 RFE/RL Headlines 3/12/2010 7:30:15 PM A daily digest of the English-language news and analysis written by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
| Features  Mykola Azarov: Yanukovych's Right-Hand Man Ukraine's new prime minister, Mykola Azarov, gets angry when reminded he's a geologist by training. He prefers to think of himself as a political animal. More  Why Is Iran Releasing Some Postelection Detainees? Several prominent detainees arrested in the wake of Iran's postelection unrest have been freed from prison. But Iranian authorities' motivation in freeing the prisoners remains unclear. More  Big Business In Uzbekistan Targeted In Wave Of Arrests Some of Uzbekistan's richest people are being detained and there is a great amount of speculation as to why. Bankers, factory owners, football club owners, and more are being rounded up by Uzbek authorities. More  NATO: Nukes Still Needed For 'Deterrence' NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the reduction of nuclear arsenals has to be carried out in a balanced manner, but that atomic weapons were still needed for deterrence reasons. More  Russia Aims To Boost India Ties On Nuclear, Defense Cooperation Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is in New Delhi today for talks on ways to boost cooperation with India in the nuclear power, space and defense sectors. More  Turkey Objects To 'Genocide' Vote In a move that has angered Turkey, Sweden has joined a growing list of countries recognizing as genocide the massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago. More  Deadly Floods As Kazakh Dams Break Thousands of people have been evacuated and some killed in Kazakhstan after severe floods destroyed several dams in the south of the Central Asian state, the Emergencies Ministry said. More  Death Toll Hits 45 In Pakistan Blasts Three attacks, at least two of them by suicide bombers, have killed at least 45 people in the Pakistani city of Lahore, including 10 army personnel, and injured more than 100. More  Blast Derails Cargo Train In Daghestan A blast has caused a train to derail in Russia's restive North Caucasus region. More  Call For Kyrgyz President's Resignation The Kyrgyz opposition Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party has demanded that President Kurmanbek Bakiev and his son resign. More  Kyrgyz Rights Group Criticizes 'Attack On Press Freedom' A Kyrgyz rights group says it is seriously concerned by what it calls a coordinated attack by authorities on freedom of speech More  Accusations Fly Around Kazakh Strike A former Kazakh banker has accused President Nursultan Nazarbaev's son-in-law of inciting a strike by several thousand workers at an oil facility in southwestern Kazakhstan, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports. More  Russian High Court Upholds Yabloko Ban The Russian Supreme Court has upheld a ban on the opposition Yabloko party taking part in upcoming elections to the Sverdlovsk Oblast Duma. More  Ex-Kazatomprom Exec Jailed For 14 Years A court in the Kazakh capital has sentenced Mukhtar Dzhakishev, the former head of state nuclear company Kazatomprom, to 14 years in prison. More About 200 demonstrators gathered in the central Russian city of Biisk to protest price hikes and a perceived "monopolization of power," RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Displaced Iraqi Christians 'Unable To Vote' Hundreds of displaced Christians in northern Iraq were unable to vote in the parliamentary elections because they were unregistered, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq (RFI) reports. More  Activist's Arrest Sparks Uzbek Protest About 150 people in northeastern Uzbekistan have held a rally to protest the arrest of a local activist. More  Charges Against Armenian Activist Dropped Armenian police have dropped a controversial criminal case against a youth activist who publicized alleged sexual and other abuse at a Yerevan boarding school for disabled children. More  Bashkortostan Police Accused Of Beating Man Police in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan have been accused of extrajudicial violence. More Rescue workers have found the bodies of four Belarusian tourists killed by an avalanche in Russia's northwestern region of Murmansk. More  Berezovsky Urges Distrust Of Russia Former Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky says Armenia and Azerbaijan should not look to Moscow to help solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reports. More  Kadyrov Orders Drivers To Clean Their Cars Regularly Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov is the meddling type of strongman and there is nothing he won't speak out about. In the past he's taken firm stands on the state of the Russian republic's roads and amount of litter on the ground. More  Russian Comedian Represented Tajikistan At Olympics A Tajik Olympic official says the country sold one of its official accreditations to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver to a Russian comedian. More It would appear that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev really knows how to clear out a cabinet meeting. More  The Rundown - March 12 A comprehensive review of news and opinion on RFE/RL's broadcast region. More  Google, RSF Honor Iranian Women Bloggers Google and the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on March 11 rewarded a collective of Iranian women bloggers for their reporting on women's issues and last year's postelection unrest. More  Top Reformist Politician On Prison Leave Receives Hero's Welcome Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister and a senior member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahedin Organization, was allowed to take leave from prison on March 10, reportedly because of the upcoming Iranian new year on March 21. More  Former UN Mediator, EU Special Representative Visit Abkhazia Ambassador Dieter Boden, previously the UN secretary-general's special representative for the Abkhaz conflict, returned to Sukhumi this week after a seven-year hiatus for talks with Abkhaz leaders. He will then travel to Tbilisi. EU special representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby was also scheduled to arrive in Abkhazia. More |
