 RFE/RL Headlines 10/27/2009 A daily digest of the English-language news and analysis written by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
| News  Law Before Parliament In Hopes Of Calming Violence Iraq's parliament is due to consider approving what could be the final version of the country's controversial election law. The meeting comes a day after Iraqi officials reached a compromise on wording that had delayed the bill for months and threatened to derail January's planned national legislative elections. More  U.S. Backs 'Universal Value' Of Religious Freedom The U.S. State Department has released its annual report on how governments around the world are doing when it comes to protecting their citizens' religious freedom. The survey of 198 countries and territories was released by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called the freedom to practice the religion of one's own choosing a "universal value." More  Georgia Recommends Panfilov To OSCE Media Freedom Post Georgia has nominated Oleg Panfilov, the director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, as a candidate to be OSCE representative on freedom of the media, RFE/RL's Russian and Georgian services report. More Russian chief health inspector Gennady Onishchenko says two people have died of swine flu in the southeastern Baikal region, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Belarusian Communist Party Changes Its Name The Communist Party of Belarus has changed its name, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports. More A Turkish parliamentary delegation has arrived in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, for a visit aimed at easing tensions over Turkey's rapprochement with Armenia, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reports. More  Reward Offered For Information About Slain Ingush Activist The government in the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria is offering a cash reward for information leading to the arrest of those who assassinated Ingush opposition leader Maksharip Aushev, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko says members of a radical Islamic movement arrested on October 26 planned to kill the leader of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemilev, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports. More  Jailed KazAtomProm Chief Requests Hospitalization The former president of Kazakhstan's Uranium-producing giant KazAtomProm says he needs to be hospitalized, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports. More  Victims Of Moscow Theater Siege Commemorated A special ceremony commemorating the victims of the 2002 hostage crisis at Moscow's Dubrovka Theater has been held, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More Tehran University Students Continue Antigovernment Protests Student protests against the regime of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad continue. A protest was held today by students at the Islamic Azad University in southern Tehran. Reports say more than 1,000 students participated. More Videos Released By Families Of U.S. Hikers Detained In Iran The families of three Americans detained in Iran have released videos that they say prove that their children were on vacation and meant no harm in crossing the border. More  Photo Of The Day Sent by one of our readers, Ahmed Mukhtar, to our Azerbaijani Service's "Mobile Reporter" page. More  Don't You Want To Get Yourself A Husband?! Blogger Majarahaye Holu khanum (The Adventures of Peach Lady ) writes about the difficulties of being a woman in Iran and the social pressure that women face to get married and have kids. More  No One Is Born A Dictator A blogger writes in the Zabane Sabz (Green Language or Green Tongue) blog that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was not born a dictator, but that he gradually became one. More  A View Of Afghanistan's Rocky Political Landscape As campaigning for Afghanistan's November 7 presidential runoff begins, incumbent President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah are competing not only for votes. Facing an uncertain political landscape, the candidates' camps are also trying to strengthen their respective bargaining positions. With the electorate worried by renewed threats of violence and disheartened by the brazen fraud and protracted controversies that marred the first round, the political alignments in Afghanistan seem to be in flux. More  Comforter In Chief From Kyiv to Tbilisi and from Warsaw to Prague, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has been insisting that Washington stands by its friends in the former Socialist bloc -- even as it seeks better relations with Moscow. So how's he doing? More  Has EU Learned Lessons From Uzbek Process? The EU has decided to lift the last of the sanctions imposed on Uzbekistan after the 2005 Andijon massacre. In dropping a largely symbolic arms embargo, the EU said that relations with Uzbekistan have acquired a "new scope and quality" over the past two years. But looking at the lessons learned over the course of the two-pronged sanctions regime, observers and rights activists have a markedly different assessment of the measures' effectiveness. More  Massacre In Armenian Parliament Still Echoes On October 27, 1999, armed men stormed the Armenian parliament and killed eight people, including the prime minister and speaker. Ten years later, lawmakers and other officials say the tragedy permanently changed the emerging institutions in post-Soviet Armenia. More  Afghanistan Needs More Than Just A Second Round After nearly three decades of conflict and foreign interference, Afghans who had begun to see a ray of hope in a post-Taliban era are now more suspicious than ever of the motives of the international community in their homeland. More |
