Global Voices Online

The View From Fez announces a readers' photography competition, in anticipation of the blog's fifth anniversary next October. Photographs should be taken in Morocco and can be submitted by email.

Arabmania questions the popularity for skin whitening creams in the Arab world, and gets lots of comments here.

Mounir Bensaleh, who blogs on Des maux à dire [Fr], publishes pictures of the reopening of the Tramway line [Fr] in the Moroccan capital Rabat, which was abandoned 60 years ago.

“When a maid runs away from her employer's house, the police station is unable to act because there's no law criminalizing runaway maids. So the police station officer tells the Lebanese employee to say that she stole money,”  writes Ethiopian Suicides.

Beirut Drive-by Shooting posts photos of the Billboards planted along the Lebanese roads. One billboard about Mothers' Day states: “because she gave you the gift of life” and the blogger comments: “…and you gave her backache, stretchmarks, swollen feet, indigestion, morning sickness, exhaustion, constipation, weight gain, bloating, dry skin, hair loss, hormonal mood swings, pain, varicose veins…”

BabaGannouj et La Zaytouni has images of Plitvice National Park in Croatia which are returned by Google Image search whenever one is searching for the village of Baysour in Lebanon. “Even sites such as Souwar.com incorrectly show pictures of the Croatian Park and label them Baysour, Lebanon.” BetLZ tries to answer the question of “how did this hoax begin?”

A collaboration between Qifa Nabki and Maya Zankoul resulted in a comic strip about the visit of the world's richest man, the Mexican of Lebanese origin, Carlos Slim Helou, and who was “fêted in the Lebanese press for demonstrating the inherent superiority of Phoenician DNA in producing successful traders.”

Shezshe goes around Beirut and other places in Lebanon spotting and photographing special people with special things and/or unique outfits.

Emir Bachir discusses Lebanon’s environment which he believes is in free fall and posts a list of priorities that need urgent attention.