Global Voices Online

According to Webster's dictionary, Laos is the “thai language of the Lao people.” This is wrong. Blogger JRM writes that Lao is the “official language of the country of Laos”

Recent Links also in East Asia

Adil Najam discusses about a recently released list of 8000 persons including the president of Pakistan and 34 Pakistani politicians who have benefited from the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), promulgated by former president Pervez Musharraf on Oct 5, 2007. This ordinance “grants amnesty to all those against whom politically-motivated cases were registered between Jan 1, 1986, and Oct 12, 1999.”

A female student Wang Zifei, who sat behind Obama when he delivered his speech at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, has become a Internet celebrity. Local media recently found out that her boyfriend actually paid 100,000 yuan to hire a Beijing Internet promotional strategy company to use the opportunity of Obama's speech to hype up the ‘Obama girl.' (via ESWN)

Xue Ying from CNreview reports on a tech conference in Beijing concerning the development of microblogging in China.