 RFE/RL Headlines 06.05.2009 A daily digest of the English-language news and analysis written by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
| News  U.S. 'Deeply Regrets' Afghan Civilian Deaths Afghan villagers are mourning relatives buried in mass graves after a coalition air strike that all sides say killed or injured noncombatants. The timing is awkward politically, as the U.S., Afghan, and Pakistani presidents gather in Washington. More  Nuclear Negotiator Says U.S. For 'Balanced' Arms Reduction Last month, U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, whose countries possess the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, singled out nuclear-arms reduction as an issue of mutual interest. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee is currently meeting at UN headquarters to discuss how to revise the global treaty, whose pillars are the nonproliferation, disarmament, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. More  U.S., Afghan, Pakistani Leaders To Hold War Council U.S. President Barack Obama is set to meet with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts in Washington. The meeting comes as a resurgent Taliban threatens both Afghanistan and a growing part of northwestern Pakistan. The Taliban's gains are leading U.S. officials to increasingly speak of the crises in both countries as a single issue: the "Af-Pak" crisis. More  Georgia-Russia Dispute Heats Up At UN As NATO Exercises Begin Alexander Lomaia, in his first press briefing as Georgia's permanent representative to the United Nations, accused Russia of seeking to build up Russia's military presence in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. More  U.S. Presses Israel To Back Two-State Solution Israeli President Shimon Perez met with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington as a prelude to a visit from the Jewish state's new, hard-line prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. The Obama administration is moving ahead with the "two-state solution" to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, a goal that hasn't been embraced by Netanyahu, at least publicly. Instead, he has shifted his focus from the Palestinians to Iran and stopping its suspected nuclear-weapons program. More  Iraqi Official Says Power Outages To Ease Iraq will be able to alleviate power shortages throughout the country this summer with increased electricity generation. More  Jailed U.S.-Iranian Reporter Ends Hunger Strike The father of the Iranian-American journalist jailed in Iran as a U.S. spy says she has ended her almost 2-week-old hunger strike, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. More  Floods, Mudslides Kill Three In Tajikistan Rainstorms, floods, and mudslides in recent days have killed at least three people in Tajikistan's southern Khatlon province. More  Nabucco Chief: Partner States To Sign Agreement In 2009 Reinhard Mitschek, the managing director of the Nabucco gas-pipeline consortium, says that the consortium's member states will sign an agreement on their respective gas-supply shares at the end of 2009. More The indigenous Tatar community that has lived in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod for centuries is concerned after local skinheads firebombed a district police department, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports. More  Tajikistan Opens 'Secular-Religious' High School The government has officially opened the "secular-religious" Imam Abu Hanifa high school in Dushanbe, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports. More  Dashnak Deputy Resigns From Parliamentary Post A prominent member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) has resigned as chairman of the parliament's Defense and Security Committee despite the party's decision to continue to control the post after leaving the governing coalition, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reports. More  CPJ Urges Russian Authorities To Investigate Journalist's Brutal Injuries The Committee to Protect Journalists says authorities in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don must launch a criminal investigation into the apparent attack against the editor in chief of the independent weekly newspaper "Corruption and Crime." Vyacheslav Yaroshenko was found unconscious with a head wound at the foot of a staircase in the building where he lives in the early morning hours of April 30. More  Taliban Class War In western Pakistan’s embattled Swat Valley, the Taliban are thought to have exploited class rifts between landless peasants and wealthy landlords. More "Honey, I killed a cop. I'm sorry :( What should I do?" More  Russia Denies Involvement In Alleged Georgian Military Coup Twenty-four hours after the Georgian authorities announced the surrender of most participants in a mutiny at the Mukhrovani military base east of Tbilisi, the circumstances surrounding the alleged coup and the motives of the participants remain unclear. At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry has emphatically rejected as "preposterous" allegations that the mutineers were acting at Moscow's behest. More Eastern Partnership -- The EU's Accidental Sphere Of Influence The European Union's decision to set up its Eastern Partnership with six ex-Soviet republics, to be formally launched at a summit in Prague on May 7, takes the bloc into uncharted waters. Having run into stiff Russian resistance, the project will test the EU's resolve as it continues to promote reforms and stability beyond its eastern borders. More  Belarus President In From The Cold, But Unrepentant Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is back and buoyant, with big ideas and a five-year-old heir. And hints that he might offer government jobs to political opponents could prove the only bright spot for detractors, as Europe appears to embrace an authoritarian leader without reforming him in the least. More  'Great Influenza' Author Warns That 'The Virus Is King' John Barry, author of "The Great Influenza" and among the world's foremost historians on the influenza pandemic of 1918, is warning the world not to become complacent about the threat posed by the new swine flu virus. He worries the new strain may seem to disappear during the summer -- but quietly continue to infect people around the world until it surfaces against in a stronger, mutated form. More |
