Global Voices Online

Russia Blog shares a joke about “a lawyer and a Ukrainian.”

Massachusetts-based Eugene Ivanov of Ivanov's Report explains why he is voting for Barack Obama.

Window on Eurasia writes that “ethnic Chinese working and living in the Russian Far East find their surrounding social and political scene far more congenial than do their co-ethnics living in Moscow or other cities in European Russia but are far less interested in remaining there permanently than the latter group.”

Leopolis explains in detail the current economic and political situation in Ukraine: “The stakes are high: Ukraine's economic health, its image for international investors, and a risk of default. Just as the Ukrainian stock market has seen 75% of its value wiped away, the current political crisis may undo every gain made by the ‘orange revolution'.”

“[…] In a dingy underground passage that connects two sides of one of Belgrade's main streets,” A Yankee-in-Belgrade discovers someone who could possibly become a promising fashion designer and posts a picture of this person's work: “Whoever created them should consider a career in fashion and literally move up, I think.”

Balkan File links to a BBC story on “Albanian women who became men, not as transsexuals, but because the man of the house had died, leaving a mother alone with her daughters.”

Belgraded contributes an article on what it's like to be a mother in Serbia to the Women's International Perspective, becoming “one of the rare men blogging there.” Showcased in the article is a Serbian blog called Majka Hrabrost (”Mother Courage”), whose author, Krugolina, blogs (SRP) about childbirth issues and has recently been “invited to have a chat with the Serbian Health Minister”: “It is a case of a simple citizen action that could actually help change the current poor state in Serbian maternity wards.”

Baithak reports that the Indian master chess player Viswanathan Anand retained his FIDE World Chess Championship title in 2008.

Belgraded discusses Miladin Kovacevic's case and the lessons that can be found in it for Kovacevic himself and his victim, as well as for Serbia and the United States.