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A technical guide to anonymous blogging – a very early draft · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

The Electronic Frontier Foundation posted an excellent guide to safe blogging a few days back. While the guide is quite rich in tips to ensure you don't reveal too much personal information while blogging, it doesn't look very closely at the technical issues associated with keeping a blog private. I decided to write a quick technical guide to anonymous blogging, trying to approach the problem from the perspective of a government whistleblower in a country with a less-than-transparent government. What follows is a first draft – I'll be posting it on the wiki as well (in a day or two) and will be grateful for comments, corrections and input.
Sarah works in a government office as an accountant. She becomes aware that her boss, the deputy minister, is stealing large amounts of money from the government. She wants to let the world know that a crime is taking place, but she's worried about losing her job. If she reports the matter to the Minister (if she could ever get an appointment!), she might get fired. She calls a reporter at the local newspaper, but he says he can't run a story without lots more information and documents proving her claims.
So Sarah decides to put up a weblog to tell the world what she knows about what's happening in the ministry. To protect herself, she wants to make sure no one can find out who she is based on her blog posts – she needs to blog anonymously.
There are two major ways a blogger can get caught when she is trying to blog anonymously. One is if she reveals her identity through the content she publishes – for instance, if Sarah says, “I'm the assistant chief compliance accountant to the Deputy Minister of Mines,” there's a good chance that someone reading her blog is going to figure out who she is pretty quickly. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's guide, “How to Blog Safely”, offers some great advice on how to avoid revealing your identity with the content of your blog.
The other way Sarah can get caught is if someone can determine her identity from information provided by their web browsers or email programs. Every computer attached to the internet has – or shares – an address called an IP address – it's a series of four numbers from 0-255, separated by dots – for instance: 213.24.124.38. When Sarah uses her web browser to make a comment on the Minister's blog, the IP address she was using is included on her post.
With a little work, the Minister's computer technicians may be able to trace Sarah's identity from this IP address. If Sarah is using a computer in her home, dialing into an Internet Service Provider, the ISP likely has records of which IP address was assigned to which telephone number at a specific time. In some countries, the Minister might need a subpoena to obtain these records; in others (especially ones where the ISP is owned by the government!), the ISP might give out this information very easily, and Sarah might find herself in hot water.
There are a number of ways Sarah can hide her identity when using the Internet. As a general rule, the more secure Sarah wants to be, the more work she needs to do to hide her identity. Sarah – and anyone else hoping to blog anonymously – needs to consider just how paranoid she wants to be before deciding how hard she wants to work to protect her identity. As you will see, some of the strategies for protecting identity online require a great deal of technical knowledge and work.
One easy way Sarah can hide her identity is to use a free webmail account and free blog host outside her native country. (Using a paid account for either email or webhosting is a poor idea, as the payment will link the account to a credit card, a checking account or paypal account that could be easily linked to Sarah.) She can create a new identity – a psuedonym – when she signs up for these accounts, and when the Minister finds her blog, he'll discover that it belongs to “A. N. Ymous”, with the email address anonymous.whistleblower@hotmail.com.
Some providers of free webmail accounts:
Some providers of free weblog hosting:
Here's the problem with this strategy – when Sarah signs up for an email service or a weblog, the webserver she's accessing logs her IP address. If that IP address can be traced to her – if she's using her computer at home, or her computer at work – and if the email or weblog company is forced to release that information, she could be found. It's not a simple matter to get most web service companies to reveal this information – to get Hotmail, for instance, to reveal the IP Sarah used to sign up for her account, the Minister would likely need to issue a subpoena, probably in cooperation with a US law enforcement agency. But Sarah may not want to take the risk that she could be found if her government can persuade her email and weblog host to reveal her identity.
One additional step Sarah could take to hide her identity is to begin using computers to make her blogposts that are used by lots of other people. Rather than setting up her webmail and weblog accounts from her home or work computer, Sarah could set them up from a computer in a cybercafe, a library, or a university computer lab. When the Minister traces the IP used to post a comment or a post, he'll discover that the post was made from a cybercafe, where any number of people might have been using the computers.
There are flaws in this strategy as well. If the cybercafe or computer lab keeps track of who is using what computer at what time, Sarah's identity could be compromised. She shouldn't try to post in the middle of the night when she's the only person in the computer lab – the geek on duty is likely to remember who she is. And she should change cybercafes often. If the Minister discovers that all the whistleblower's posts are coming from “Joe's Beer and Bits” on Main Street, he might stake someone out to watch the cybercafe and see who's posting to blogs in the hopes of catching Sarah.
Sarah's getting sick of walking to Joe's cybercafe every time she wants to post to her blog. With some help from the neighborhood geek, she sets up her computer to access the web through an anonymous proxy. Now, when she uses her webmail and weblog services, she'll leave behind the IP address of the proxy server, not the address of her home machine… which will make it very hard for the Minister to find her.
First, she finds a list of proxy servers online, by searching for “proxy server” on Google. She picks a proxy server from the publicproxyservers.com list, choosing a site marked “high anonymity”. She writes down the IP address of the proxy and the port listed on the proxy list.
Some reliable lists of public proxies:
Then she opens the “preferences” section of her webbrowser. Under “general”, “network” or “security” (usually), she finds an option to set up a proxy to access the Internet. (On the Firefox browser, which I use, this option is found under Preferences – General – Connection Settings.)
She turns on “manual proxy configuration”, enters the IP address of the proxy server and port into the fields for HTTP proxy and SSL proxy and saves her settings. She restarts her browser and starts surfing the web.
She notices that her connection to the web seems to be a bit slower. That's because every page she requests from a webserver takes a detour. Instead of connecting directly to Hotmail.com, she connects to the proxy, which then connects to Hotmail. When Hotmail sends a page to her, it goes to the proxy first, then to her. She also notices that she has some difficulty accessing websites, especially sites that want her to log in. But at least her IP isn't being recorded by her weblog provider!
A fun experiment with proxies:
Visit noreply.org, a popular remailer website. The site will greet you by telling you what IP address you're coming from: “Hello pool-151-203-182-212.wma.east.verizon.net [151.203.182.212], pleased to meet you.”
Now go to anonymizer.com, a web service that allows you to view (some) webpages through an anonymous proxy. In the box on the top right of the anonymizer page, enter the URL for http://www.noreply.org (or just click this link.) You'll note that noreply.org now thinks you're coming from vortex.anonymizer.com. (Anonymizer is a nice way to test proxies without needing to change your browser settings, but it won't work with most sophisticated web services, like webmail or weblogging servers.)
Finally, follow the instruction above to set up your webbrowser to use an anonymous proxy and then visit noreply.org to see where it thinks you're coming from.
Alas, proxies aren't perfect either. If the nation Sarah lives in has restrictive internet laws, many websurfers may be using proxies to access sites blocked by the government. The government may respond by ordering certain popular proxies to be blocked. Surfers move to new proxies, the government blocks those proxies, and so the circle of life continues. All of this can become very time consuming.
Sarah has another problem if she's one of very few people in the country using a proxy. If the comments on her blog can be traced to a single proxy server, and if the Minister can access logs from all the ISPs within a country, he might be able to discover that Sarah's computer was one of the very few that accessed a specific proxy server. He can't demonstrate that Sarah used the proxy to post to a weblog server, but he might conclude that the fact that the proxy was used to make a weblog post and that she was one of the few people in the nation to use that proxy constituted evidence that she made the post. Sarah would do well to use proxies that are popular locally and to switch proxies often.
Sarah starts to wonder what happens if the proxy servers she's using get compromised? What if the Minister convinces the operator of a proxy server – either through legal means or through bribery – to keep records and see whether anyone from his country is using the proxy, and what sites they're using. She's relying on the proxy administrator to protect her, and she doesn't even know who the administrator is!
Spending quite a long time with the local geek this time, she explores a new option: Invisiblog. Run by an anonymous group of Australians called vigilant.tv, Invisiblog is a site designed for and by the truly paranoid. You can't post to Invisiblog via the web, as you do with most blog servers. You post to it using specially formatted email, sent through the MixMaster remailer system, signed cryptographically.
It took Sarah a few tries to understand that last sentence. Eventually, she set up GPG – the GNU implementation of Pretty Good Privacy, a public-key encryption system. (In two sentences: Public-key encryption is a technique that allows you to send messages to a person that only she can read, without her needing to share a secret key with you that would let you read messages other people send to her. Public key encryption also allows people to “sign” documents with a digital signature that is almost impossible to forge.) She generates a keypair that she will use to post to the blog – by signing a post with her “private key”, the blog server will be able to use her “public key” to check that a post is coming from her, and then put it on the blog.
She then sets up MixMaster, a mailing system designed to obscure the origins of an email message. MixMaster uses a chain of anonymous remailers – computer programs that strip all identifying information off an email and send it to its destination – to send email messages with a high degree of anonymity. By using a chain of 2 to 20 remailers, the message is very difficult to trace, even if one or more of the remailers is “compromised” and is recording sender information. She has to “build” MixMaster by compiling its source code, a project that requires a great deal of geek assistance.
She sends a first MixMaster message to Invisiblog, which includes her public key. Invisiblog uses this to set up a new blog, with the catchy name “invisiblog.com/ac4589d7001ac238″ – the long string is the last 16 bytes of her GPG key. Then she sends future posts to invisiblog, by writing a text message, signing it with her public key and sending it via MixMaster.
It's not nearly as fast as her old style of blogging. The misdirection of MixMaster mailers means that it takes anywhere from two hours to two days for her message to reach the servers. And she has to be very careful about looking at the blog – if she looks at it too often, her IP address will appear in the blog's log frequently, signalling that she'l likely to be the blog author. But she's reassured by the fact that the owners of invisiblog have no idea who she is… and she now knows more about open-source software than she'd ever wanted to know.
The main problem with the Invisiblog system is the fact that it's incredibly difficult for mere mortals to use. Most people find GPG a challenge to set up, and have difficulty understanding the complexities of public and private keys. More userfriendly crypto tools, like Ciphire, have been set up to help the less geeky of us, but even they can be tricky to use. As a result, very few people – including people who might really need it – use encryption for most of their email.
MixMaster is a true technical challenge for most users. Windows users can use an early DOS version of the program by just downloading it. I downloaded and tested it yesterday, and it doesn't appear to work… or perhaps my email is still being remailed back and forth between remailers. Anyone wanting to use the newer version, or wanting to use the program on Linux or Mac, needs to be able to compile the program themselves, a task beyond many expert users. It's possible that Invisiblog would become more useful if it accepted messages from web-accessible remailers, like riot.eu.org – for now, I can't see it as being particularly helpful for the people who need it most.
There's an additional set of problems with strong encryption in repressive nations. If Sarah's computer is seized by the government and her private key is found, it would constitute strong evidence that Sarah had authored the controversial blog posts. And, in countries where encryption is not widely used, simply sending out MixMaster messages – mail messages wrapped in strong encryption – might be enough to cause Sarah's internet usage to be watched closely.
Is Sarah's solution – learning enough about cryptography and software to use MixMaster – your solution? Or is some combination of steps 1,2 and 3 sufficient to let you blog anonymously? There's no one answer – any path towards anonymity needs to consider local conditions, your own technical competence and your level of paranoia. If you have reason to be worried that what you're posting could endanger your safety, a combination of steps 1, 2 and 3 is probably not a bad idea.
Oh, and remember not to sign your blog posts with your real name!


