Global Voices in English

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The world is talking, are you listening?

Updates

Leon wonders why the 18th Commonwealth Games aren't getting more media attention. “Is it because the mighty U.S is not involved, since the Commonwealth games only include former territories of Britain? (But wait, America is a former territory of Britain!).”

• Georgia Popplewell

Updates

Regan liveblogs the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, which took place last night in Melbourne, Australia.

• Georgia Popplewell

China

Central Asia and the Caucuses

Nathan at Registan has photos from the Supreme Court building in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where hundreds of people have stormed the structure to oust protesters who've occupied the building since April. (The protesters were demanding the ouster of all officials appointed by former president Akayev.)

Afghan Lord has a detailed report of a bomb explosion at Abdul Rab Akhunzada Mosque in Kandahar.

MivPiv introduces us to her Kabul neighborhood through pictures.

Katy at Blogrel notes that Armenia is one of several formerly Communist countries showing huge GDP growth over the past decade.

Photo from Registan.net. Protesters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Middle East and North Africa

Sabbah wants to know why the US media isn't covering the AIPAC espionage case. (Background on the story in the New York Post, Ha'aretz.)

Issandr El Amrani reports that five members of the ruling NDP party are suing Kifaya leaders claiming that they were beaten in protests last week… the same protests where Kifaya members report they were beaten up by NDP supporters, leading to today's Black Wednesday protest.

Mr. Behi reviews Iranian presidential candidate Mohammad B. Ghalibaf's recent interview with IRIB. Hoder offers his opinion that the reformist candidates are for real and aren't afraid to break the taboos of the Islamist republic. And Omid Memarian talks about his meeting with formerly imprisoned Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji.

Omar at Iraq the Model reports on a demonstration in Baghdad… not against terrorism or occupation, but against smoking.

Africa

Black Looks introduces us to a blog focused on Western Sahara and has an excellent background on the Saharawi struggle for statehood.

Emeka at Timbuktu Chronicles is interested in the Bridges.org report on Free and Open Source software in Africa. He points us to the commentary on the report on WorldChanging.

Afrophile bloggers are incensed by the arrest of Médecins Sans Frontières workers in Sudan (myself included.) Black Star Journal has the story, as does Black Looks. Meanwhile, the BBC has just reported that charges have been dropped, apparently in response to international outcry.

Ory is thinking about the Mau-Mau rebellion, pointing to an NPR story about veterans seeking restitution, and to a new film about the conflict.

Nazret.com has a roundup of elections news, including a story about the government's failure to release results in ten disputed areas. Friends of Ethiopia objects to the gerrymandering of electoral districts in Ethiopia along ethnic lines.

Zimpundit has a wealth of new posts - a conversation with a friend struggling to get by in Harare, commentary on the government's crackdown on informal laborers, and a roundup of global blogs talking about the situation in Zimbabwe.

East Asia
Jing at Those Who Dare… sees a great deal of irony in the arrest of a Singaporean reporter in China. Simon World has additional details on the story.

michgow is photoblogging a trip to Tuol Sleng, a high school that became the hub of Pol Pot's extermination camps in Cambodia.

Jakartass blogs about the brief lifespan of banbali.com, a site lobbying the Indonesian government which was rapidly hacked and filled with pornography.

Avaiki rounds up mainstream press references to nuclear testing and fallout in the Cook Islands.

South Asia

Rezwan at Third World View talks about British MP George Galloway and his visits to Bangladesh (40% of Galloway's constituency is from Bangladesh.)

Rashmi at Youth Curry offers an informal comparison of two Indian newspapers.

Latin America

Guillermo at Sine Metu Reloaded believes that a poll on the website of La Nación was “hacked”, by strategically moving it from the front of the site to a more hidden page. When the poll - asking readers their opinion of Argentine President Kirchner's first term - was on the front page, the President fared quite badly. Since the poll has moved off the front page, the majority of new responses have been positive, suggesting that government supporters are pointing allies to the new polling page…

Miguel talks about widespread vandalism and public disorder in La Paz in connection with protests against the Bolivian parliament.

Image from Sine Metu Reloaded. The graph shows voting on the La Nacion poll before and after it was moved from the site's front page.

Eastern Europe

Damone at Pesticide explains why the Hungarian right is grateful to the French left.

An amazing account of Ukranian bureacracy on Orange Ukraine.

• Ethan Zuckerman