of young boys everywhere — the kung fu pose. One of the boys started making karate-chop noises while repeating the word “Obruni! Obruni!” which means, to no surprise, “white man.” It seemed their little game was “let's attack the white boy,” but it was all in good fun, as I took pictures and called them Kung Fu Masters. Meanwhile, Hisenburg joined the group. He was wearing a beige gown reminiscent of the dishdashas I saw all over Oman, with a single pen in his left breast pocket.
The four of us began exploring the camp, Jeremiah taking the lead. I kept falling behind, eager to pause and snap pictures in every direction. There was so much activity: tight little alleyways leading past telephone centers, homes, snack shops, shoe stores. The wider avenues were busy with pedestrian traffic, as well as numerous bicycles and the occasional car.
When I caught up with the group, Jeremiah turned to me and said softly, “You probably know this, but some people are not comfortable having their picture taking. It makes them nervous.”
“Don't worry,” I said,” “I'll maintain my distance. And if I want to get a shot of a particular person, we'll ask them first. If they say no, then they say no.”
We reached another avenue and turned right, heading to another neighborhood. “So how many people live here?” I asked.
“More than 40,000,” Jeremiah explained. “It's about 42,000, to be precise…. The first group that came here was like 5,000 persons, and finally it just moved onto much bigger numbers. And it keeps growing.”
“And that was in 1990?” I asked,
“1990, yeah, the first batch, the first group,” he replied. “As the war continued in Liberia, more and more started coming to Ghana — and they are still coming.”
We reached a neighborhood that featured several churches. Each neighborhood, actually, seemed packed with churches, as well as shops and learning centers of various types. Before coming, I'd expected to see temporary shelters with corrugated roofs; instead, we found acre upon acre of cement and brick buildings, painted and well maintained.
“I'm really struck as we walk through here at how well established it is as a community, with the number of shops and businesses,” I remarked.
“The thing is that they have to make it on their own,” Jeremiah said. “All these things are done by themselves. The UNHCR could not help them — they had to take up their own thing, their own initiative. Many of these people rely on their own self-struggle. Some relatives in America and other parts of the world tend to chip in a bit, but that's not sufficient. So they rely on their initiative to really make it.”
We began talking about some of the education programs available in the camp. Some of the Liberians here are highly skilled workers, but are unable to get jobs in their fields outside of the camp as long as there are equally-skilled Ghanaians applying for the same job. Meanwhile, thousands of others in the camp have very limited skills, so they're often quite eager to enroll in courses ranging from basic literacy to computer training.
“What I'm saying is that we want literacy skills around to empower them, to do their own thing,” Jeremiah said. “Self businesses. Give them skills. And of course they can help themselves. Liberians are not really looking out for handouts. No – that's one thing I can tell everybody. They don't want handouts – they only want a push.”
“So they want to be self-sufficient,” I added.
“Self-sufficient,” Jeremiah repeated, gesturing to some of the buildings around us. “Extremely self-sufficient. And that's why you can see from these structures that these are people who are not just beggars. They're not just beggars. They want to do a lot of things. Everything you see – they did it on their own. Nobody helped them; they did it own their own.”
“And they're not prepared to beg,” Jeremiah reiterated, emotion building in his voice. “They're not prepared to beg, not at all…. Not prepared to beg….”
The four of us continued to stroll through the village, dodging children and puppies and chickens while the local adults went on with their daily business. I asked Jeremiah if he thought the situation was improving enough for people to consider going home.
“In Liberia it's still not ready for them to go home,” he explained. “I was in Liberia about a month ago, and there are still arms there. Why would these people go to Liberia when there are still arms there? Why would they go when they'd have nowhere to stay, no water for them? You can't let these guys go; they wouldn't go. And that's why the UNHCR voluntary repatriation process failed.”