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What’s going on in the Kenyan blogosphere. · Global Voices
Ory Okolloh

Mental Acrobat on why politics rocks and why Africa needs millions of students of politics.
Mama Junkyard  is “confuddled” (please give her props for coining this term) about her blog identity versus her real identity.   Do those distinct identities even exist, are they two different people, would they like each other?   Read on to find out.
Mshairi gives her view on the identity “crisis.”
Owen has no idea what Maitha of Mawazo na Mawaidha is saying, but thinks the language is very cool.     An excellent example of why the Global Voices project exists…to eventually help bridge these gaps…now if we could just come up with a Swahili-English online translator.
Ms. K would like to find some green clothes and would appreciate it if Camilla just gave up on hats.
Sonny reminisces about breakfast.
Afromusing on the chasm between Africans and African Americans.
Local newspaper report on the Barclays Bank of Kenya AGM.     Bankelele's report on the same AGM.    Aren't blogs a good thing?

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Ory Okolloh


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New faces in the bridgeblog index · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

I was recently introduced to the concept of “wiki gardeners”, people who tend wikis, cutting away spam, fixing formatting and grammar, and generally tidying up the place. I just spent a few hours on the BridgeBlog Index, and I'm struck by what a good metaphor gardening is. We “planted” the idea of the BridgeBlog index a few months ago, and every few days, someone new visits and adds blogs from a different corner of the world.
Some lists of blogs that have “sprouted” recently:
There are also new blogs posted in Singapore, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Ghana – check them out!
While the wiki is growing well, it could use your help. If you know about a set of bridgebloggers anywhere in the world, please take a moment to either enter them into the wiki yourself, or mail them to me, if you're wiki averse (ethanz AT gmail DOT com). Or post them in the comments to this post.

author: Ethan Zuckerman


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Chinese Bloggers’ Reactions on Recent Anti-Japan Protest · Global Voices
Andrea Leung

Compared to the thousands who have expressed their views through various protests that took place in China over the weekend, major Chinese internet websites seemed a lot quieter about the marches – but that's just on the surface.
Chinese media, including internet content service providers, are not allowed to publish reports on the marches.
QQ, one of the most popular instant messaging client in China, has added the word “march” (游行) to their list of banned words, preventing users from sending any messages that contains the prohibited word.
Despite the restrictions, hundreds of blog posts were able to make their way through to the internet, providing a range of information and opinions.
Many of them are eye-witness accounts of the marches in Shanghai, Ningbo,
Hangzhou and Shenzhen, with photos taken throughout the protests accompanying their posts.
They showed a sense of pride that they have done the right thing to speak out for justice that would leave a mark in history.  That the people in Shanghai are also patriots and not just people who would money first as people from around the country alleged previously.
“Boycott Japanese goods and strengthened China” is the slogan used most throughout the protest in Shanghai, it was also the rationale behind the protest, one angry Anti-Japan blogger said in a blog post where he captured the most memorable moments and accomplishments of the protest.
He was most provoked when protesters tried to pass through the police line. “1, 2, 3! Patriotism is not a crime! Break the (police) protection line!”, he recalled.
Some talked about the window smashing and vandalism that they saw in Shanghai.  But they also noted that the vandalism were done by a few emotionally-charged protesters while many other more rational protesters tried to stop them but without any success.
In Ding Yong Speaks, the blogger questioned why people are focusing on the violent behaviors by ten percent of the protesters and not the voices by ninety percent who are the majority.  He thought that the outpour of strong emotions and violence in recent protests took place because people never had an outlet nor the experience to let the steam out publicly.
“Are protests useful?  Are they necessary?  Many people on the internet are debating [about these questions].”  Fuiyi, a Chinese blogger wrote.
Already, some bloggers have raised the issue of economic damages that have been done to local businesses.  Some called others to remain calm and rational when expressing their views.  Some opined that not all protesters are partriots – that some people went for the sake of protesting against the government.  Some continued to vent their anger on the text book issue and territorial disputes over Diaoyutai islands.
“I think marches is a strong and powerful behavior for ordinary citizen groups in the society to express themselves.  Even though it is a bit useless and may be used for illegal purposes, but if you don't march, how are you going to express yourself?” Fuiyi concluded in his blog.
The views on the topic are wide-ranging and continue to evolve in the Chinese internet.
Further reading:
Update: Fon Tuinstra points  out that: “When I read Andrea's overview I get the idea that not only traditional media sanatize reality to accomodate their audiences, Chinese bloggers show the same tendency.”  It should be pointed out that it was the translator of this piece who neglected the racist remarks as I thought they have already been widely reported in the news.  The Chinese blogger quoted in this piece did mention that “Japanese pigs” has the best rhythm.  Whenever people shouted “Japanese pigs”, the rest of the protesters would shout “Leave! Leave! Leave!”.
Update 2: Some users reported that they could use the word “march” in QQ and the word is not censored.

author: Andrea Leung


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How can we promote Chinese-Japanese dialogue online? · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Joi Ito has a thoughtful post responding to the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China. An excerpt:
As a Japanese who has a great deal of sympathy and empathy for China, what I find difficult is trying to understand the various threads and how Japanese people can try to make a difference. In particular, the hateful and extreme actions of some of the Chinese make it difficult, if not scary to even try to open a dialog. At the same time, the extremes in China are fueling the nationalists in Japan and not helping the cause for the more moderate voices. I believe hate will never help communications.
One of the biggest problems is that most Japanese don't understand the issues. Another point is that most Japanese are not great supporters of the military. …
Please read the whole thing.
I've been emailing back and forth with Joi, Isaac Mao, and Andrea Leung to toss around ideas about how we might start a blog or some kind of site using social software that might facilitate more calm online discussion between Japanese and Chinese people.  Isaac would also like to do something facilitating dialogue between mainland Chinese and Taiwanese.  He cites Dialogue Now for India-Pakistan as a possible model.
Got suggestions? Ideas? Interested in helping? Please hit the “comments” link and let us know.

author: Rebecca MacKinnon


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Introducing bridge blogger Ndesanjo Macha · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

Sometimes the Internet helps you find interesting people halfway across the globe. And sometimes it helps you find out that interesting people from halfway across the globe are living in your neighborhood.
I had the second sort of experience Sunday, when I travelled to Brattleboro, Vermont (100km away, but in my neighborhood. We drive a lot here in rural New England…) to meet Ndesanjo Macha, one of the key figures of the Swahili-language blogosphere. On a sunny, early spring afternoon, we sat at a cafe overlooking the Connecticut River and talked about Global Voices, weblogs in Africa and several dozen other topics, proving that globe-spanning conversations can occur almost anywhere in the world.
Ndesanjo, a Tanzanian lawyer and journalist, turned blogger, finds himself living on the Vermont/New Hampshire border, adapting to New England winters and teaching Kiswahili at the School for International Training, one of the leading language and cultural training schools in the world. Arriving in the US from a stint as a human rights lawyer in Namibia, where he worked with Congolese refugees, Ndesanjo found himself working with Dr. Rubin Patterson at the University of Toledo. Helping Patterson edit the journal “Perspectives on Global Development and Technology”, Ndesanjo was exposed to weblogs, and soon found himself authoring Digital Africa (in English) and Jikomboe, in Swahili.
Jikomboe (Free Yourself!) is probably the first Swahili-only blog to appear in the blogosphere. It's the first of several Swahili blogs to come from Tanzania – Ndesanjo has just listed eight Tanzanian swahili blogs on the Global Voices bridgeblog index. Like Ndesanjo, most of the Tanzanian bloggers are professional journalists – Ndesanjo writes a weekly column for Mwananchi (The Citizen), one of Dar Es Salaam's leading newspapers. This may represent a psychological barrier for average Tanzanians – if all the bloggers are journalists, do you have to be a journalist to blog?
Why does Kenya have such an active blog scene, while Tanzania's is just getting started? Language is likely one of the key issues. During President Julius Nyerere's reign (1960 – 1985), his socialist philosophy, Ujama, emphasized self-reliance and “villagization” and de-emphasized contact with the outside world. (As Ndesanjo points out, it was almost impossible to get a passport in Nyerere's Tanzania, unless one were studying abroad.) Swahili was heavily emphasized, and English de-emphasized, creating a generation far more comfortable in Swahili than in English.
Needless to say, there are few Swahili-language blogging guides and references, despite the presence of over 100 million Swahili speakers in East Africa. Ndesanjo thinks it's critical for east Africans to be able to blog in Swahili, but be heard by a global audience. He's planning on providing a roundup of the Swahili blogosphere for Global Voices, helping the Swahili-challenged understand what conversations are taking place in the region.
Some of the next Swahili bloggers may be Americans – Ndesanjo is asking his students at SIT to blog in Swahili as preparation for their travels to East Africa. There's an instructional blog for the class (which has allowed Ndesanjo to teach even on days when Vermont snowstorms cancel classes), and journals from students preparing to travel to Tanzania as Peace Corps volunteers, or to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise money for AIDS awareness.
While blogs are beginning to get traction in Tanzania, Ndesanjo tells me the real political discussions are taking place through hip-hop. Unlike in the US, hip-hop crosses age barriers in Tanzania – Ndesanjo's mom and aunts often recommend hot new artists to him. Political figures in Tanzania routinely feature politically-conscious hip-hop performers in their rallies. Ndesanjo points me to the Tanzanian Hip-hop Summit, as well as to Xplastaz (a unique group that fuse Masai traditions with contemporary rap), BongoXplosion and MrII. To expand the population of Tanzanian bloggers beyond journalists and computer geeks, the global blogging community may need to reach out to rappers and footballers – the heroes who capture the public's imagination. As Ndesanjo puts it: “Just imagine how many Africans we could get interested in blogging if Freddy Adu or George Weah had weblogs?”
The key to opening the conversations in the Tanzanian blogosphere to the rest of the world is translation from Swahili. We may wait for a while before Babelfish offers Swahili machine translation, but Ndesanjo plans to start providing an English-language roundup of great posts in the Swahili blogopshere on Global Voices. And, if we're lucky, maybe we can get him to translate some rap lyrics for us as well. Welcome to Global voices, Ndesanjo!


