Global Voices Online

Lituanica reports how Norwegian capital's, Oslo, mayor brought his same sex spouse to an international mayors' conference in Vilnius - in practical protest against Lithuania's increasingly homophobic policies.

Natalia Antonova writes on GlobalComment about Alexander Rybak, this year's winner of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Streetwise Professor posts an update on Gazprom's “vaporware” in Serbia, which includes a recent resignation of the “anti-Gazprom” Serbian economics minister, Mladan Dinkic (more on that - at Robert Amsterdam's blog). Meanwhile, gas costs $5.80 per gallon in Serbia, according to Bill's Blog: “To put the $5.80 into perspective, the average gas price in the USA this week is around $1.60. It is about average for Europe with Norway $7.76 being the high and Estonia being the low $4.30. I sure miss the 12 cents / gallon of Venezuela.”

Armenia and Me, the blog of an expat Norwegian in the country, reports on stumbling upon a bus crewed by 11 fellow countrymen and women touring the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The blog posts photographs of a brief excursion with the Strangeways crew who also have a blog highlighting their journey.

Armenia and me posts an account and photographs of what is a rare sight indeed — 150 Scandinavian running through Yerevan's Victory Park as part of a World Wide Orienteering Promotion. Arriving in the country from Iran, the blog reports that local onlookers were at first shocked to see so many foreigners racing through a public space, but soon warmed to the idea. “The concept of tall blond Scandinavians in tights seemed to be quite attractive,” concludes Trygveu.

Rysk Mosaik is a new Scandinavian bloghub for blogs in Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian, about Russian politics and society. It currently publishes posts from six Scandinavian blogs, but has the potential to become a regional Russia bloghub. The downside of it is that it is limited to blogs in Scandinavian languages.

“The United States is among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran, according to an index of 121 countries.
According to the Global Peace Index, created by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Norway is the most peaceful nation and Iraq is the least, just after Israel and Sudan. The survey places Israel at the bottom end of the scale - 119th,” writes Palestinian blogger Haitham Sabbah.

Giustino of Itching for Eestimaa writes about the history of military action of Sweden, Norway, Estonia and Finland, and reports on a Nordic Battle Group's workshop that took place Tuesday.

A conference on Haitiano-Dominican relations held in Santo-Domingo ends today, reports (FR) Haitian newsfeed Radio Kiskeya. The conference was sponsored by Norway in partnership with Dominican churches and, in addition to Haitian and Dominican delegations, featured Brazilian and Chilean ones. The conference's goal was “to incite political, religious and international leaders as well as civil society representatives and media to coordinate with each other in view of bettering haitiano-dominican relations,” says the newsfeed.