“But I believe that only if we can empower them, they can do better when they go home,” he added. “All we need to do is empower them. They are absolutely not prepared to beg. They may be here in tattered clothes, but they are proud people, and they want to do it on their own.  If only they can get a push, then they can perform wonders.”
We reached an open field in the middle of the camp that served as the main soccer field; to the right, one of the high schools was teaming with students.
“How many students go to school here in the camp?”
“More than 11,000,” Hisenburg said.
“11,000,” I repeated. “That's like some U.S. school districts.”
“Yes, there are many students here,” Hisenburg continued.
“And you're involved with computer training?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “What we are doing now – you see, computers in Liberia, about 95% of the country isn't literate in terms of the computer. So what we're doing is training a group of volunteers who will go back to Liberia, and train others how to use them.”
“So it sounds like you're focusing not only on training people here, but making sure that people back home will have these skills as well,” I replied.
“Yes, so they'll be able to get a job in the market,” he said. “Today, if you don't have computer skills, it's difficult for you to get a job. So that's why our focus is to train Liberian refugees before returning back.”
A student completes a Powerpoint Course at the refugee camp's computer center
A few minutes later we reached the home of the Liberia IT and Computer Skills Enhancement Campaign, home to Hisenburg's training program. Inside, we found an unlit room with two rows of computers. On the left side of the room, several young Liberians worked hard on completing a PowerPoint training course. On the right side, a row of computers sat idle.
“We started here, we had 16 computers, at our own initiative,” Hisenburg explained. “As you can see, these ones are down. We started with programs Monday through Thursday, then Friday and Saturday were for the disabled and children ages 10 through 17. But because of the number of computers we have now – we have just eight that work – so we had to reduce the Friday and Saturday for the disabled and children to only Saturday. We started with two hours, but now because of the number of computers, we only offer one hour in order to accommodate all of those wanting to take classes.”
“Are you currently searching for donations?”
“Yes, we are looking for donations, contacting people for donations, but we have yet to find any donations. We have a lot of refugees who want to do the computer training.”
Leaving the training facility, we were approached by a young man with a large 35mm camera slung around his neck. He was waving around a pair of photos blown up to around 6×8 inches. At first I was very confused by the photos; the first one appeared to show a large pile of animal intestines. For a moment my mind flashed to images of witch doctors auguring the future by examining entrails, but I couldn't imagine that practices like that took place here.
Then I saw the second photo and realized in absolute horror what I was looking at. The entrails were not from an animal; it was a man who had been completely disemboweled and mutilated, his face hacked with a machete. Before I could recoil in disgust, the photographer waived the photos in someone else's face.
He was speaking in English, but very quickly – so quickly that I had a hard time making out what he was saying. Jeremiah, Hisenburg and David huddled around him to discuss the situation as a small crowed gathered – young and old eager to peer at this two-dimensional horror show. The photographer gave the photos to Jeremiah in a large envelope.
“My God, what was that all about?” I asked. “Did that have to do with war crimes in Liberia?”
“No, that was here, this week,” Jeremiah sighed. “They found him like that and don't know who he is. They are trying to identify him and the photographer wants to sell the photos.”
“Why was he mutilated?” I asked, bracing for an answer for which I might not be prepared.
“Who knows these things,” Jeremiah continued, eager to think about something else.
We continued through the camp, but the images plagued me with each block, each turn. I have a high tolerance for Hollywood violence, as it were, but don't handle depictions of real violence quite well, particularly when exposure to it is unexpected.
