Global Voices Online

Kamangir talks about Ayatollah Khomenii's letter that was published after 18 years. We read in media, a letter from 1988 in which Iran's top commander says Iran could need a nuclear bomb to win the war against Iraq has come to light in Tehran. The blogger adds I do not blame them; Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iranians. I say, let’s be honest; Khomeini never issued a Fatwa against nuclear weapons, or at least he did not really mean nuclear arsenal is as bad as pork is.

Mr. Fuji in Manila describes the situation in downtown Manila in the wake of Typhoon Xangsane. “looking out from my manila hotel room, makati is dark, right to the horizon. it’s eerie to see a city that was full of lights now sleeping. there a little flecks of light here and there, but it still seems so odd. it also makes things very dangerous (especially at night) in a city where traffic is so chaotic. in a ride through the city this evening, it still appears that power will be at least a few days away.”

Cafe Creole is upset (Fr) that people are eating iguana stews in French Guiana and posts a picture of live iguanas destined to end on someone's plate. The author goes on to explain that while consumption of wild animals was understandable in the past, modern access to alternative sources of food should preclude the need for it in today's Guyane.

Generation Consciente, Un Autre Afrique explains that (Fr) after a 5-year negotiation between Senegal, Belgium and the African Union on which of the two countries should host the trial of former Chadian leader Hissene Habre, “Abdoulaye Wade has decided at the African Union summit in Banjul that former Chadian leader should be judged on African soil.”

On UDPS Liege, Florent Mukonkole writes(Fr): “Any Congolese with any sense of nationalism should rally around Mbemba [in the upcoming runoff against Kabila]to save the nation.” He then asks Etienne Tshisekedi, leader of opposition party UDPS, to do the same and implies that a recent press release by the leader indicates that he does not plan to to so.

The San people of Botswana would like you to boycott Botswana diamonds until they are allowed back into their ancestral land, writes Ethnicloft, quoting an advocacy group supporting the San’s opposition of their eviction.

African technology firm, Incubeta, has built a web-based application,which allows you to build websites without having to know HTML, reports My Africa: “I’m glad to see that they were able to get such great exposure early in their beta, since it will bring a lot of eyeballs to their site(s) and help them hone the focus of their application from the feedback they receive.”

At neweurasia, Adam says that if Kazakhstan is to reach its goal of being one of the 50 most competitive economies, it must do more than “polishing” its macroeconomic indicators and relying on high oil prices.

Christian Garbis says that a Soviet era song still played occasionally on Armenian radio, “Clean Yerevan,” is totally removed from reality, that not only is there lots of litter, but that Yerevan is plagued by dust.

Nicolette Bethel has a series of posts (1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5), reporting on the experiences of the Bahamas contingent at Carifesta, the Caribbean arts festival taking place in Trinidad and Tobago this week. She posts some nice photos as well.

Vadim of neweurasia writes about the ill-fated Dushanbe-Moscow train and the hardships faced by those who take the journey.

Registan.net looks at media, editorial, and blog coverage of today's visit to the White House by Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbaev.

KZBlog says that comedian Sasha Baron Cohen has crossed the line in his latest stunt as the character Borat by directly mocking the president and government of Kazakhstan in his phony press conference in front of the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington D.C.

The beatroot reports on Poland's government crisis: “So even the Peasants don’t want to get into bed with PiS, it appears. Which shows how bad the image of the government has become: in the past 17 years since parliamentary democracy began in Poland PSL have been known to get into bed with just about anyone if it meant a place in the coalition.”

Boo writes about an anti-Semitic graffiti in a Polish elevator that was later replaced with a message of tolerance.