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Tagging for Chinese-Japanese dialogue.   · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

USE THIS TAG: cn_jp_dialog
We've had some Sino-Japanese-U.S. email exchanges going on to discuss the best way to foster a rational discussion on the latest Chinese-Japanese tensions.  Eventually a group blog and/or aggregator may be set up but we agreed that probably the best way to start is through a system of technorati and del.icio.us tagging.
So here's the plan: If you are posting something on your blog about Chinese-Japanese tensions, Sino-Japanese history debates, and related issues (or if you're uploading related photos to the web), please give it the following tag in del.icio.us, Flickr, Furl, and/or Technorati: cn_jp_dialog
(Further instruction: to add the technorati tag to your blog post, please add the following HTML to any post you want included:  )
If you tag your material under one or all of those systems, it will appear on this page: http://www.technorati.com/tag/cn_jp_dialog
Chinese bloggers have been pioneering the use of tagging as a way to talk about issues – especially politically sensitive ones. After the SMTH bulletin board at Tsinghua university was shut down, Chinese bloggers used the SMTH tag to share information and views about what happened.
See more from Kevin Wen and Andrea Leung on how tagging can be used to build information communities and create dialogue.
For more on tagging generally, see David Weinberger's posts here and here.


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Bahrain Imposes Web Site Registration Requirement; Bloggers Worried · Global Voices
Derek Bambauer

Bahrain's Ministry of Information is requiring all Bahraini Web sites – hosted inside or outside the country – to register with the Ministry.  Webmasters will be legally responsible for content on their sites, and face prosecution under the country's Press and Publications law for failing to register.  The OpenNet Initiative notes in its study on Internet filtering in Bahrain that the country already blocks access by citizens to some Web sites and also employs legal and informal pressures to control content on the Web.
Bahraini bloggers are nervous, especially in the wake of the arrests of the editors of the bahrainonline Web site.
Silly Bahraini Girl writes:
Our days are numbered…. In the new era of freedom and democracy, ushered in by a new constitution and reforms never known to the world before and will never be seen ever again anywhere else for as long as we and our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren after them live, the Ministry of Information has come out with a new means to supress FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.
Mahmood Al-Yousif blames Bahrain's “impotent” Parliament:
The ministry being an extremely important appendage of Bahrain, Inc. can't have come to this conclusion by themselves, they (the whole government) must be still smarting from the bahrainonline.org debacle, when sane people would think twice on generating adverse publicity once again by trying to control what is printed, this time they seem to have gone a step further and want to penalise us for our thoughts as well.
He suggests three steps: boycott registration, organize an on-line petition, and hold a meeting of Webmasters for further planning.  Chan'ad Bahraini writes that this undercuts his argument that King Hamad has increased freedom of speech and suggests shutting down the Ministry itself.
Babbling Bahrainia views the move as part of the contraction wave of the cycle of freedom, noting the government also proposes new anti-terrorism laws restricting speech and a ban on disclosing the name of a defendant before a case comes to a verdict:
I also further argue that this decade, although sharing the cyclical charecteristics of previous times, is facing a unique predicament in that what is essentially happening right now, is that autocracy is being ENSHRINED in law before our very eyes; through the constitution, royal decrees, press laws, law 56 etc, that have outwardly stated that one man rules this country. This is a precedent.
A worrisome development (unless you're the Bahrain Tribune, which views it as a way “to ensure better investment environment, enhance social development and protect human rights and Press freedom”).  Discussion underway at Mahmood's Den, with the suggestion of increasing the number of blogs to overwhelm the regulators.

author: Derek Bambauer


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“Theory of Everything” focuses on Global Voices · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

Ben Walker's “Theory of Everthing” radio show is getting love from all over the blogosphere – Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing has favorably compared it to Ira Glass's excellent This American Life, one of the best programs available on American radio.
Ben's latest show, available for download as an mp3, was prepared as part of the 2005 Public Radio Collaboration, a broad effort to encourage public radio producers to produce a set of programs on a theme – this year, “globalization” –  which will air on US public radio stations from May 16th – 22nd. Ben looks at whether the “global internet” is really global, and features several Global Voices contributors – Isaac, Jeff, Ory, Hossein, Rebecca and me – talking about ways the Internet can help make the world more globally interested. The piece finishes with an extended interview with Isaac, who talks in detail about internet filtering and censorship in China.
It's a great opportunity to hear the voices of some of the people working on Global Voices. And if you're a US reader, please consider calling your local public radio station and asking them to air Theory of Everything – available from The Public Radio Exchange – during the Public Radio Collaboration week.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS


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Wednesday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Photo of the day. Sabbah reports that Qatar will replace child camel-jockeys with robots.
We are hoping to make the world blog roundups a regular (and eventually daily) feature of Global Voices. This is still in the experimental stages. We're playing around with format and approach. It will improve as our aggregator and index get better.  Interested in helping? Feel free to add blogs you want us to know about in the index Wiki. Are we missing important stuff from the world of blogs today? Please hit the “comments” section and tell us about the links we're missing.
Mideast:
Much discussion at the Lebanese Blogger forum about Syria's withdrawal.
Meanwhile Ya Libnan points out that Lebanese-Syrian cooperation is still going on with a natural gas pipeline from Syria into North Lebanon.
“Forgive me God, for I have blogged!” Facing the latest Bahraini government crackdown, Silly Bahraini Girl can't control herself and hopes God will forgive her even if the authorities won't.
Hammorabi laments Iraq's “vicious cycle.”
Omar points us to a new Iraqi English blog.
Africa:
Last weekend: Subzero Blue and others report on the first Tunisian Bloggers’ Meetup.
Sokwanele in Zimbabwe is fed up with lies.
South Asia:
United We Blog has the latest on arrests in Nepal.
Diary of Peace in South Asia points out that history textbook problems aren't the monopoly of China, Japan, and Korea.
East Asia:
Joi Ito has some videoblogger video of a recent anti-Japan protest in China.
ESWN has some crazy pix of Taiwanese protests against the Nationalist politicians‘ visit to mainland China.
Technical ideas: Isaac Mao has some ideas about bit-torrent for video blogs.
Wikinews:
Argentinian workers who've been autonomously runninng a ceramic factory in Neuquén since the government meltdown in 2001, are preparing to defend their autonomous management as the courts start to consider appointing an owner. According to the wikinews article, about 200 factories in Argentina have been autonomously run by workers since 2001.
GlobalTunes:
Rezwan points us to the only existing Bangladeshi Music Portal.


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Isaac Mao’s take on the China protests · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Isaac Mao believes theres  not more to the anti-Japan protests than just government manipulation:
Just in these two days, China gov tighten the control of internet to prevent from any callings on new protest. Yesterday, the spokesman of Minisry of Public Security warned that any online organizing or gossip on gathering are illegal. The official voices in these two days are mainly one point: all the people should keep stable as the first priority thing. It means that gov is worrying about the protest could evolve into anti-gov movement.
That's the myth in today's China. Gov wants to use civilian's protest to presssure on JP gov. They will also control the information to expose those only supportive to their policy and censor other opinions. Definitely, all the official media has been tamed to one tune already. They are trying a lot to do the same thing in cyberspace even with many so shortsight tricks. Anyway, it's obvious a mission impossible today, there rasied more reactions already in blogosphere(BBSs are totally controlled in these days), can be summaried into four types:
1. We common people can do nothing now, but only rely on gov
2. The gov is usefulless in solving the problem, they will eventually comprise and sacrifice people's benefit to keep their regime
3. The gov can do only limited things to reach real mutual understanding, the gap between people in the two countried will widen unavoidably
4. We won't trust the gov anymore, not just for this issue, many issues in this country are connected


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Blogging from Togo – Views of the Post-Election Protests · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

