Thursday World Blog Roundup · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

Southeast Asia:
Kennysia in Malaysia speculates on an upcoming Singapore bloggers’ meeting this summer, with some great programming suggestions and hilarious graphics! (Featured on mock poster: Mr. Brown and Xiaxue. ) How come nobody ever made these for the BloggerCons???
Mack at Brandmalaysia discusses Malaysia's “worst managed company.”
Sarasonteh points out that the Thai government is trying to discourage the international media from reporting about ongoing violence in predominantly Muslim Southern Thailand. (Incidentally, the International Crisis group thinks it's an important story.) [UPDATE: the blog's author has posted some clarifications in the comments section here.]
Disni in the Philippines has a long critique of the Business Software Alliance's report on software piracy worldwide, which claims one third of the world's software is pirated.
Republic of Free Cyberspace:
Meanwhile, Turkish Torque points out that a Beykent University student has developed a free flash editor for Linux users.  Yay Beykent!
South Asia:
Uzz Buzz at “United We Blog” describes his recent audio conference on disinformation in Nepal.
Vantage point is enthusing about a movie… and it's NOT Star Wars.
East Asia:
Japan Window Photo Blog has great pictures and a long account of the Design Festa in Tokyo.
Are you feeling blogger-burnout? Gen Kanai has found a great new tool: Autoblogger. Be sure to watch the quicktime video…
Congratulations to Dottocomu for well-deserved praise from PC Magazine.
Marmot and Oranckay on how the scars of the 1980 Gwangju massacre remain raw.
Chattergarden reports that Hong Kong is cracking down on users of BitTorrent.
Danwei thinks China's state news agency, Xinhua, is obsessed with hot babes.
Central Asia:
Two Uzbekistan-based Peace Corps volunteers with blogs have reacted differently to a Peace Corps directive telling them not to talk about the political situation. Working Definition  has decided to keep blogging but avoid giving any more analysis on the Andijon situation. Wanderlustress has decided to stop blogging.
Scraps of Moscow has more on the Uzbekistan situation, thanks to his continued translation of Russian media reports.
Eurasia:
Workhorse in the Ukraine writes about the Crimean Tartars, who were deported by Stalin 61 years ago and still seek justice.
Orange Ukraine takes a look at Ukraine's economic problems, and suspects Russia is overcharging Ukraine for oil.
The Russian Dilettante says there are too many cars with St.Petersburg license plates in Moscow these days…
Siberianlight has an interesting post on the Eurovision song contest in Kiev, pointing out that the Russian lyrics seem somewhat anti-American.
Europe:
Barcepundit has been translating (here and here) material from the Spanish press on what is now being called “Spain's Terrorgate.”
Africa:
Wayne Wides at South Africa's Commentary.co.za gives President Mbeki some advice on how to make the economy grow faster, but wonders if Mbeki is willing to really do what it takes.
Black Looks reports that Nigeria is the first African nation with professional womens’ football (soccer).
Latin America:
Venezuela News & Views holds forth on the “neglected Venezuelan provinces.”
Middle East:
The Angry Arab describes being photographed for an LA Times profile. He has also written a silly song about Lebanon's Hariri.
We have reports on the 3rd Jordanian bloggers’ meetup from “And far away…”
Semitism.net now has streaming audio.
Kurdistan Bloggers Union has an interview with a Syrian Kurd.
Hammorabi discusses newspaper reports that Syrian forces have joined insurgents against U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Iraq the Model defends Spirit of America and Friends of Democracy against critics.
In Iran, Syamak Moattari is scared about the prospect of a U.S. attack.
Mr. Behi has done his first radio interview, available online.  …and, by the way, it was done with Skype.
Iran Scan lets us in on what Iranians are saying in taxis… and what the newspapers are saying.
Mahmoud was interviewed by the BBC from Bahrain.