Just the night before, because of an ongoing bout of jetlag, I found myself re-reading Ryszard Kapuscinski's brilliant war journal, The Soccer War, which documents his perilous war correspondent adventures covering two dozen conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. On the final pages I read last night, Kapuscinski presented a brief interlude in which he pondered the idea of writing “a dictionary of various phrases that take on different meanings according to the degree of geographical latitude.” He offered examples of several words that might be suitable for such a dictionary, one of which was the word Spirits.
[The] act of destroying the corpse results from the conviction that a human being consists of not only a body but also the spirits that fill it. Many white people believe in a body and a soul, but their faith in one soul is merely a primitive simplification of a complicated feature of human existence: in reality a person's body is filled by many spirits proper to the various parts of the human organism. It would be naïve to believe that this complicated world of spirits, alive in the recesses of the human body, can be liquidated by a single bullet. [Or machete, apparently.] The body is only one element of a person's death: full death occurs only after the spirits have been destroyed or expelled…. Hence the necessity of destroying the corpse, particularly if the corpse belonged to an enemy whose spirits can later avenge him. There is no cruelty in this — for someone who is forced to fight against the dangerous and omnipresent world of spirits, which may be invisible but are hot on the heels of the living, it is simple self-defense.
Upon reading that passage last night, I recalled that he was writing much of this 40 years ago, and thought it was obvious Kapuscinski was obsessing over his experiences in the Belgian Congo and elsewhere. Back then, of course. Not today. Not now.
Perhaps I was wrong.
I was rescued from my spiritual torpor by a beautiful little girl with braided hair.
We were walking through a residential neighborhood, with lots of children and adults milling about. Suddenly I looked ahead and saw this little girl, jumping up and down as if she were on a magical pogo stick, chanting an adorable mantra of “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” Before I knew it, she jumped off the invisible pogo and darted towards me, locked my shins in an enormous bear hug, then scurried away. The tortured spirits of that corpse, plaguing me for Lord knows how long — time passes strangely when haunted by spirits — vanished without a trace.
Other children, none more than seven or eight years old, began to follow her lead. They approached me one at a time to shake my hand and say hello. I could barely keep up with them.
“Hello, how are you?” I asked them, adding, “I must be very popular!” I asked if I could take their pictures; before I could complete the question, eight or 10 of them jammed into a Napoleonic formation, row after row. They lacked true military discipline, though; rather than maintaining their lines, the children would dart ahead each other to appear at the front of the photograph, breaking all commonly accepted codes of conduct regarding picture-taking formations arranged according to height. Fortunately, they were in no rush for me to complete my assignment, so I let them weave among themselves while I snapped away, happy as can be.
My hosts, meanwhile, had wandered to the next neighborhood, so it was time for me to say goodbye. Many of the children followed me for an entire block, running and waving and shouting “bye bye!” to me. I was filled with warmth.
On the far side of the football pitch, we meandered down an uneven path, dammed with sandbags labeled UNHCR in black lettering. While chatting with Hisenburg, I was approached by a pretty teenage girl in a long white t-shirt and large hoop earrings.
“Hello, how are you?” she asked confidently.
“Fine, thank you,” I replied. “And how are you?”
“I am well, thank you. What are you doing here?”
“I'm visiting from the United States, and I was invited to come to the camp,” I said. “We've just been walking around for a while, meeting people, getting to know the camp a bit. How long have you lived in the camp?”
“Two weeks,” she replied, to my surprise.
“So you just came from Liberia, then?”
“Yeah, I am just visiting.”
“Do you have many family here?”
“Yeah, lots of people here.”
“How long do you plan to stay?”
“Maybe two weeks. We'll see. Bye….”
“Bye,” I replied, the conversation ending as suddenly as it began.
———–
I now realized we were far from the center of the camp, in a rural area with small farm plots. Further ahead there appeared to be another complex of buildings.
“We have actually left the camp boundaries,” Jeremiah explained. “But there are so many refugees they have to rent the surrounding land from Ghanaian families.”
