Global Voices Digest

Blogger of the Week: Janine Mendes-Franco

Today’s installment of the Blogger of the Week series is taking us to the beautiful island of Trinidad and Tobago, home to Global Voices regional editor for the Caribbean Janine Mendes-Franco.

Iran: Scandal over Minister’s Forged Oxford University Degree

Ali Kordan, Iran’s new Minister of the Interior, has recently been under fire for presenting a “fake” Ph.D. degree from the prestigious Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Several websites, including the conservative Alef have published a scan of Kordan’s “Oxford Honorary Doctorate of Law Degree”.

Brazil: An Olympic balance

For a country whose best record was its 15th place in Athens last time, Brazil’s 23th medal table position in the Beijing Olympics, with only 3 gold medals was not an extraordinary defeat – however, from newspapers to blogs, the general feeling is that of disappointment. Here are some reactions from the blogosphere.

Southeast Asia’s Olympic performance

Southeast Asian countries garnered 12 medals in the recently concluded 2008 Beijing Olympics. Indonesia leads the pack with 5 medals: 1 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze medals.

Cambodia: Sex workers, 100% condom use and human rights

Cambodian sex workers have taken to the internet to make their plight and fight for human rights better known. In Cambodia, a 100% condom use law which states that sexual exchanges with clients have to take place with condoms on sounds like a good idea, but it has been turned against those it is supposed to protect, by being used as a means to imprison sex workers, using the fact that they carry condoms with them as evidence for them doing sex work.

Today on Voices Without Votes: Global: The dust settles on the Biden pick

It’s morning in America. After the initial shock, the dust seems to have settled. The United States — and the rest of the world — has come to terms with the fact that presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama has named Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. The Obama-Biden ticket will now face presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and his as-yet-unnamed sidekick to see who will become the next President of the United States. Bloggers of all stripes have moved passed their initial gut reactions on the freshly minted Democratic ticket and have started to formulate more solid opinions based on fact. That’s what covering politics is all about, isn’t it?

Beijing Olympics Coverage

The games may be over but the world is still talking about them, and so are we! Thanks to support from Reuters, Global Voices is covering citizen media reactions to the Olympics from citizens in China and around the world on our special coverage page and in our Olympics Twitter feed. The Twitter feed is also being translated to French by Global Voices in French and is published on French website, Rue89.

Roundups

Get the blog buzz from the world over in the Global Roundups, where today you can find an Olympics-themed roundups where you can find the emergence of hijab (veil) at the Beijing Olympics, Syria’s performance at the Summer Olympics, congratulating Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago on their gold and silver medals in the Men’s 4 x 100 Relay, and much much more!