The post-election situation in Togo is getting increasingly complicated. Faure Gnassingbé, the son of deceased Togolese leader Gnassingbé Eyadema, has claimed victory with 60% of the votes counted in Sunday's election. But there are widespread accusations of election fraud, and opposition supporters have responded to Gnassingbé's election with violent protests. Now, L'Intelligent d'Abidjan (an independent newspaper which publishes online through a weblog) reports that opposition candidate Akitani Bob has declared himself president:
“Togolais, togolaises, votre président vous parle, oui votre président, car nous n’avons pas perdu les élections présidentielles. Cette élection présidentielle du 24 avril 2005. Vous devez le savoir pour rester mobilisés”, a déclaré M. Akitani Bob devant des journalistes à Lomé.
(My terrible translation – “My countrymen, your president is speaking, yes, your president because we didn't lose the presidential election. The presidential election of the 24th of April 2005. You must know this to stay motivated,” said M. Akitani Bob to journalists in Lomé.)
Of the bloggers around the world commenting on the situation, Words of this Yovo makes for especially interesting reading. (Yovo” means “foreigner” in the Ewe language, widely spoken in southern Togo and eastern Ghana.) The yovo in question is Jürgen Henn, a German who found himself in the village of Yipka, Togo, at the end of a bike trip that began in Germany and wound through Morocco, Algeria and Niger. Jürgen left his bike in Yipka and came back a year later, amazed to discover that it and all the rest of his possessions were intact. Fascinated, he decided to stay in the village for a while – eventually for two years – and become a bush taxi driver. His Togolese experience makes it possible for him to comment on dimensions of the situation in Togo that aren't getting much attention in mainstream media:
One very important aspect of the turmoil in Togo is always carefully avoided by the press: the ethnic dimension. Most of the security forces are Kabyé, but in most of the country outside of Kara the Kabyé life in small enclaves. Historically they are farm workers and sharecroppers; They lived and worked on land others owned. Often they were treated miserably, sometimes they were brutalized by the people around them. Under Eyadema, they were recruited into the armed forces and police. Some became the regime’s henchmen. Now they are scared that they will be killed and brutalized if the RPT loses its grip on power, so they are willing and capable of just about anything to keep the RPT in power.
Jürgen has been helping his friends in Yipka get a blog up – the village now has a group blog, Au Village. Agbessi, writing on Au Village, has a report in English about the killing of a soldier who was monitoring elections in Adeta. A more recent blog post – a recollection of his experiences as a protester at the National University, teargassed and beaten by Togolese soldiers – is powerful, harrowing and important for anyone trying to understand the anger of the Togolese opposition:
Lorsque vous avez vecu des pietinements et bastonnades de soldats et supporter la une dictature qui existait avant votre naissance et que vous avez supporte pendant plus de 26 ans de votre vie, vous regardez autrement et avec revolte ce qui se passe actuellement au Togo.
(Translated this time by my wife, who actually speaks this language – “When you have seen tramplings and beatings by soldiers, enduring a dictatorship which has existed since before your birth and which you have borne for the more than 26 years of your life, you will see differently, and with revulsion, that which has actually happened in Togo.”)
If anyone has good French and English and is interested in translating posts from the Au Village blog, I'd be very grateful and would post them on Global Voices for anyone who is interested in the Togo situation – please contact me at ethanzATgmailDOTcom or post translations in the comments section of this post.


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Interview with Riverbend about her book · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Alternet has an interview with Riverbend, the “Girl Blogger from Iraq.” An excerpt:
Lakshmi Chaudhry: Let's start with the obvious: why did you start writing a blog?
The first person to encourage me to write a blog was Salam Pax of “Where is Raed?.” After the war he suggested I should start my own blog as I could write in English and after thinking about it for a while, I eventually did. I liked the idea of blogging because I was very frustrated with the Western media for telling only half the story in Iraq. No one seemed to know what was going on inside of the country — all the damage and horror Iraqis were facing on a daily basis.
In addition to this, blogging proved to be therapeutic. It was a way to vent fears and anger that I couldn't really express in front of family and friends because it was always necessary to stay strong and, to some extent, positive.
Reading your blog entries, it's obvious that a significant portion of your audience is not Iraqi. Was this your original intention or did it just turn out that way?
I don't think I wrote the blog for any particular audience. I simply wanted to express my emotions and thoughts and I wasn't sure who would read it. I never expected many Iraqis inside of Iraq to read it because Iraqis are far too busy coping with daily realities to read blogs or even write them. I liked blogging in English because it's a language people in many different countries understand. I would have been preaching to the choir if I blogged in Arabic.
What role does the blog play in your life today, especially given its immense success?
The blog for a while became a part of my daily life. I began seeing things from a blogging point of view in many situations and wondering what the readers would think if they could do or see what I was currently doing or seeing! My family is sometimes curious about it but more often than not, they worry about my safety. I try to make time for reading and answering emails and sometimes blogging, but it all depends on the electricity/phone situation.
Thanks to Lotsofbigideas for the link.


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Thursday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Blog activism:
In the wake of recent earthquakes and tsunamis, Brandmalaysia's Mack Zufikli has launched a blog-driven campaign to get the Malaysian government to include the needs of the disabled in their evacuation plans.
Mideast:
Mahmood at Mahmood's Den is defying the new Bahraini government regulations requiring that all websites must be registered with the government, on the grounds that these regulations conflict with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. To the Ministry of Information he says: “I hearby un-libellously brand you morons of the month! “
Palestine Blog has a poem about walls.
Iraq's Raed in the Middle calls Jafari's government a house of cards. Omar at Iraq the Model has a less critical analysis.
East Asia:
ESWN has a very thoughtful post reflecting on the latest anti-Japanese protests in China. He observes: “What is surprising is why anyone would continue to think of the Chinese government as that one undifferentiated block of black steel.”
At T-Salon, Andrea Leung excerpts Xiao Qiang's April 27 Wall Street Journal article on the internet's role in those protests for those who don't have paid access to the WSJ.
Southeast Asia:
Jeff Ooi warns of a possible weeklong strike in Malaysia to start May 1st.
South Asia:
Indian blogger Vantage Point accuses the Mumbai government of acting like the Taliban in the way it handled a recent rape case.
Central Asia:
Afghan Warrior has some thoughts about Afghan refugees and their problems.
Life in Armenia blogs the massive demonstrations marking the 90th anniversary of a major slaughter of Armenians by Turkish troops. Mahdi Ayat has some great photos about this demo on Flickr.


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Children’s Voices from Darfur · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

In February 2005, Human Rights Watch sent
researchers Dr. Annie Sparrow and Olivier Bercault to Chad to talk with refugees who'd fled from the bombings and Janjawid militia attacks in Darfur. A pediatrician, Dr. Sparrow usually gives crayons and paper to children to entertain them while she interviews their parents. When she gave crayons to children who've fled Darfur, the results
were harrowing and powerful.
Without prompting, the children drew scenes of horse-mounted
militiamen riding into villages, large airplanes dropping bombs, and
gun-wielding men raping women. The children's drawings are a visual
record of the atrocities committed in Darfur that aren't available
through any other medium. Human rights workers have received extensive
testimony about bombing of villages and rape as a weapon, but these
drawings provide visual evidence that international media
organizations have not been able to provide, as they've been blocked
by the Sudanese government from travelling in Darfur.
Realizing the importance of these drawings, Sparrow and Bercault
started collecting school notebooks from children in refugee camps.
They found in many of them that class notes suddenly gave way to
sketches of battlefield scenes, burning huts and the destruction of
villages. The two began interviewing children about their drawings:
Leila, Age 9
Human Rights Watch: What is going on here?
Leila: My hut burning after being hit by a bomb.
Human Rights Watch: And here? [Pointing to the drawing of what looks
like an upside-down woman]
Leila: It's a woman. She is dead.
Human Rights Watch: Why is her face colored in red?
Leila: Oh, because she has been shot in the face.
Human Rights Watch: What is this vehicle? Who is this in green?
Leila: That is a tank. The man in green is a soldier.
The researchers brought hundreds of drawings back to their offices.
When I was at Human Rights Watch a week ago, there was a pile of these
sketches on a conference room table, along side a pile of photographs
from Janjawid militamen. What amazed me was how details in the
children's drawings echoed details from the photos – the stocks of the
automatic rifles, the round shape of the houses, the posture of two
gunmen riding on horseback. It was immediately clear to me that these
drawings weren't of weapons imagined by children, but eye witness
accounts.
The New York Times will be running some of these pictures in their
Sunday magazine, and German television will be featuring the images on
a broadcast this weekend. Perhaps these images will help the world pay
attention to the ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity taking
place in Darfur and the refugee camps in Chad.
For more information:
HRW's gallery of Darfur drawings
Articles from Human Rights Watch on Darfur
Passion of the Present – Online activists working to bring attention to the
crisis in Darfur


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Friday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Spreading the blog gospel (blogspel?):
Hossein Derakhshan (aka Hoder)  posts his recent presentation on How Weblogs are affecting Iran.  He also outlines his upcoming talk on how to make a blogosphere.
Mideast:
The Lebanese Blogger Forum points out that Lebanese expatriates outnumber Lebanese in Lebanon, and is supporting a campaign to enable Lebanese expats to come home to vote in elections next month.
Iraq the Model is angry with those who call the resistance “patriotic.”
Southeast Asia:
Cranial Cavity smells a “very big sea-going rat” in the Malaysian government's approach to shipping security in the Malacca Straits.
Reporters Without Borders reports that Singaporean student Jiahao Chen (now studying in the U.S.) was forced to take down his blog, AcidFlask, after he criticized government policies and a research scholarship program.
Our Man in Hanoi reflects on the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Noodlepie says Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) is awash with foreign journalists and has started a Flickr photo pool. Great idea.
Africa:
Sokwanele laments: “We have been reduced from a major sugar exporting country to a country to one that can't even guarantee supplies for its own domestic market!”
Music & culture: Kenyan Pundit is excited about the Sweet Mother Tour.
South Asia: Radio Free Nepal complains of “state vandalism.”
United We Blog describes how schoolchildren got cold and rainsoaked when required to line up on the roadside to greet King Gyanendra when he returned from overseas. UWB also announces a freedom rally in Washington D.C. on May 15th.
Indian blogger AnarCapLib asks: should India invade Nepal?
Central Asia:
Armenian blogger Blogrel has no love lost for the Armenian police.
Next door in Azerbaijan, Registan.net points us to a jazz festival.
East Asia:
Isaac Mao reports that Skype.com seems to be blocked in China.
Food: Joi Ito has a mouthwatering account of a visit to a Japanese-French fusion restaurant near Technorati's Tokyo office.
Sports: Japundit has a long post on sumo and championship wrestling.