A teacher leads a group of Liberian women in an adult literacy class
We reached the buildings, organized around a courtyard with several trees. A group of Liberian women were standing in the courtyard around a circle of desks, clapping slowly, while another woman stood in the center. Soon she started to speak in English, but I was too far away to make out what she was saying. Slowly, women got up from their desks, entered the circle, and began sketching patterns in the ground with a long stick.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“It's a women's literacy program,” Jeremiah said. “One of the first parts of learning to read and write is learning how to form basic letters. It is a motivational way to learn each stroke of each character, while getting support from the others.”
Before I knew it, Jeremiah was getting permission from the group for me to enter the circle and take pictures. The entire group chanted “Yes, please” in unison when asked. I climbed between the desks and did my best to be unobtrusive — or, at least as unobtrusive as realistically possible, being a white man standing in a circle of African women in a field.
On the perimeter of the courtyard, Jeremiah took us to a series of classrooms, each filled with more adult literacy students. We were invited into each room; the classes would stand up and clap rhythmically to greet us. One classroom was using a fascinating technique to teach reading and writing: students had drawn a map of the camp, identifying its major features. Then they were asked to identify problems in the camp: sanitation problems, inadequate lighting and the like. The students were then challenged to debate the problems, prioritize them, and work together to draft language explaining their concerns, in the hope of working with NGOs to improve local conditions. You could see the pride in the face of the instructor and his students, most of whom were in their forties and older. They knew they were bettering themselves, and were glad that I could witness it, even if just for a moment.
After walking around the camp's school for the deaf — I was amazed they were in a position to build one — we looped our way back to the center of the camp, by way of the high school and football pitch. It was almost 4pm – we had been here for two hours. I could hardly believe how fast time had passed here in Buduburam. Then again, I was just a visitor, not a resident. Fourteen years must feel like an eternity.
Before leaving, though, I had two final assignments. First, I presented a copy of a National Geographic atlas that Susanne and I wanted to donate to the camp; the oversized reference book that nearly broke my back on the trip from America would be added to their community library. Then, we stopped for a few moments to say hello to Karl William, a charismatic young Ghanaian who worked in the camp. We'd hoped to connect earlier but he'd been busy.
We talked for a few minutes before getting ready to leave; he reached out to shake my hand, which I erroneously did in the usually white and western way – just an ordinary, firm handshake. I did try to slip him some skin, as they might have said in the 70s, by sliding out my fingers along his palm as I let go of his hand; I'd noticed several Ghanaians do this to me already this week.
“No, no, no, man, you've got it all wrong,” Karl said, laughing. He grabbed my hand and tried to show me the proper way to do it — first a normal handshake, then shifting your hands so your wrists pointed upwards, then your fingers curled like two interlocking C's. No problem – we used to do that one when I was a kid. Then came the hard part — releasing your fingers in such a way that both of you snapped your fingers upon exit. He snapped; I fumbled; the crowd laughed.
“This is humiliating,” I said. “I'm just a poor white boy from Boston. And each day people keep changing the secret handshake on me, like it's a conspiracy! You know there's no way I'll get this right.”
“You're staying until you practice,” he said. “One, two, three — snap. Again. One, two, three — snap. Now, that's better.”
No, it wasn't. I was pathetic. But I was happy to provide some comic relief. Meanwhile, two of the others demonstrated it for me, even having me shoot some video of it.
“Okay, did everyone get that?” I asked as they completed their shake.
With that, it was time to leave the refugee camp and return to Accra. David and I drove back to the city listening to the radio, the sun setting behind us. He quietly sang along to one of the songs on the radio. And I sat there marveling at how my life had changed in one short afternoon.


