 RFE/RL Headlines 4/26/2010 A daily digest of the English-language news and analysis written by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL is looking for guest bloggers, preferably writing from and about our broadcast region. If you're interested, drop us a line at webteam@rferl.org. |
| Features  Future Kyrgyz Government Faces Traditional North-South Divide The chaotic turn of events that led to the ouster of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev this month breathed new life into fears that the country could be split in two. Upon fleeing the nation's capital amid Kyrgyzstan's second revolution in five years, Bakiev sought shelter in his native southern region, where he railed against the policies of northerners. More  Illnesses At Afghan Girls' Schools Prompt Poisoning Fears The mass sickness among the students of three schools in Afghanistan's northern Konduz Province over the weekend has raised alarm in a region under constant attack by Taliban militants. While authorities investigate the incidents, some suspect a new insurgent tactic to discourage girls' education, which the Taliban opposes. More  Baku Hosts World Religious Summit Religious leaders from Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia have called for a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The call came as the head of Armenia's Apostolic Church made his first-ever visit to Azerbaijan today. More  Center-Right Fidesz Wins Hungary Vote Hungary's Prime Minister-elect Viktor Orban has pledged to rebuild the economy following the April 25 second round of voting for parliament, in which his Fidesz group gained an unprecedented two-thirds majority. Fidesz has ousted an unpopular socialist-led government, but will have to produce results quickly if it is to meet the expectations of the weary electorate. More  Russia Hands Over Kyrgyz Ex-Minister Russian forces have detained and expelled former Kyrgyz Interior Minister Moldomusa Kongantiev, who vanished during the unrest that swept Kyrgyzstan's former authorities from power earlier this month. More  Sex-Abuse Trial Begins For Armenian Teacher A Yerevan school teacher went on trial today for sexual abuse, one year after being cleared by Armenian police of wrongdoing. More  Chornobyl Victims Commemorated Ceremonies were held today in Moscow and St. Petersburg to commemorate the people who died from radiation exposure at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant disaster in Ukraine. More  Moldovan Leader To Skip WWII Parade Moldovan interim President Mihai Ghimpu has agreed to send 70 Moldovan soldiers to participate in the May 9 military parade on Moscow's Red Square but will not attend himself, RFE/RL's Moldovan Service reports. More  Sentence Of Tatar Activist To Be Reviewed Tatarstan's Supreme Court has announced it will rule on an appeal on the conviction of prominent Tatar pro-independence activist Fauzia Bayramova on April 27. More  CoE Monitor Rejects Bias Allegations A Council of Europe monitor has rejected criticism that his meeting with a South Ossetian official in the breakaway region's Moscow mission indicates bias. More  Committee Set Up In Support Of Bakiev A committee to defend ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiev has been established in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. More  Kazakh Rights Activist's Guilty Verdict Upheld The Kazakh Supreme Court today upheld the guilty verdict against jailed prominent Kazakh rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis. More Police in the Azerbaijani capital today detained dozens of opposition activists on their way to a rally outside the Mayor's Office, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reports. More The Week In Facebook Inspired by "The Atlantic's" mock "World Leaders" Facebook group, RFE/RL presents a Facebook-style summary of last week's events. More  Chechen, The Language of Love On Chechen Language Day, Aslan Doukaev, the director of RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service (and a trained linguist), talks about the particular challenges -- and deeply romantic side -- of his native tongue. More  World Survives Boobquake And Brainquake If a senior Iranian cleric is to be believed, the 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan today was a "boobquake," not an earthquake. More  Rift Deepens Over UN Security Council Press Access We reported earlier that the relocation of the UN Security Council chambers to a basement area of UN headquarters in New York has brought new restrictions on media access. Those restrictions have now not only been formalized but expanded. Armed security guards have been positioned at the entrance to the new chambers. More The BBC has a video profile of a quirky 12-year-old Serbian boy with a knack for contrarian views in Belgrade. More  Going To Extremes The daily "Kommersant" is reporting today that the government has submitted a bill to the State Duma that would allow the Federal Security Service (FSB) to take "preventive measures," including warnings and fines, against individuals suspected of engaging in the vaguely defined activity of "extremism." More 'Blogger' Tool Said To Be Filtered In Iran The "Blogger" website that enables users to create their own blogs for free has reportedly been filtered in Iran. More  Time Frame For Ratification Of Armenian-Turkish Protocols Increasingly Unclear Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian's announcement on April 22 that he is recalling from parliament the two protocols on normalizing relations with Turkey signed in Geneva last October does not, as Sarkisian himself stressed, signify the end of the process of rapprochement that he has advocated for the past three years. More  Iran’s Green Movement In The Doldrums? The Green Movement is fragmented. It lacks the kind of structure that the anti-Shah opposition had in 1979. It is local, sporadic, and does not have a central nervous system or a coherent ideology. However, this should be little comfort to the regime, because the longer the movement survives and holds together, the more it is likely to produce its own leaders. More  'Who Says The Newspaper Is Dead?' Since Decmber 2009, RFE/RL's Azerbaijan Service, Radio Azadliq, has distributed 10,000 copies of its print newspaper "Think Differently." More |
