Global Voices Online

Cyber-Generation reports that it's the busiest time of year in Moscow as people prepare for the holidays and has photos of some of the horrible traffic.

Some of us prepare for a vacation by poring over travel books, but not the South African tourist who wrote to Caribbean Beat magazine requesting information on “wining” (the gyrating dance Caribbean people do to soca and calypso music - an inability to do it properly is one of the markers of foreignness). As Nicholas Laughlin remarks on the Caribbean Beat Blog, “Video footage would certainly give a better idea than a written description.” Caribbean Free Radio continues the discussion by pointing to an actual medical case study of a wining-related injury co-written by a Trinidadian surgeon who, earlier this year, was freed of the charge of murdering his wife. The same surgeon is pictured in the article demonstrating the action which may have led to the injury.

Sun Bin suggests that China ought to create a Caribbean-style banking and tax haven to add 0.1% to its GDP. He maps out some places in the Pearl River Delta a short trip from Hong Kong that Beijing could consider.

Jessica Zafra is discombobulated meeting musician and artist David Byrne in Manila. The ex-leader of the Talking Heads was in town researching a new musical he's writing on Imelda Marcos.

Oppositionist politician Goh Meng Seng on his blog Singapore Alternatives writes about the price of freedom: “Freedom is not free. And most importantly, freedom has the element of free ridership in it. Everyone may want it, but all waiting for someone to get it for them.”

As the Seoul Arts Center hosts an exhibit about Barbie dolls, The Asia Pages reminisces about her first encounters and swift disappointment with “Oriental Barbie.”

At diacritic.org, R. Streitmatter-Tran discusses the embarrassment to Vietnamese art when local award-winning works are revealed to have been plagiarized including one from a work that won an award in Vietnam six years earlier.

Unheard Voices has a post on press freedom in Bangladesh and provides some links that discuss the issue extensively.

Lives in Focus has a profile of Shabana and a webcast of an interview with her

Shabana, 20, realized she was HIV+ after her husband’s health began rapidly deteriorating. A Muslim woman, she now serves as a counselor trying to educate those in her community about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and how it spreads.

Blog-a-rhythm smells many rats in the recent wave of generosity of Bill and Melinda Gates towards Bangladesh.

International Nepal Solidarity Network on the demonstration at Trichandra College continued to protest against killings of 11 civilians by the RNA in Nagarkot last week.

An extremely tragic end to the search for Dr Attari at Yasmine's blog.

Khatamionline is apparently a weblog where former President,Mr.Khatami, will go blogging. Before he starts to write more trhan 350 people left comments or message for him. You can find anything among them. (Persian)

Reporters Without Borders welcomed an initiative by 13 Iranian deputies who have written to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to protest against censorship of the Internet, which they described as “unconstitutional”.The Iranian representatives urged the head of state, who is guarantor of the constitution, to lift filtering of three news websites in Persian : mellimazhabi, emrouz and rooydadnews.

Congo Watch points to a report by the BBC called ” On the trail of DR Congo's ‘cursed' gold”

Kikuyumoja’s realm shares her wonderful discovery of scientific maps of Kenya….and came across a HUGE collection of amazingly detailed maps for scientific use – scanned & published online by the DG Joint Research Centre of the European Commission: the “European Digital Archive on Soil Maps of the World (EuDASM) “. Kenya? Africa? – you name it, they have it. Free of charge! With coordinates for geo-referencing and other useful metadata”! I wonder if they have similar maps on other African countries?

Sotho reports on a piece in IOL about the deluge of cheap imports from China and how this is affecting local industries and jobs……..“From South Africa to Lesotho, to Zambia and Nigeria anger is mounting over what one union leader called ‘a tsunami of cheap Chinese goods’ that many say is choking off local industries and wiping out jobs.”

Kenyan Pundit continues here write up on “What is ailing Kenyan journalism” with a Part III…..Part I and Part II

Redeem Ethiopia reviews two books on Ethiopia: Survival and Modernization, written by Messay Kebede and Hagai Erlich’s Ras Alula and The Scramble for Africa - a political biography of Ras Alula Aba Nega. They also recommend a number of other books on Ethiopia.

Mzansi Afrika complains about the use of “fake American accents” by promo ads especially on music radio………But this whole adopting of the American accent thing, especially when you've never set foot in America - I just don't get it. What's wrong with our own ethnic African accents? Why do you have to be a pseudo-American to be cool? Frankly, I find it annoying.

Action Alert: This is Zimbabwe - Petition request for United Nations intervention in Zimbabwe. The Petition can be found here.

Jewels in the Jungle reports on Andrew Heavens piece for the BBC Focus magazine “African bloggers find their voice”………The world's leading politicians, business leaders, and professional media companies are starting to listen up to the Blogosphere..

Indigenous vegetables have been “re-discovered” - that is green leafy vegetables grown in the tropics. Timbuktu Chronicles reports that they are seen as “an ally in the fight against “hidden hunger”, the term used to describe deficiencies of micro-nutrients such as vitamin A and minerals like iron, which prevents anaemia….

neweurasia reports on a Russian film festival in Turkmenistan that appears to be a gift of gratitude related to a recent Russian parliamentary by-election in which voters in Turkmenistan played an important part.

the beatroot reports on a new opinion poll showing that Polish opinion of the United States has decreased over the past year and discusses why this has happened.

Michael Manske says there is a formula for American newspaper travel coverage of Slovenia.

Onnik Krikorian writes about developing the Armenian blogosphere and says he hopes 2006 will see the emergence of more Armenian blogs written by those with a stake in the country's future.

Baktygul of neweurasia discusses Islam in Kazakhstan and Central Asia since independence.