text:
Guyana – The Simputer · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Taran Rampersad tests out his newly arrived Indian Simputer in Guyana.


text:
India: Marraige Requires Parental Consent? · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

India Uncut is flabbergasted that the state of Gujarat requires parental consent in writing for marriages to become official.


text:
India: Sussing out an honest bureaucrat · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

The overseas South Asian blog Sepia Munity points to an interview of a returning Indian and the hurdles he had to clear in creating his own business.


text:
Lebanon: A Groovy Kind Of Love · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

In the wake of Secretary of State Rice's snap visit to Lebanon, The Beirut Spring tells the highly allegorical story of the relationship between “Lee” and “Sarah” and the new girl on the block, “Amy”.


text:
Malaysia: Unpeg Day 1: Bank Negara intervenes · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

In the wake of yesterday's decision to unpeg the Malaysian ringgit from the US dollar, it seems as if Bank Negara promptly intervened to prevent a run-up in the value of the Malaysian currency, notes Jeff Ooi.


text:
Mexico: On my own. · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Sergio on Overcaffeinated explains why it is completely normal for one to move out of their parents’ house at 28.


text:
Nepal: Samaya Weekly Covers UWB · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

United We Blog! is delighted to discover that they're being covered in the local Nepali press.


text:
Niger: Smile and the World Starves with You · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

On Safari with El Jorgito is frustrated with the lack of coverage the food crisis in southern Niger is getting in the western press.


text:
Philippines: Gloriagate Forum · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

A “Blogging Gloriagate” forum is being organized for August 4 at the University of the Philippines College of Law.


text:
Sudan: Books for universities · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Humanitarian Hijinks, a blog written by a relief worker in Sudan, has a great suggestion for donating books to the area.


text:
Ghana: The Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

University students taking a course at the Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT
Thursday morning, I got to start my day by taking a private tour of the Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT, a state-of-the-art technology training centre initiated by the governments of India and Ghana. The centre, in an Accra neighborhood reminiscent of New Delhi's Lodi Road, was surrounded by greenery in every direction, with numerous embassies and NGO headquarters nearby.
Inside, I met with several staff, who were kind enough to lead me around the facility for about an hour. Opened two years ago, the Kofi Annan Centre is home to a variety of high-tech training facilities, including a Cisco Networking Academy. By sheer coincidence, the Cisco Academy was full of young Liberians from the Buduburam refugee camp, which I visited the previous day.
We walked from classroom to classroom, most of which were engaged with groups of students working in small groups, huddling around laptops and workstations. I managed to hover in the background in a couple of classes, snapping pictures and getting completely over my head in the technical discussions on networks, routers and switches.
Upstairs, we entered a room that needed to be unlocked with a smart card. Inside we found a Padma supercomputer from India. The most powerful computer in Ghana, it runs on an open source operating system; access to it is made available to any Ghanaian researcher starving for hard-core processing power.
I'd wanted to check out the centre's main conference room, but it was busy with some official event; someone told me that several government ministers were participating. Only later in the day did I discover that it was a high-level meeting on Ghana's new national ICT policy. Boy, I'd wish I'd been able to get through the door for a few minutes…. -andy


text:
Tunisa: Back To The Blogosphere · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Popular Tunisian blog Subzero Blue, which abruptly went off the air a few days ago, has returned to the internets. The cause of the outage was a dispute with the previous hosting company; more sinister forces were not implicated.


text:
Uganda: Ugandan government attacks Lesbian activists · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Black Looks points out that the Ugandan government passed an anti-gay law and promptly raided the home of Victor Julie Mukassa, a well-known lesbian activist.


text:
Uzbekistan: Political Islam, Reconsidered · Global Voices
Paul Frankenstein

Central Asia blog Registan.net points to an article that takes another look at the political Islam.


text:
Venezuela: New Currency Law · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Venezuelan Politics discusses a new law which places greater regulation on currency trading in Venezuela and offers some possible consequences.


text:
Venezuela: Sumate · Global Voices
David Sasaki

Daniel of Venezuela News and Views compares Chavez's persecution of opposition group SUMATE with Rome's ancient persecution of Carthage.


