Global Voices Online

Nicolette Bethel advises her fellow Bahamians to heed the words of Trinidadian Carnival designer Peter Minshall when considering the “improvement” of Junkanoo, their own national festival.

A passage in a book about Suriname received as a Christmas present resonates strongly with ArubaGirl: “While things in Aruba aren't nearly as bad as they were during that time in Suriname, I could particularly identify myself with that passage. It seems like here in Aruba, the government just take actions, willy nilly the protests of the people. Yes, I know they were voted in power, but surely that doesn't mean that all of us just have to sit back and be quiet, does it?”

Ukraine List writes about Ukrainians of North Dakota.

Carpetblogger posts pictures and writes about the New Year's in Kyiv.

Abdymok writes about a neglected story of “a 20 kilometer-long line of cars, buses, and trucks trying to make it back to ukraine before the new year . . . polish border guards with machine guns. eye witnesses say little kids are sick and dying. they say the crossing zone is the scene of a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Russian Marketing Blog writes about a St. Petersburg promotion campaign: “It would cost the City Council about 1 million Euros to place 300 billboards in London, Amsterdam and Paris till the middle of December.”

Copydude is posting short stories - one, two, three, four - he wrote while in Tatarstan: “They come under the category of ‘True Lies’ - or what writers prefer to call ’semi-documentary’. I wrote them about real people - but sourced largely from local gossip.”

David McDuff of A Step At A Time translates a piece by Marina Litvinovich, an activist and founder of the Truth of Beslan portal; she writes: “Another of the report’s conclusions is that 32 people took part in the school seizure, of whom 31 were killed and one has been sentenced in court. This is simply ridiculous. Even the Prosecutor’s office has already admitted under pressure from us that there may have been more of them. It’s a mystery why this figure has not changed in Torshin’s reports since 2004 - there is a mass of evidence which refutes it. All this is being done for one purpose alone - to close the question of Beslan.”

The beatroot reports: “46 members of the Polish parliament have tabled a motion to name Jesus Christ as the ‘honorary King of the Republic of Poland’. […] There is an historical precedent to this mad move, however. The Virgin Mary was made Honorary Queen of Poland 350 years ago by King Jan Kazimierz (who must have been a lonely soul).” The beatroot's thoughts on another Poland-related Christmas story are here.