Global Voices Online

Nami-Nami examines the menu of the Emperor of Japan during his recent visit to Estonia: “The only ‘outsider' is the snow crab, which was caught in Kamtchatka.”

All About Latvia reports on the election of the new president: “And this is the first time in my recent memory, the Parliament voted in a person opposed by so many organizations.”

The Macedonian Tendency posts a note on the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece.

Darkness at Noon blogs on his scientific research from “a run-down bus station in a little village about 2 hours outside of Lipetsk, which is itself about 10 hours from Moscow by train”: “Never did I think I would long for Moscow so intensely, but after a week in and out of provincial towns and villages (all without hot water), Moscow is like an oasis on the horizon, rising out of the parched earth.”

Russia bans export of biological specimens, Siberian Light reports.

Russian pirates strike back: “By buying licensed Windows you sponsor the war in Iraq.” See the poster at Russian Marketing Blog.

Scenes from the Sidewalk reports on Kyiv City Administration's attempts to deal with the problem of orphaned children in Kyiv.

Foreign Notes writes on the speculation around the sudden illness of Ukraine's minister of internal affairs: “Any number of unexplained deaths and assassination attempts on highly placed politicians and businessmen over the last decade and a half [including that of a former Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Kravchenko who committed suicide by shooting himself twice in the head in March 2005] give citizens a queasy feeling, suggesting stories like the one above cannot be completely discounted…”

Palestinian blogger Haitham Sabbah gives us a history lesson about the 1967 war between the Arabs and Israel here.