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.