Global Voices Online

Saudi Arabia has long been a major destination for Filipinos seeking work. The PCIJ blog hosts a podcast from a journalist who lived there for three years, on how they deal with their loneliness and isolation there.

Japanduit has colorful photographs of hagoita, wooden paddles used in a traditional Japanese game much like badminton that is played around New Year's. The paddles are adorned with Kabuki images, cartoon characters and representations of celebrities.

danwei prints a post by a publishing consultant in Shenzhen on Cankao Xiaoxi, a Chinese-language digest of articles from world press formerly restricted to the Communist party elite but now available to the public. “But there are three areas in which Cankao Xiaoxi takes liberties,” he writes. “It runs its own headlines, creates its own captions, and—this is the killer—deletes references deemed unbecoming to China’s image.

In 2004, China's President Hu Jintao shook the hands of two AIDS patients in a hospital. The resulting exposure changed their lives, and not for the better. EastSouthWestNorth translates a story from China Youth Daily.

I'm Your Huckleberry is a blog in English and Indonesian by a native of Indonesia's rebellious province of Aceh. He's working there for the U.N.D.P. and writes, in one post, “If this success, we can do more for this region, my home land, home of the rebel. Hopefully!”

David Walther reports on the cost of freedom in Uzbekistan..

Russia Marketing Blog discusses how free PR and product placement made a certain Russian brand that has never advertised one of the world's most recognizable.

Alistair reports that demand for dairy is on the rise in Russia while the number of cows in the country is falling.

Glendale Chick encourages people to green light a video on the Armenian genocide submitted to appear on Current TV.

Eduardo Avila says president-elect, Evo Morales was the victim of a crank call, which you can hear for yourself.

PeruBlogs has photos of the latest Peruvian bloggers meetup (ES). Check out the t-shirts.

Acá Fede gives a photographic tour of Montevideo. Todos Puteros, responding to a recent study which found that British girls “abuse” their barbies, sarcastically says (ES) that Mattel still has new markets to explore.

Taking a break from the political dialogue (well, almost), Miguel Octavio (recent winner of best Latino, Caribbean, or South American weblog), Daniel Duquenal, and Oil Wars all wish their readers a very happy holiday season.

Expat Argentina gives an Argentinean perspective of South America's “march leftward” while Matt explains why he is “the chicken.”

Minor Matters reports that the “Tamils living in the electoral divisions of Colombo West and East were given a terrible shock on the night of Saturday, December 17 when a massive security operation was launched against them.”

Operating Systems become more accessible in Nepal says United We Blog! Both Windows XP and Linux now have Nepali versions. The post outlines the challenges in wider adoption of computing and the internet in Nepal.

In response to Robert Kaplan's op-ed on the Wall Street Journal on future of Nepal, Samudaya.org has a letter that attempts to understand the context of Kaplan's analysis.

Blogdai indulges in some political analysis and is deeply disappointed with the turn of events over the last week in Nepal.

Metroblogging Islamabad on higher education in Pakistan: “Taking into consideration the critical importance of the engineering sector in the development of industries in Pakistan, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has decided to not only strengthen its existing engineering universities but also to establish new world-class engineering universities in Pakistan on the pattern of Indian Institute of Technology in partnership with technologically advanced countries.”

In Free Thoughts, a collective Iranian blog, we read The President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to ban all Western music from his nation’s state radio and TV stations. According to TCS daily, Newspaper columnists attacked Ali Rahbari,who was the conductor of Tehran’s symphony orchestra and chose to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Rahbari was accused of “promoting Western values.”

Onnik Krikorian reports on the destruction of an old Armenian cemetery by Azeri soldiers in the exclave of Nakhichevan.

At p3, the beatroot says that were they given a choice, Polish carp would probably vote against Christmas. Almost all of the 22,000 tons of farmed carp in Poland are consumed around Christmas.

Onnik Krikorian reports that one of Armenia's ruling parties has admitted that the recent constitutional referendum was falsified.

neweurasia reports on the 20th anniversary of Turkmenistan's eccentric leader, Turkmenbashi, coming to power, and looks back at his history at the helm.

Sean Guillory notes that Russia's controversial new bill on NGOs has passed a second reading in the State Duma. It has undergone minor technical changes, but it is still set to enormously impact relations between the state and civil society.