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Call for Nominations: World Summit Awards USA Competition · Global Voices
Andy Carvin

Hi everyone,
I'd like to announce the official opening of the World Summit Awards USA competition. An official event of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the World Summit Awards will take place in more than 150 countries around the globe. I'm serving as coordinator of the USA competition.
We're seeking nominations for the best websites from the USA in the following categories:
e-business
e-culture
e-entertainment
e-government
e-health
e-inclusion
e-learning
e-science
I've assembled a team of more than a dozen volunteers representing a range of expertise in online content. We will review the nominations and select a winner in each category; the winner will then represent the USA in the international competition.
To nominate a website, please visit here:
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?id=93093
Nominations must be submitted no later than May 30, 2005. Winners will be announced by July 1, 2005.
Please feel free to share the URL and extend an invitation to colleagues to submit websites for the competition. To find the WSA competition in your country, please visit www.wsis-award.org. – Andy Carvin, Digital Divide Network

author: Andy Carvin


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Child Soldiers in the DRC · Global Voices
Joi Ito

WITNESS – Child Soldiers in the DRC
Since 1996, war has ravaged the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some four million people have died as a result of the armed conflict and over ten thousand children have been used as child soldiers. Today, the country is in fragile transition, with over ten armed groups still operating in the Eastern region. All parties have recruited and used child soldiers in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law.
In 2004, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced the DRC to be the subject of the Court’s first investigation. Under the Court’s jurisdiction is the recruitment and use of child soldiers as a war crime. The ICC remains the only competent and impartial Court that can bring justice to the thousands of children whose rights were violated and childhood taken away from them.
Through the voices of child soldiers, “A Duty To Protect” explores the complexity of the war, the issues confronted by girl soldiers including rape and sexual exploitation and the importance of the International Criminal Court to end the rampant impunity reigning in Eastern DRC. The video gives specific recommendations to strengthen the work of the ICC and calls for the international community’s engagement to stop the recruitment and use of child soldiers.
Witness is a great organization and shows how intermediaries like this can help get global voices out and is also a great example of using video as a medium.

author: Joi Ito


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Monday: What the world’s bloggers care about today · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Inspiration of the Day from Africa:
Comic Seriosity Balance tells us about a new comic strip launched by Schoolnet Namibia. Called Ha Ti! or “Listen Up!”, the comic strip “spreads the word about the ways that computers and the internet can transform learners’ and teachers’ lives.” The strip is produced under a Creative Commons license so anybody can use it. (via BlogAfrica)
More from Africa:
Sokwanele says Zimbabwe needs blood donors desperately.
Sudan Watch points us to a powerful flash video on the genocide in Sudan by Physicians for Human Rights. (via Jewels in the Jungle)  Combine this with the Sudanese childrens’ pictures released on Friday by Human Rights Watch and reflect on the fate of your fellow human beings.
Southern Cross of South Africa is pleased about the good news on trade and farm subsidies.
Koranteng of Ghana has some music recommendations.
Black Looks has a good post on where to download Moroccan music. (We're also thrilled to see she likes our roundups!)
Central Asia:
Registan.net has some further thoughts in reaction to the NYT's story on possible U.S. prisoner transfer to Uzbekistan, pointing out what it characterizes as one inaccuracy and one omission in the story.
Buritos and “Takobel” in Armenia? Not exactly…
Mideast:
In Bahrain, the Free Ahmed Blog is trying to call attention to the significant number of young people who – according to the blog – get thrown in jail for hashish use, don't get due process or a speedy trial, and have their confessions “extracted under duress.”
Raed in the Middle: Baghdad Remembers Saigon.
Iraq the Model asks some questions about mass graves and the discussion (or lack) thereof.
In Jordan, Sabbah's Blog argues that CNN and NYT are biased.
Kuwaiti bloggers are organizing their fifth meetup.
East Asia:
Isaac Mao continues to wonder why Skype is blocked in Shanghai, with some interesting theories from various people.
ESWN reports that Hong Kong bloggers feel misunderstood.
Southeast Asia:
Jeff Ooi reports on Taxpayers’ Day and wonders where the money is really going.
South Asia
United we Blog reports on the joy of getting your mobile phone service back after having it cut off by the government for 3 months.
Europe:
Finland for Thought reports on a procreation strike.
In Italy, Luca DeBaise asks how to believe Americans and has some thoughts about the new Pope.


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Saudi Arabia’s Municipal Elections · Global Voices
Ahmed Al-Omran

When Saudi Arabia announced it will held municipal elections last year, the world was anticipating what would come out of the first ever elections at the conservative kingdom. Some observers, as well as some Saudis, were disappointed that half members of the new councils would be installed by the government, however, most Saudis think it is still a good first step towards democracy and reform. Women were excluded from the elections due to what the organizers called “logistics problems.” This excuse was not accepted by the people, but the organizers said they were committed with a deadline by the government and if they were to include women, they would not stick to the deadline. They also said women would participate in the next elections on 2009. Here is a quick review to the elections, and the most interesting moments of this event.
The first stage of elections took place in the central region, were the capital Riyadh is located, on February this year. The competition was tough, and about 150000 voters had only 12 days to choose only 7 out of 646 candidates, who has come from different backgrounds, ideologies and professions. The feeling of being in Riyadh during the electoral campaigns was weird because all streets of the city were filled with posters carrying faces of candidates, while usually human faces on billboards are blurred because the extreme teachings of Wahabism do not allow such thing. When results were announced, it was not surprising that liberals could not win a single seat. The seven winners in Riyadh were labeled by the press as “mild” Islamists. Before the elections began, I thought that money could provide an easy win to some candidates but I was wrong. The perfect example for this was the young wealthy real estate man Hasan Al-Mahdi. It was rumored he spent more than $5.3m, but that was not enough to give him a place in the new council.
The second stage, which took place in the eastern and southern part of the country, was more intriguing because lessons from the first stage were learned, and also because these two regions, especially the eastern region where they are the majority, have some Shiites minorities. Shiites, who were discriminated against along the history of the kingdom, wanted take the chance of the elections to prove their existence, and to share in the process of making decisions. They coordinated their efforts, and were very organized. Shiites candidates dominated the elections in the major cities of Hassa (aka Al-Ahssa) and Qateef, winning 11 out of 12 seats. However, even Shiites represent a large portion of population in Dammam, the capital of the eastern province, no Shiite candidate won there. Not even Ehsan Bu-Hlaiga, a famous financial figure and a former member of Shoura Council. Observers said this was because, unlike what happened in other cities, Sunnis in Dammam were coordinated enough to prevent it. There was some rumors about lists backed by religious scholars, but this did not seem to affect the elections the same way it did later in Jeddah.
As I come from Hassa, I participated in this stage of elections, and I was proud to be a part of this historical event. The process of registering and voting was clean, easy and quick (both took me less than five minutes). My only regret is that I had not the chance to attend most of the campaigns. However, I read a lot, and talked to many people in order to make my decision. According to MOMRA statistics, the majority of voters were people, like me, from the young generation, aged 21-24 years. However, not all young men had the same enthusiasm about the elections. “What elections? No thanks, not for me,” was an expression heard over and over during the registration period.
The last stage, which ended recently, took place in the western and northern regions. The elections in the major city of Jeddah was surrounded by controversy, as the seven members of a so-called “Golden List” dominated the elections. The “Golden List,” which included seven Islamist candidates, was backed by religious figures, and was circulated in SMS and internet forums. Losing candidates complained, saying the way clerics influenced the elections was unacceptable and illegal. “Next elections I will have to grow a beard in order to get elected,” a candidate who lost told the Associated Press.
In the northern region, there were some minor surprises, especially in the ultraconservative area of Qaseem, where it was expected that Islamists would gain an easy win. However, the list of winners included many businessmen and civil servants. Some people could not believe it, but I think such elections would always carry surprises.
In general, the elections were transparent and clean, but people in some regions (especially central region) were less enthusiastic about it than in other regions (eastern and western). Now the elections have ended, People of Saudi Arabia are looking forward to these councils to improve their everyday life. People are also looking forward to the day when these elections are fully elected, and to have a fully elected parliament. They are neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but they hope change is coming as soon as possible.

author: Ahmed Al-Omran


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Tuesday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Middle East:
Firas Georges of Iraq&Iraqis reflects on Iraq's future from Dubai while on his first-ever vacation outside of Iraq.               (Photo of Emirates Towers, Dubai, by Saudi)
Iraq the Model gives an English summary of a firsthand blog account in Arabic about a freshly discovered mass grave.
Riverbend of Baghdad Burning describes how one family narrowly escapes tragedy from a nearby car bomb.
Silly Bahraini Girl: “World Press Freedom Day My Foot…“
A Kuwaiti Online is concerned about the bad treatment of foreign workers and residents in Kuwait.
Kuwait now has 168 blogs.   Go Kuwaiti bloggers!!
Central Asia:
Afghan Warrior on continued violence and an increase in Taliban attacks.
Blogrel tells us about the thousands of poverty-stricken Armenian children who live like orphans in institutions, but who aren't actually orphans.
South Asia:
Dak Bangla on the regional arms market for Asia's forgotten wars.
AnarCapLip believes poverty in India is decreasing.
East Asia
EastSouthWestNorth (ESWN) of China asks provocatively: “why does the Chinese-interested blogosphere takes such pleasure in going after the official Chinese media but ignore the lies that appear on the so-called ‘dissident’ websites?”
Japundit says that in Japan and South Korea, Greenpeace lacks relevance and credibility.
Europe:
Finland for Thought argues about racism.
Africa:
Black Looks talks about death from botched abortions in Africa.
Subzero Blue has photos of the Tunisian bloggers’ meetup.