text:
Arranged marriage & the role of parents · Global Voices
Rezwan

A sarcastic post  of a vibrant Bangladeshi-Canadian girl:
If this daughter is not married to some Muslim guy (she is ‘permitted’ to bring a Pakistani guy *horror*) by next August, …she will apparently be seeing Mrs. Mother's dead face. If you want to save the life of a 40 something, attractive, slightly dramatic Bengali mother …apply now.
Applicant must be:
– virile
– a Bengali Muslim
– able to sign his name
– from a nice family who like to keep their woman on a leash.
People may laugh because of the comic elements of the post, but if you read in between the lines you will hear the wails of a free bird about to be caged.  How can she confront her mother who had sworn such thing?
She ends with:
Apply now and don't let forever bind you together. Please note that applicant is allowed a leave of absence of ‘eternity’ from married life starting the same day following a wedding band exchange ceremony.
Yes this is the tragedy of many arranged marriages when fixed arbitrarily by the South Asian parents.  When parents go looking for a spouse for their child they usually consider superficial criteria like religion, ethnicity, financial condition and even horoscope. In absence of pre-existing mutual attraction of the partners or even some sort of communication and understanding before reaching at the final decision to marry, is horrifying for a smart and educated individual.  And often they end up with a uncomfortable relationship they had never dreamt of. I hope Mrs. Mother reads her daughter's post.
Much have been discussed about arranged marriage here, here & here.

author: Rezwan


text:
Iraqi blogger Khalid Jarrar is freed · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Iraqi blogger Khalid Jarrar, whose detention by the Iraqi secret police we reported last week, has now been released according to his brother Raed and his mother Faiza.
The Jarrar family were never big fans of the U.S. presence in Iraq. This experience appears to have made them even less so.


text:
Islamophobia – myth or reality? · Global Voices
Rezwan

Kenan Malik writes:
Ten years ago no one had heard of Islamophobia. Now everyone from Muslim leaders to anti-racist activists to government ministers want to convince us that Britain is in the grip of an irrational hatred of Islam – a hatred that, they claim, leads to institutionalised harassment, physical attacks, social discrimination and political alienation.
Now what is Islamophobia? Journalist Stephen Schwartz says notwithstanding the arguments of some Westerners, Islamophobia exists; it is not a myth. Islamophobia consists of:
• attacking the entire religion of Islam as a problem for the world;
• condemning all of Islam and its history as extremist;
• denying the active existence, in the contemporary world, of a moderate Muslim majority;
• insisting that Muslims accede to the demands of non-Muslims (based on ignorance and arrogance) for various theological changes, in their religion;
• treating all conflicts involving Muslims (including, for example, that in Bosnia-Hercegovina a decade ago), as the fault of Muslims themselves;
• inciting war against Islam as a whole.
(more definitions)
This phobia is derived from lack of understanding of Islamic culture, consistent tagging of terrorism with Islam and Islamic practices instead of criticizing political Islam.
Stephen also argues that the Wahhabi lobby in US engages in its own forms of profiling, which mainly consist of branding every opponent of Islamist radicalism an “Islamophobe.” In addition, the charge often includes labeling of such critics as Jews, Zionists, and Israeli agents.
There are contradictory websites like Jihad Watch & Islamophobia Watch which are fueling the controversy.
The UN recognized Islamophobia as a growing problem and arranged a seminar titled “Confronting Islamophobia: Education for Tolerance and Understanding” late last year.
According to the website ‘No to Political Islam’:
Many apologists for Political Islam claim that to criticize any aspect of Islamic practice is to be guilty of racism and Islamophobia. But much of the criticism is directed not against Islam itself but against Political Islam. And much of the criticism comes from Muslims. How then can this be racism? How then can it be Islamophobia?
It is essential to distinguish between criticism of Political Islam and either fear of Islam or fear, hatred or contempt for ordinary Muslims, who are themselves the victims of Political Islam.
So there are two faces of the menace ‘Islamophobia’. One is the confused and ignorant hatred against ordinary Muslims which can trigger something like this and on the other hand the apologists of political Islam who do not want to hear any criticism for Islamic practices and term those criticisms as ‘Islamophobic’.
The sooner we understand the crux of the matter, the better.