Author: Veronica Khokhlova

Andrei Khrapavitski writes that Haiti “has become a popular topic” for Belarusian bloggers “to chatter about and for some to sarcastically grin at the pain of Haitians. It hurts to read how my compatriots, some of whom have received foreign aid themselves, seem to be quite cynical about the Haitian earthquake and purely racist hiding under a veil of Internet anonymity.”

Svetlana Gladkova of Profy writes about a Russian draft law aiming to limit access to explicit online content during daytime: “It is obvious that internet here is taken as some wider analogue of television.”

Svetlana Gladkova of Profy writes about Mail.ru's relationship with Google and Yandex.ru.

Kosmopolito announces the first anniversary of Bloggingportal.eu: “More than 500 euroblogs, 25 editors and thousands of visitors!”

IZO links to a New York Times' profile of the 82-year-old Russian dissident Lyudmila Alexeyeva (who blogs in Russian at http://lm-alexeeva.livejournal.com/) – and to a review of Vladislav Zubok's Zhivago's Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia, posted at Languagehat.

This month's updates on the 2009 Greek fiscal deficit – by Edward Hugh at A Fistful of Euros: here, here, here, here, and here. And a warning to Hungary – here: “So, Hungarian politicians be warned – You are not Greece right now, but you could so very easily end up where that poor, unfortunate country finds itself, and especially so if you make wildly optimistic growth scenarios, and debt to GDP forecasts, and doubly so if you think that coming out of the loving arms of the IMF will leave you free to go about your business as you see fit.”

Many new Belgrade photos at A Yankee-in-Belgrade, including this one of a man on a bus and this one of “winter foods” sold at a local market.