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Jurgen and Agbessi on the situation in Togo · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

I wrote a few days back about the post-election violence in Togo, quoting from Jürgen Henn, a German blogger with strong ties to Togo, and his friend Agbessi, a Togolese blogger who has been writing about violence he's witnessed first-hand. We invited Jürgen and Agbessi to write about their views of the current situation in Togo. Their response – a strong condemnation of the recent election with thoughts on context for the recent violence – follows below.
A quick note: Agbessi's last name is a psuedonym, at his request and for his protection.
By Jürgen Henn and Agbessi Spartacus
It's official: Faure Gnassingbe has inherited the family business from his daddy, Gnassingbe Eyadema: ACME Dictators Inc. – Exploiting Togo since 1967. Like father, like son, Faure was installed by a military coup on Feb. 6, the day after Eyadema died. After some international pressure he pulled back and performed a perfect bait-and-switch maneuver. He retreated, called elections, and then used the de-facto single-party state apparatus to pull off an Eyadema-style fake election, complete with stolen ballot boxes, army raids on opposition offices and fire bombed cultural centers. Dad would be proud.
So what is really going on in Togo? Don't ask the journalists. The BBC, AFP and Reuters all reported reliably about the crisis. But they provide very little background. The regional media are mostly concerned about the crisis spilling into the neighboring countries. The Togolese media are too close to the fire for clear-headed analysis. The ruling RPT's rag just sings the Eyadema – uh, I mean Faure – song. The opposition's LeTogolais has more depth, but still tows their party line.
The big question in politics and at company lunches is always “who is going to pay for this?” Journalists generally know a thing or two about free food, so why don't they just look at who gets a free lunch in Togo? When you follow the money in Togo, quickly you can see how looters and profiteers can drive a country like Togo to the brink of civil war. Previously, I've pointed out that the turmoil in Togo right now has a significant ethnic dimension, and it is important to understand this. But only because it helps to see where the money goes and who gets stuck with the tab.
Togo has at least 37 ethnicities. In the South, the Ewe (pronounced Eh-veh) tribe is dominant, and they are the largest ethnic group in Togo (41 percent). The Ewe lands stretch from Lake Volta in Ghana across southern Togo into Benin. The Kabyé; people are another ethnic group of significant size in Togo. The Kabyé; homeland around the northern city of Kara is arid and mountainous. So before Togo's independence in 1960, many young Kabyé; moved south to help support their families by working as laborers of sharecroppers on Ewe farms. As a result, many Kabyé; live in small enclaves scattered all over rural southern Togo, and many Ewe looked down on the Kabyé;, as they were not as closely connected to the land they lived on.
Togo was a German colony from 1884 to 1919. Then the French and the British kicked the Germans out and split the former Togoland. After the French part of Togoland became the Republique Togolaise in 1960, Sylvanus Olympio was elected president of the new nation. But in 1963, a Kabyé; soldier by the name of Gnassingbe Eyadema, newly returned from the French colonial army, killed Olympio, in the first military coup in post-colonial Africa. Four years later he made himself president of Togo, and his rule ended with his death on Feb 5, 2005, after ruling Togo for 38 years.
Eyadema's rule was strongly supported by the French government, which regards West Africa as a strategic sphere of influence. Despite the fact that Togo does not have a lot of natural resources beyond phosphate mines, Eyadema managed to maneuver the country into a position of strategic importance to France. That meant the French government provided military aid and armed and trained his troops.
With French support, Eyadema recruited a loyal military from his own tribe, the Kabyé;, for most of whom government service was a great opportunity to help support their families. Soon the Kabyé; dominated all the security forces by roughly three quarters, while they only represent less than 15 percent of the total population. For a long time this disproportion was not a major point of contention. However, it is clear now that the Gnassingbe clan started skimming the profits of what modest resources Togo had. And it seems obvious that the French would have not been so forthcoming with military aid, if the bottom line was not favorable to them.
In the early 90s, when I was in Togo, rumors circulated about the vast fortunes of the RPT cronies originating in the drug trade and from smuggling illegal goods. At one point I read that one of Eyadema's sons was caught in France with a huge amount of cocaine stashed in his private jet. But there were never any charges filed, and he left France hours later. There is no doubt in my mind that Lomé; was (and probably is) a significant hub for trafficking a vast array of illicit goods. Considering the total control the Gnassingbe clan had of Togo, and the cosy relationship Eyadema enjoyed with Mitterand, and later with Chirac, I don't see how all this money could have gone unnoticed by these gentlemen.
Traditionally, the relationship between the Ewe and the Kabyé; had been tense, but restrained. That's the Ewe view, at least. The Ewe needed the hardworking northerners as laborers, and the Kabyé; needed the jobs. But that relationship was one of dependency, and sometimes exploitation and violence. When tensions grew in Togo, Eyadema started arming “his people” – the Kabyé; – and the Ewe started getting scared of the Kabyé; among them. In 1990, during the unrest then, this tension sometimes exploded into regular genocide and ethnic persecution. Eyadema did everything to stoke the ethnic tensions and paint the unrest as a North-South conflict. The result was that Ewe living in the north were persecuted by the Kabyé; there, and Kabyé; minority in the Ewe-dominated south were terrorized by their Ewe neighbors.
The Kabyé;-dominated military also frequently turned violent against Ewe civilians, and sometimes against anyone who crossed their path. I don't know how many times I had drunk soldiers wave loaded assault rifles or pistols in my face at road blocks, just because they did not like my face, or I did not offer a large enough bribe. During the strikes, when the tensions were at their peak, Ewe villagers on several occasions attacked and destroyed Kabyé; enclaves in southern Togo. In retaliation, Ewe villages were harassed, razed and burnt down by the military. And the prisons were full of Ewe dissidents and trouble-makers.
All the while, the weapons dealers, diamond smugglers, drug traffickers, and looters were getting richer and richer. The CIA estimates the 2003 annual per capita income  in Togo at $1,600. That is comparable to Haiti, Nepal and North Korea, and quite a bit less than Bangladesh ($2,000), Viet Nam ($2,700) or neighboring Ghana ($2,300). Yet, in 2002, Eyadema's personal wealth was estimated at $2.8 billion, and his personal financial adviser, Maurice Assor, at also over $2 billion. Eyadema owned a Fokker 28, Grumman helicopters, a DC-8, various Boeing jets and an arsenal of arms. (more info ). He owned numerous mansions all over Togo, and some prime real estate in places like Tokyo, Paris and Manhattan.
Although he did spread some of his wealth among his clan in his hometown of Pya, near Kara, most of his fellow Kabyé; saw precious little of his vast fortunes. My friend, who studied at the Universite du Benin in Lomé;, remembers discussions with some of his fellow students from up north, where they pointed out that even in Eyadema's hometown Pya many homes have no electricity or running water. Right next door to the air-conditioned mansions of the RPT cronies, people live in tin-roofed houses and cook on charcoal stoves in the courtyard, just like everywhere else in Togo. The Kabyé; students also told stories about Eyadema's son Ernest, a high-ranking military officer, who “acted like the president of the North.” Ernest is feared in Togo's northern prefectures for his brutal persecution of anyone who dared say anything critical about his dad. The military may seem like a monolith of RPT power, but throughout the years there was occasional grumbling among the rank-and-file. The soldiers are underpaid and often have to wait weeks for their paychecks. Yet, most Kabyé; and most soldiers are fiercely loyal to their leadership, because they are simply scared of what will happen to them if the RPT loses control of power.
With the French behind him, arming the Kabyé; dominated military, the Kabyé; scared of retaliation from the Ewe (and others), and the Ewe under the boot of his dictatorship, Eyadema held Togo in a stranglehold that gave him unlimited power, vast fortunes and a bloody legacy. His son, Faure Gnassingbé;; appears determined to continue the “family business.” Just like under his father, he and his family and the looters and crooks that surround them, are slated to keep getting richer under the “Baby Eyadema” regime. The crooks are getting a free lunch in Togo. Everyone else, Ewe as well as Kabyé; and everyone else are getting stuck with the tab.
(Photo by Lokha, via Flickr.)


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Kenyan blogs roundup · Global Voices
Ory Okolloh

Lucy Kibaki, Kenya's First Lady, has been dominating the Kenyan blogosphere and Kenyan online community over the last few days, particularly after the slap that was heard around the world.
A sample of reactions:
-  Thinker provides the tongue-in-cheek version of events.
- Martin Kimani  of Bullets and Honey thinks Lucy should be thanked for stripping away the illusion that is Kenya.
- Soulsytah is embarrassed.
-  I'm more rankled about the conflict of interest question that's raised by the story.
- Given all the talk about pyjamas and bikinis, Ms. K offers the First Lady Swim Suit edition.
- Afromusing thinks the First Lady's actions have set the women's movement back.
- Wassapangaz thinks she's just nuts.     Wanjiru concurs.
- The First Lady launches a blog to tell her side of the story.
- Mental Acrobat develops a great typology of the online and offline reactions to the First Lady's actions.
- Finally, Mama Junkyard  would like to see the media raise the level of debate.     In the process of posing this challenge, MJY (along with all the commenters) has done just that.
To keep up with the exponentially growing Kenyan blogosphere, check out Nchi Yetu Daily, which aggregates feeds from Kenyan blogs.


