Global Voices Online

A note on Estonian TV from AnTyx: “At this exact moment, the Estonian state TV channel is broadcasting the advent mass - live from one of the country's biggest prisons. […]” And a reader's comment to this post: “A remark to foreign readers of this: calm down, Estonia still remains a normal Western democracy. There is no state TV in Estonia. What the author is referring to is a public broacasting institution (ERR) and its main TV channel - an equivalent of BBC 1.”

Recent Links also in Eastern & Central Europe

Belgraded reports that, beginning Dec. 19, “there will be no more visa requirement for Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian citizens if they want to travel to the Schengen territory” - debunks “some visa-free travel myths.” Jana Orsolic thinks “it's too good to be truth” and shares some of her feelings: “…there's no room for silly excuses for something being done badly because of poor us being isolated.”

A few last month's updates at IZO: artist and writer Vagrich Bakhchanyan dies in NYC; Ukrainian artist Aleksandr Gnilitsky dies in Kyiv; a Ukrainian Euro-2012 icon.

Profy cites a report by the Russian division of Microsoft, which claims that the company has lost $1 billion to Russian pirates, but has earned the same amount from legal sales.