Global Voices Online

Iraqi Layla Anwar sums up reactions from Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan on Obama's Nobel Prize for Peace.

Iraqi refugees in Syria had a surprise visitor. The News from Syria says that Angelina Jolie, along with Brad Pitt, visited the refugees, urging the world not to forget about them.

Iraq is gearing itself for the January presidential elections. Iraqi Pundit shares his views in this post.

“I cannot undermine the sentiment of Al- Zaidi and ordinary Iraqi people who are the sufferer of invasion and war. But he has misused his access and accreditation rights by throwing shoes. I would be happy if Al-Zaidi were a member of any other community except journalist,” comments Bangladeshi blogger and journalist Mahadi754.

Egyptian Chronicles discusses the current standoff between Syria and Iraq: “As Arabs we know that for time to time the Syrian-Iraqi relations go from bad to worse.”

Syrian Qunfuz reflects on former Iraqi minister Ali A Allawi's book entitled: “The Crisis of Islamic Civilization.”

Egyptian blogger Zeinobia reacts to a mistake on Fox News, where Egypt is placed on a map instead of Iraq. Our Morocco author Jillian C York makes a similar observation here.

“In Ankawa, the Christian quarter of Arbil, there are so many alcohol shops with fake beer brands made in Turkey. There are also real beer trademarks, but that's also from Turkey (Efes). In the ‘Muslim' part of Erbil (Hawler) you can also get alcohol, but it's mostly 'sealed' off with a small wall so that other people cannot see you drinking” writes Transnational Middle-East Observer in this photo post on alcohol in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Harvard University's Berkman Centre for Internet and Society has released a study of the Arabic blogosphere entitled Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere. About 35,000 active blogs were covered. “The goal for the study was to produce a baseline assessment of the networked public sphere in the Arab Middle East, and its relationship to a range of emergent issues, including politics, media, religion, culture, and international affairs,” announced the centre.