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Wednesday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Middle East:
Chan'ad Bahraini has a series of good photos and a long blog post about Tuesday's demonstration in front of Bahrain's Ministry of Information. He says 40-50 people gathered to oppose the ministry's decision to press charges against three moderators of the online forum BahrainOnline.org, one of whom is also a blogger. Chan'ad reports that most people who run online forums as well as most Bahraini bloggers are against the new government regulation requiring all website owners to register.
“From Cairo With Love” has some thoughts on the relationship between blogging and political reform in Egypt.
Beirut Spring says Lebanon has its own “Howard Dean.”
“Free Thoughts on Iran” talks about election hype.
Iraq the Model and Mesopotamian have strong views on how to interpret the latest terrorist bombings.
Central Asia:
Another Irani Online translates a Persian blog post written by a young Afghan man writing from his native Kabul who asks: “When the system and the foundations of the government is based on false promises and threats, then what can you expect from that government?” Neither the Afghan blogging in Persian nor the Irani Online have much good to say about the Karzai regime, the way the Americans have handled Afghanistan's post-Taliban era, or about the way in which Afghanistan seems to have been forgotten in the news. (via Afghan Lord)
Afghan Warrior reports on concerns that Taliban prisoners released from U.S. custody will re-engage in a war against the Afghan government.
Found in Del.icio.us:
Burka Band turned up today in the Afghanistan del.icio.us feed, which is one of the many feeds we are subscribing to in the Global Voices aggregator.  Through Technorati I then found this blog post about "Afghanistan's Greatest Girl Band," which includes MP3 clips of their cover song, "Burka Blue (MP3)."
…And to continue on the counter-intuitive line of reporting from Central Asia, Registan.net reports that Uzbekistan will soon get blackberry pager service.
On a more serious note at Registan, Nathan suggests that many Central Asian governments, despite their human rights failures and incompetencies, may still be better than the likely Islamic extremist alternatives.
East Asia:
Andrea of T-Salon shares her virtual Chinese book collection, and the online tools that make this possible.
Japundit is concerned about the use of the internet to manipulate public opinion when it comes to the latest China-Japan history spat.
Europe:
French blogger Loic Lemeur has a virtual “mini-me.”
Ross Mayfield marvels at the growth of the French blogosphere after attending Loic's recent LesBlogs conference.  (Via German blogger Heiko Hebig.)
South Asia:
From India, Vantage Point sees an Enron connection in the Maharashtra power crisis.
Southeast Asia:
Jeff Ooi has been raising a ruckus on the issue of baby-fingerprinting. (His site seems to be experiencing problems so if you can't get through to that link right now please try later.)
Africa:
Black Looks reports on death in Ogoniland.
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South East Asian Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Mack Zulkifli

Singapore
Steven McDermott of Singabloodypore highlights a gathering for Shanmugam Murugesu, a Singaporean whose appeal for clemency from capital punishment has been rejected by Singaporean President.  The blog entry has so far garnered 50 comments.  He also writes about the Singaporean student who was forced to shut down his blog, threatened with libel proceedings.
Malaysia
Blogger Jeff Ooi strongly criticised Malaysian mainstream media for unneccesarily politicking education, and landing a Malaysian Minister in the unenviable position of having to explain himself to the Prime Minister. The thing about this issue is, as Jeff points out,
That said, theSun concludes by Keng Yaik meant well and his speaking out should be seen as the action of a nationalist.
No people of sound mind should differ.
Jeff”s entry about baby-fingerprinting has also got his commentors some global attention of their own.
Malaysian bloggers are still fighting for the disabled to be given better focus in disaster evacuation. The story has gotten global attention, with a premier French language blog, Pointblog, a magazine of blogging, giving it attention in their blog roundup.
The banner has so far gone up in 26 Malaysian blogs, and the number is rising. It is also supported by a blog by a medical professional.
StuffyMOH, a blog about the Malaysian Ministry of Health has highlighted an issue about growing resentment at the promotion of a retired civil servant to the top civil post.
Indonesia
Once upon a weblog questions if the fuss over rock group Dewa commiting blasphemy (in the eyes of Islam Defenders Front-FPI) is senitivity or over-reaction. Is it supression of freedom of speech, in terms of perfoming arts. The twist,
The controversy takes an interesting turn when some ulama, including Quraish Shihab and Gus Dur say that the group didn't commit blasphemy. Later on, National Council of Ulama (MUI) that acts as a mediator in this case declares that using the calligraphy of Allah for commercial purpose is permissible.

author: Mack Zulkifli


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Thursday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Middle East:
The UK isn't the only place where elections were held today…
Bethlehem bloggers are closely following “the first local elections in 30 years.” (Photo: Beit Sahour polling station, Bethlehem, courtesy Bethlehem Bloggers.)
Rafahpundits is all over the latest news from local elections in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.
Semitism.net announces a new online Israeli-Palestine Forum.
Natan Sharansky's resignation means very different things to Israpundit and Israelblog.
Syrian blogger Ammar Abdulhamid is the only Syrian listed in Newsweek's list 43 Arabs making a difference. (via Abu Aardvark
Music: Tikun Olam has info on the performance of a song jointly written Israeli and Paliestinian music stars.
Podcast: Friendsofaljazeera.org has a podcast interview with Hugh Miles, author of a book about Al Jazeera. They're looking for a volunteer to transcribe the interview.
Hammorabi has some views on what the Iraqi government needs to do if it's serious about squashing the insurgency.
East Asia:
Japundit analyzes the latest deadly train wreck and the “cold-hearted corporate culture that seems to regard its customers like a pile of expendable meat.”
South Asia:
Vantage Point is trying to convince poet Yogesh Dashrath to blog.
Africa:
The Kenyan blogosphere continues to buzz  about the behavior of First Lady Lucy Kibaki, who recently slapped a local journalist.
Black Looks points us to a new African fair trade e-commerce site. Based in Ghana, they're hoping to “make e-commerce work for Africa.” Check it out.
Southeast Asia:
Jeff Ooi sees evidence that his blog is having an impact on how Malaysia's leaders are discussing national issues.
Singabloodypore shares the inside scoop from AcidFlask, the blogger who was recently forced to take down his site.
Cranial Cavity is highly unimpressed with the Philippine police.
Central Asia:
President Bush will visit  Georgia [oops! Thanks Onnik for the correction.] next week and Blogrel points us to some images of the preparations and speculates that the visit will have a significant impact on the region's future.
Europe:
Finland for Thought is concerned about the coming iPod tax.
Latin America:
A Venezuelan blog, The Devil's Excrement (what a name) reports admiringly that the Cuban blog Babalu has been banned by Castro's government.
Venezuela News & Views (not a Chavez fan) has an essay on the “chavismo” phenom.


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Friday World Blog Roundup  · Global Voices
Amanda Michel

Asia
AngryChineseBlogger discusses the continuing issue of seven Christian priests detained last month in northern China. SimonWorld discusses and links to several articles about how Google deals with the Great Firewall. Isaac Mao points to signs that Chinese bloggers are being blocked for not registering after recent rules changes.
Blogdai and United We Blog discuss political parties in Nepal.
Middle East
Photo: “March of the Living” ceremony in Birkenau, courtesy Jewish Current Issues.
David at Israellycool points out that neither JPost or Ynetnews have reported that a settlers’ school bus was fired upon by Palestinians.
Israpundit points out JPost post that Israeli Military Industries signed another defense contract with India.
Mahmood's Den agrees with conclusions of International Crisis Group's report on Bahrain out today, stating that if marginalization of the Shiite community is not addressed soon that tensions will radically escalate. From the report: “The overlap of political and social conflict with sectarian tensions makes a combustible mix.”
Omar at Iraq the Model believes that a very high percentage of Sunnis intend to vote in upcoming elections in January of 2006. Omar describes recent fliering at Sunni mosques by the “Department of Sunni Property” and offers up survey results he acquired at several local mosques.
Sabbah's blog is happy that UAE has licensed another telecommunications company, thereby ending Etisalat's monopoly.
Africa
The Communications Commission of Kenya is reviewing applications for two ISP's, local courier services, premium rate service providers, and a call center service provider reports  Bankelele.

author: Amanda Michel


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Blog for Human Rights! · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Human Rights Watch is encouraging bloggers to use their RSS feeds and blog for human rights.
HRW would like to help bloggers get the information they need to blog more frequently about human rights issues around the world. Show you care, put their feeds in your aggregator, and join the movement!


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Brainstorming for a more global conversation · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

I thought this morning's Global Voices session went pretty well. Most of the people in the room were, of course, American. I started by talking about how – according to initial findings by Ethan Zuckerman – the American blogosphere actually talks about less of the world than the mainstream media does.
Here's a map that came out of Ethan's research from last year.  Countries in red were better represented in the blogosphere than in Google news (which last year was mainly mainstream media news sources) Countries in blue, were less well represented in the blogosphere than in the mainstream media. (UPDATE: Ethan has a new post with more research on this issue.)
Why don't American bloggers link very much to bloggers around the world? People in the room suggested there are 2 main reasons: One reason is that they don't know where to find the good blogs from other countries – unless Instapundit or somebody has linked to them. Another reason is that people don't have enough context or knowledge about events going on in foreign countries to blog about them.
The Global Voices project, with our Index and Aggregator, is trying to provide a solution to the first problem. The other problem has to do with lack of context. How do you get people linking to fascinating posts on Armenian or Bahraini blogs when they have no context about the situations in Armenia and Bahrain? This is more difficult and there are no clear solutions. One idea that came up in the session would be for bloggers who blog for global audiences to provide links on their sites where people can go for more information about their country – and recent news about their country. The GV wiki should probably do a better job in providing links to reliable contextual information.
Dave Winer says he would very much like to help out by organizing "blog tours" for A-list bloggers to go to various countries and report on them from a personal perspective. I think this is great. I also think that if A-list bloggers have face-to-face meetings with local bloggers in different countries, they'll wind up linking to them more frequently over time.
Technorati: blognashville


