 RFE/RL Headlines 10/13/2010 8:19:29 PM 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  Rumblings Heard After Kyrgyzstan's Election Kyrgyzstan's parliamentary elections seemed to go well, but just days after the October 10 poll there are signs of discontent from various quarters. As coalition talks begin, a disputed vote count could change the electoral arithmetic. More  Ahmadinejad Gets Hero's Welcome In Lebanon, As Israel, West Watch With Suspicion Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad arrived in Lebanon to a hero's welcome, his first visit to one of Iran's most strategically important regional allies since taking office in 2005. The trip is expected to act as a show of support for the Shi'ite Islamist organization, Hizballah, which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006 with Iran's backing. Israel has labeled the visit "provocative." More  Ex-U.S. Ambassador To Ukraine Says Democratic 'Space May Be Shrinking' A recent public opinion poll by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) found that a majority of Ukrainians are either concerned or alarmed about reversals of democratic rights and freedoms under President Viktor Yanukovych. RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service director, Irena Chalupa, spoke to Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 1998-2000, about the state of Ukrainian democracy. More  U.S. Charges Armenian-Americans With Medicare Fraud U.S. law enforcement authorities have announced charges against 44 members of an Armenian-American criminal syndicate in a $100 million fraud case. More  OSCE Urges Ukraine To Protect Journalists The media wing of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has urged Ukraine to investigate attacks on the press amid growing accusations of government pressure on the media. More The Afghan army says six Filipinos, one Indian national, and a Kenyan were killed on October 12 when a cargo plane crashed outside Afghanistan's capital of Kabul. More  Clinton Ends Balkan Tour In Kosovo U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks in Pristina with Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and other top officials. This is the last leg of a Balkan trip that also took her to Bosnia and Serbia. More  Russian Ecologists To Continue Fight For Forest Russian environmental activists say they will continue their fight to preserve the Khimki forest near Moscow if authorities decide to go ahead with the construction of a new Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. More  Tajikistan Offers Amnesty To Insurgents The Tajik government has offered an amnesty to armed groups fighting government troops in the east of the country if they declare a cease-fire. More The website of a Vienna-based Turkmen human rights group was hacked and inaccessible for several days. More  Tajik President's Hometown Embarrased By Media Coverage A local official from Tajik President Emomali Rahmon's home district has formally asked state television channels to reduce their coverage of the region. More The Week In Facebook RFE/RL presents a Facebook-style summary of last week's events. Click on any of the status updates for more information. More Just a few weeks after devastating wildfires raged around the city, Moscow today received its first snowfall. The snow's not sticking, however, as temperatures hovered around 5 degrees Celsius. More  Dead On Arrival? Following a number of its previous operations that had evocative Arabic-derived terms shared by both Pashto and Dari, the process of transition of security from NATO to Afghanistan's own security forces is called "Inteqal," or "transfer" in Afghanistan's two native tongues, in the sense of passing from one state to another. But something may have got lost in translation. More A pregnant woman staying at a Dubai hotel had to hurry from her room for a nearby hospital to deliver her baby. Luckily for her, she never made it. More  Havel Calls for Release of Jailed Iranian Rights Lawyer Former Czech President Vaclav Havel has called for the release of jailed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who is reportedly on hunger strike in Evin prison to protest her imprisonment. More  Five Years On, Militants In Kabardino-Balkaria Take On New Role Five years after the multiple attacks by inexperienced, young fighters from the Yarmuk jamaat on police and security facilities, the trial of the 58 men identified as the surviving perpetrators is nowhere near its end. More  The New Dynamics Of Russia's Succession Process In a system with weakly developed institutions and a tradition of personality-centered politics, the question of who will become Russia's president in 2012 has become the fundamental issue facing the country today. More |
