 RFE/RL Headlines 20.05.2009 A daily digest of the English-language news and analysis written by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
| News  Armenian FM Hopes Turkey Will Open Border Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian says the Turkish and Armenian governments have made substantial progress toward the opening of their mutual border "without preconditions." More  Tajik Officials Say Operation In East Is Not Against Warlords Tajik Interior Ministry forces are conducting special operations against drug traffickers in Tajikistan's Rasht Valley, amid reports that the operation is being used against leading warlords who are hiding in the region, RFER/RL's Tajik Service reports. More  Prominent Russian Actor Oleg Yankovsky Dies Oleg Yankovsky, a prominent Russian actor well-known in all former Soviet countries, died in a Moscow clinic on May 20. More  Witness Says Armenian Police Tortured Him To Get Testimony A third witness in the case against six Armenian opposition leaders for their roles in postelection protests in Yerevan last year has retracted his testimony after saying he was tortured and his life threatened, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports. More  Kyrgyz High Court Upholds Convictions For Religious Extremism Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court has upheld verdicts against 32 people convicted of spreading ethnic and religious hatred, although it slightly reduced their sentences, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports. More  Former Dushanbe Zoo Director Found Liable For Bear Incident The former director of the Dushanbe Zoo has been found legally responsible for an incident that resulted in a girl losing her hand in 2006, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports. More  Budget Revenues Plummet In Tatarstan Budget revenues in the Russian republic of Tatarstan fell by almost half in the first quarter of 2009 due to the global financial crisis, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports. More  Crimean Tatars Continue Protest, Demand Land A group of Crimean Tatars is continuing a protest action in front of the government building in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports. More  Lawmakers To Question Iraqi Officials On Corruption Iraqi parliament deputies say the upcoming questioning of Trade Minister Abdulfalah al-Sudani on corruption charges is only the beginning of other such hearings by parliament, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq (RFI) reports. More A concert in support of people falsely jailed in Russian prisons will be held in Moscow on May 25, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More Forty-eight percent of Iraq's primary schools do not meet the minimum requirements for hygiene, according to a survey taken of 150 randomly picked schools in eight provinces, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq (RFI) reports. More  Iranian Activist Emad Baghi Wins Top Human Rights Award Iranian human rights activist Emad Baghi is the winner of this year’s prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. More  History Lessons For Afghanistan's Green Zone There is a currently a proposal to establish a fortified region in Kabul to house diplomatic missions, and so better protect these from incidents of violence that continue to occur in Afghanistan’s capital. The idea is modeled on Baghdad's “Green Zone.” More  Cows Top The Tajik News This Week Dushanbe residents won’t any longer be allowed to have domestic animals at home -- that is according to a new decision made by Tajik parliamentarians. More  Welcome To Serbia, Joe Biden! More  Forty Years In The Wilderness Forty years ago today, on May 20, 1969, the human rights movement in the Soviet Union took a bold step forward. A group of 15 brave individuals – scholars, writers, historians – announced the formation of the Initiative Group for Human Rights in the USSR and sent an open letter to the UN Human Rights Commission. Eleven of the 15 were eventually arrested and imprisoned. More  Unspecified 'Progress' Registered At Geneva Talks The fifth round of talks between Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia on security and humanitarian issues in the aftermath of the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war took place in Geneva on May 18-19. International mediators told journalists afterwards that "some progress" was made; they did not elaborate. More  Georgian Opposition Unveils Counterproposals The Georgian opposition parties that aligned to launch a campaign on April 9 to demand the resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili unveiled on May 18 a broader six-point plan for implementing political reforms. That plan, which the opposition wants implemented by May 26, is intended as a response to proposals Saakashvili made one week earlier in the hope of ending the monthlong political standoff between the authorities and opposition. Opposition leaders have rejected those proposals as too little, too late. More  Satellite Photos Show Pakistan Expanding Production A U.S. think tank that focuses on the spread of nuclear weapons has released reports showing how Pakistan has been expanding its nuclear-weapons-production complex in recent years. The conclusions are based on comparisons of commercial satellite images from 2004 and 2008 that focus on several of Pakistan's nuclear facilities. More  Expert Says Pakistan Improving Quality Of Nuclear Arsenal The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nongovernmental organization that focuses on the spread of nuclear weapons, has released reports showing how Pakistan has been greatly expanding its nuclear-weapons production complex in recent years. The conclusions are based on comparisons of commercial satellite imagery from 2004 and 2008 at several of Pakistan's nuclear facilities. RFE/RL spoke to one of the reports' authors. More  Not-So-Strategic Partners? What is a strategic partner when it stops acting like one? That's the question the EU must answer as its representatives meet Russian leaders for a biannual summit. The two sides' disputes have multiplied over the past year, and relentless Russian pressure is putting the EU's drive for pragmatic cooperation under increasing strain. More  Four Candidates Approved To Run For President The clerically dominated vetting body has approved the candidacies of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Musavi, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karrubi, and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps head Mohsen Rezai. It rejected 471 other applicants. More  Who Controls The North's Wealth? Iraq has been struggling to boost oil production and agree on how revenues should be shared among the country's different regions. Now, a new dispute over how oil is to be exported from the Kurdish autonomous region is again raising the question of who ultimately controls the northern oil fields. More  The New Fascism A new form of fascism has appeared. It is a completely international ideology and has been adopted by dictatorial regimes whose leaders do not want their countries to open up to the world or who are afraid their countries might develop a middle class and escape from their control. More |