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Monday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Middle East:
Woodstock in the sand dunes? Chan'ad Bahraini has a long report and many photos on a large and peaceful protest in Bahrain demanding constitutional reform.  (No sign of this story in the mainstream Western media that I have found.)  He says the protest had a “Woodstock feel” to it. C.B. also points a report on Bahrain's political situation by the International Crisis Group, which is useful if you're not a close follower of Bahraini politics…
Ammar reports on the state of Arab blogging for the Committee to Protect Bloggers.
AquaCool links to an international environmental photo contest if you're a photographer and care about the environment, check it out.
Annalysis in Cairo abhores honor killings, as do all progressives in the Middle East, but asks whether a book on honor killings that allegedly distorts facts to prove its point isn't counterproductive.
Pining for Carly in Cairo: Hossein at From Cairo with Love  has quite a post about living with terrorism, how he had a great date at the JW Marriot, his friend's divorce, and how he's in love with Carly Fiorina. Yes, that's all in one post!
Silly Bahraini Girl has a dirty joke (aged 18 and older only please).
Eurasia:
Photo: Armenians celebrate Victory Day over the Nazis.
Blogrel has some local perspective on Bush's trip to Georgia.
Central Asia:
Waheed the Afghan Warrior describes a suicide bombing at a Kabul internet cafe.
Africa:
Thinker's Room makes fun of Kenya's first lady in a manner that Lord of the Rings fans will appreciate.
East Asia:
Isaac Mao reports that some blogs that failed to register their existence with the authorities are now blocked, and other bloggers who tried to register have not been allowed to do so.
ESWN has a family perspective on the Sino-Japanese history spat.
South Asia:
Rezwan has some observations about the growth of the begging industry  in Bangladesh. Yes, he describes it as an “industry.”
Southeast Asia:
Congratulations to bloggers in the Philippines for their successful iBlog conference!
Singabloodypore links to a documentary that was barred from a local film fest (clarification: the filmaker was threatened with jail if his film got screened), but somebody has uploaded to the web so everybody can see it anyway. Heh.
Thaiblogs.com has a post on life in a Thai buddhist temple.
Europe:
Barcepundit enjoyed participating remotely in BlogNashville.
Lots of blogger gatherings around the world this past week, including Blogmich05 on Saturday in Berlin. Here's the Flickr tag, and the list of blog coverage.


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Voices From Kiswahili Blogosphere · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

There are fifteen active and two inactive Kiswahili bloggers.  Sixteen bloggers are Tanzanians and one is Kenyan. Several new Kiswahili bloggers are currently working on their blogs but not yet ready to go public. The main conversation in the Tanzanian blogosphere is the nomination of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jakaya Kikwete, as the presidential candidate for the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). The presidential election takes place in October this year.
Tanzanian bloggers have been following the nomination process with a lot of humour and at times drawing similarities from the recent conclave of cardinals that elected Pope Benedict XVI. The bloggers refer to the ruling party’s nomination process as “papal conclave,” members of the National Executive Committee of the ruling party are “cardinals” and the party’s headquarters in Dodoma is “Sistine Chapel.”
Here is a list of active and inactive Kiswahili bloggers:
Maitha of Mawazo na Mawaidha (opinions and advice) is the only Kiswahili blogger from Kenya. He reports that the Kenya’s draft ICT policy ignores the importance of open source software for the developing nations. He asks his readers to use Google’s translation tools to translate the following sentence into Spanish and back into English to see how meaning can be lost in translation: “Aishwarya’s mom is nice and cool.”
Tungaraza of Mwandani (companion) questions the current use of Kiswahili words for a blog: blogu, blogi, bilogu and asks Kiswahili bloggers and speakers to come up with a new word, which is not necessarily borrowed from the English word: blog. He discusses the plight of the inhabitants of Diego Garcia, a British colony lying between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean, who were forcibly removed in the 1960s to pave the way for the set up of one of the biggest US military bases in the world.
Innocent of Dira Yangu (My Vision) talks about the next Tanzania presidential election expressing his support for the ruling party presidential candidate, Jakaya Kikwete.
Egidio asks whether the election of Pope Benedict XVI was free and fair!
Reginald criticizes the Tanzania’s National Election Commission for being silent over presidential campaigns led by the President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, before the official date for campaigning is announced.
Simon of Kona Yangu lists “10 commandments” for the next president of Tanzania.
Ramadhani discusses the importance of  Kiswahili in Tanzania, contributing to the on-going debate on whether  Kiswahili should become the medium of instruction in institutions of higher learning.
Kazonta wonders why Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania, does not have a single institution of higher learning.
Idya of Pambazuko (Dawn) discusses the statement by an opposition politician in Tanzania, Augustine Mrema, that it is easier for Osama bin Laden to be brought to justice than the ruling party presidential candidate to bring about concrete social and economic change in the country.
Bakanja emphasizes the importance of traditional institution of elderhood in maintaining moral order in Africa. He is an African monk blogging in both Kiswahili and English.
Martha, Beatrice, Da Mija, and Zainab are the only women blogging in Kiswahili so far. These four female bloggers are making an extremely important step by bringing African women’s voices to the  Kiswahili blogosphere.
Martha wonders why the ruling party in Tanzania had no women presidential aspirants.
Beatrice suggests that Getrude Mongella, the president of the Pan-African Parliament, becomes the running mate for the ruling party’s presidential candidate, and ultimately the first female Vice-President in Tanzania.
Zainab reports that most Tanzanian women support the nomination of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jakaya Kikwete, for the ruling party presidential ticket. They feel that he is sincere and cares about women issues.
Da Mija  writes her first introductory post promising to write about society and social change from Amsterdam.
Mponji of Furahia Maisha Yako (Enjoy Your Life) and Onaeli of Jitambue (Know Thyself) have been inactive since January, 2005 and July, 2004, respectively.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Flags as graphs of social issues · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

Icaro Doria, a 25-year old Brazilian reporter for Lisbon-based Grande Reportagem magazine, has produced a beautiful set of eight images, part of a series called “Meet the World”.
The images distort national flags to turn them into graphs of statistics about social and political issues. Brazil's flag becomes a map of daily income, the faint white stars representing Brazil's economic elite. The green and red bars in Burkina Faso's flag dominate the yellow star in the center – the bars represent children who die before their first or third birthdays, while the star represents children who survive to maturity.
Thanks to Joey “Accordion Guy” DeVilla for the link. Crossposted on Worldchanging.


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Tuesday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Iran:
Iranian presidential candidate Dr. Mostafa Moeen recently met with bloggers. (Moeen also has his own blog in Persian.)
Adventures of Mr. Behi has a detailed account – in English! – of the meeting. If you click through nothing else on this post today, click through to that.
Omid of the Iranian Prospect also shares his own brief impressions of the meeting.
Yasser of Under Underground also supports Moeen, though he's not optimistic of victory because he says “media in Iran boycotts him.” (Fence photo by Yasser in Iran, a 21-year old student.)
Iraq:
A Free Writer seeks online donations to teach internet skills to high school students.
Free Iraqi on mass graves.
Iraq the Model reports on the post-Saddam revival of cultural forums  (scroll down to the bottom if the post doesn't appear near the top of your screen).
Neurotic Iraqi Wife has a crazy dream about Martyrdom.
Israel/Palestine:
Rafah Pundits Radio rounds up various links to “various bits of chatter about the delaying of the Disengagement” by Israeli troops from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.
Bethlehem Bloggers has a post mortem (writen Saturday) on last week's local elections.
Israellycool has a post on female members of the Israeli Defense Forces who ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Elsewhere in the Middle East..
Beirut Spring comments on upcoming elections in Lebanon.
Desert Girl on Kuwait  tells “the truth” about married men in Kuwait. You may be a little scandalized…
Africa:
Sokwanele describes the mysterious death of a woman's son in Zimbabwe.  Nobody can say why he died and he was healthy a few days ago.
African Bullets & Honey posts confessions of a middle-class Kenyan followed by response to strong reader reaction.
Music: one of AB&H's readers points to this Swahili/English rap band.
East Asia:
Japundit exposes Japan's hottest blogging trend: Erogs. That's shorthand for “erotic blogs.”
Tokyo Times has pix of an odd street performance which the police did not appreciate.
Europe:
Fjordman in  Norway (sorry, Fjordman) reports on a looming Scandinavian reindeer war.
Note: Due to limited time and resources, these roundups are not always as thorough and complete as we'd like them to be. Hopefully we'll get better as more people get involved. Your understanding and help are much appreciated!


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Wednesday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Africa:
Congrats to Jewels in the Jungle on the first anniversary of this excellent African issues blog.  Jewels is running a great series of photos of Ugandan schoolchildren by photographer Susanne Behnke taken in 2003. See them here, here and here.
Black Looks has started a bimonthly roundup of Nigerian blogs.
Middle East:
Feras, on his new Palestinian blog, complains of the problems faced by Palestinians who marry non-Palestinians. (Thanks to Afghan Warrior for the link.)
Ethnically Incorrect is fighting stereotypes.
From Cairo With Love discusses the status of dogs in Islam.
Iranian Prospect on the latest election developments.
Kurdistan Bloggers Union introduces a French-Kurdish movie.
Eurasia
Blogrel has some interesting links and analysis on why Georgia is interesting to President Bush.
Registan.net points out that the Russia wasn't the only great power to be spooked by Bush's visit to Georgia. So was China.
South Asia:
Rezwan analyzes the state of democracy in Bangladesh.
According to Just A Little Something, there will be a blogger meeting in Bangalore on May 15th.
Dina Metha has made a new convert to blogging.
East Asia:
Isaac Mao asks “can Google Web Accelerator help bypass the Chinese Firewall?”
Danwei found a “Gmail with Chinese characteristics,” and chastises Reuters for sloppy wording in its report about Google's new China rep office.
Southeast Asia:
From the Philippines, Inside PCIJ is concerned about killings of journalists.
Brandmalaysia on the “Islamic Banking Bandwagon“