 RFE/RL Headlines 30.04.2009 A daily digest of the English-language news and analysis written by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
| News  Profile: Suspected Gunman Identified As Georgian Residents of Gadirov's hometown of Dashtapa were shocked at reports suggesting that the accused 29-year-old perpetrator of the Baku shooting rampage was one of their own. More  WHO Urges Governments To Put Flu Plans Into Action The World Health Organization has raised the alert over the H1N1 flu virus for the second time this week -- urging governments around the world to start putting their emergency plans into action for an imminent pandemic. More  Uzbeks Put Up Border Signpost At Disputed Kyrgyz-Uzbek Village Locals told RFE/RL that they were surprised by the absence of any official Kyrgyz reaction to the measure. More  Armenian Editor Severely Beaten In Attack In Yerevan The chief editor of the Armenia Today news agency was severely beaten near his house in Yerevan this morning, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports. More An old artillery shell found by children in Tajikistan's Rasht district exploded and wounded two local youths, aged 11 and 18 years old, on April 28, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports. More The editor in chief of the weekly newspaper "Corruption and Crime" is in a coma after he was severely beaten in the southwestern Russian city of Rostov-na-Donu on April 29, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More Levon Zurabian, a leading member of the Armenian National Congress (HAK), added in remarks on that Armenian officials lack a popular mandate for opening diplomatic relations with Turkey. More  Gunman Kills 13 In Baku Campus Attack At least 13 people die when a gunman opens fire at Azerbaijan's State Oil Academy in the capital. Witnesses say shooting erupted shortly after the start of classes at the prestigious university. More  Kazakh Bill Hands Officials Blunt Tool To Block Websites Opponents say that if the law is approved by the Senate and signed by the president, officials will essentially have a free hand to filter online information on both Kazakh- and foreign-based websites. More  Russia's 'Novaya gazeta' Wins Free Media Pioneer Award Ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, the crusading Russian newspaper "Novaya gazeta" has been named the winner of the International Press Institute’s Free Media Pioneer Award for 2009. More  Ahmadinejad: A Poet And A Good Cook A pro-government Iranian news website has posted a series of stories about the life of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad under the title, "The Child Of The Nation.” More  A Challenger In Azerbaijan's Ruling Family? The Aliyev dynasty is known for dominating Azerbaijani politics, but there could be a challenger from within the family itself. More Tajik authorities have banned poultry and pork imports from four U.S. states, Mexico, Russia, and El Salvador to "prevent the spread of swine flu in the country," RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports. More  Games Over? The Iranian hosts of this year's Islamic Solidarity Games have reportedly cancelled them after bickering with Saudi Arabia over the name of the large body of water (we're being very careful here) lying between the two countries. More  Will We See A Pashtun War And Peace? As the world media focuses on the ongoing bloodshed in the Pashtun-populated regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Afghan journalist Dawood Azami, writing for the BBC, wants the world to also see how Pashtuns are yearning for peace. More  Iranian Presidential Candidate Borrows 'Change' Slogan From Koran Iranian moderate presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi has adopted “change” as his campaign slogan. More In March, we blogged about a picture making the rounds that possibly shows a KGB-era Putin as a "tourist" meeting U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1988. More  Who's The Boss? Yesterday morning, a small group of brave Solidarity activists held a tiny protest outside the massive walls of the Kremlin in Moscow. The group used a bunch of orange helium-filled balloons to lift a banner above the ramparts, a banner containing a open challenge to the professed liberalism of President Dmitry Medvedev. "Medvedev!," it reads. "Fire Putin! What if you really can?" More  Inside The Looking Glass Whenever a major event in the life of Russia’s “managed democracy” takes place, I end up with a laundry list of moments that are weirdly disorienting, a dizzying combination of sad and funny at the same time. They bring to life Nikolai Gogol’s famous maxim about “laughter through tears” and show what a strange, “black-is-white” kind of place today’s Russia has become. More  Georgian President Hails Process Of Political 'Cleansing' President Mikheil Saakashvili on April 29 again downplayed the impact of the campaign the Georgian opposition launched three weeks earlier to force his resignation. More  How Will Dashnaks' Withdrawal From Ruling Coalition Impact On Armenian Political Landscape? It is still too early to assess the long-term repercussions of the withdrawal by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation--Dashnaktsutiun from the four-party coalition government to protest the signing last week of a "road map" for normalizing relations with Turkey. More  Russia Agrees Cooperation With Breakaway Regions Russia's president and the de facto leaders of the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have signed in Moscow agreements on cooperation in protecting the regions' border with Georgia. The regions declared independence following the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, and Moscow recognized them shortly after. Georgia regards them as occupied Georgian territory. More  Fact-Finders Cite 'Horrible Violence' Against Protesters European Parliament fact-finders say many detainees have been brutally beaten and forced to walk through "corridors of death," two rows of police officers who beat them with their fists, feet, and truncheons. More  Analyst Takes Broad View Of Obama's 'Af-Pak' Strategy In an interview with RFE/RL, strategic affairs analyst Julian Lindley-French says the next two years will be critical for Western stabilization efforts in Afghanistan, and suggests U.S. President Barack Obama's new "Af-Pak" strategy will require a robust economic development plan to succeed. More  Making The EU's Eastern Partnership An Ideal Fit For All The draft of a document slated for release at an upcoming EU Eastern Partnership summit suggests the bloc is struggling to make the program an ideal fit. The debate reflects the inconvenient reality that most invitees fall far short of the democratic and rights standards promoted by the EU itself. More  'Hope' Still Key To Domestic View Of Obama The United States' new president has other reasons than a high-profile Senate defection to be happy on the domestic front as he marks 100 days in office. New polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans -- nearly 70 percent -- approve of the job he's done so far in Washington. More  Still Too Early For Vaccine, Expert Says Swine flu has been grabbing news headlines since the first major outbreaks were reported in Mexico and the United States. It's now spread to Europe and Asia, and the first death outside Mexico has been confirmed in the United States. But what is swine flu; how do people get infected, and how can they protect themselves against infection? More  Obama Seeks 'New Basis For Relationships' Abroad The list of urgent problems facing U.S. President Barack Obama is no shorter than it was on January 20, but even critics acknowledge it's been a whirlwind start. And Obama has not let the economic crisis prevent him from tackling important foreign-policy initiatives. More  Russian Caught In Spanish Legal Nightmare Spain has taken on a daunting task -- coming to grips with Russian organized crime in its midst. But its heavy-handed tactics in one case hint at a zeal for results that trumps considerations of due process, and law-based societies should uphold a higher standard. More |
