Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

RFE/RL Headlines 4/12/2011 8:13:54 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 Intelligence Disagreements Cast Shadow Over U.S.-Pakistani Relations There is no definite word about whether Islamabad and Washington have bridged key differences during a meeting between the leaders of the two countries' intelligence services in Washington, as disagreement between the spy services has become increasingly public. More   Minsk Bombing Has Everyone Asking: Who Could Benefit? Everyone is asking the question that Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka posed to his security advisers at an emergency meeting hours after the blast: Who stands to gain from the terrorism and bloodshed? More   Putin Visit To Test Ukraine's Resolve On EU Trade Talks Russia's prime minister is making a surprise visit to Kyiv, just days after Ukraine's president proclaimed a two-track policy of negotiating an association agreement with the European Union while simultaneously seeking closer relations with the Moscow-led customs union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. More   News Belarus Identifies 'Non-Slavic' Suspect In Subway Blast Belarus's KGB security service says it has identified a young man of non-Slavic appearance as a main suspect over the April 11 blast in the Minsk subway that killed 12 people. More   Minsk Bombing: From The Clothing Of The Dead, The Rings Of Unanswered Phones Belarusian authorities say they have detained several people suspected of involvement in the explosion. More   EU Still Divided On Belarus Sanctions The European Union is struggling to find agreement among member states on whether to impose tougher, targeted economic sanctions on Belarus over its postelection crackdown on the opposition. EU foreign ministers are meeting in Luxembourg to discuss the possibility. More   Gagarin Anniversary Commemorated Celebrations are being held today to mark the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight -- a 108-minute orbit of the Earth by Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin. More   From Our Bureaus 'Terrorists' Attacked U.S. Forces In Iraq Adnan al-Zurfi, governor of the Iraqi holy city of Al-Najaf, says terrorist groups are behind recent armed attacks on U.S. forces in the region. More   Probe Targets Ex-Judicial Uni Head An investigation has been launched against Russian police general Nikolai Mikhailov, who headed the Judicial University in the central Russian city of Barnaul until he was sacked on April 1. More   Azeri Student Activists Expelled Two youth activists from Azerbaijani opposition parties have been expelled from Baku State University in the past week. More   '30 Contract Killings' Under Bakiev A state commission says there were 30 high-profile contract killings in Kyrgyzstan during Kurmanbek Bakiev's five-year tenure as president. More   'Lukashenka Insult' Journalist Moved A Polish-Belarusian journalist charged with insulting Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been transferred from a police station jail to a pretrial detention center in the western city of Hrodna. More   Kyrgyz Deputies Apologize For Scuffle Two Kyrgyz parliament deputies today publicly apologized for their fistfight in parliament earlier this month. More   Transmission Ukrainian Nurse Dishes On Qaddafi Oskana Balinskaya managed to play Qaddafi quite well, having made off with the nice deals when times were good and escaping Tripoli before he forced two remaining Ukrainian nurses to help protect him from the mass demonstrations calling for an end to his decades-long rule -- leaving her to share memories with "Newsweek" in back in Ukraine. More   The Power Vertical Toward Putinism Lite Igor Sechin's departure from Rosneft and Medvedev's hints that he will seek a second term point to where Russia may be headed -- Putinism Lite. More   Tangled Web Twitter Panic On The Streets Of Minsk This morning in Belarus showed the role of social networks in helping to spread rumors. More   Video Archive At The Start Of Gagarin's Trajectory, A Humble Village On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin made history as he became the first person to travel into space. His flight was a triumph for the Soviet Union and propelled the young Gagarin to global fame. But in the village of his birth, Klushino, locals know little about the cosmonaut and his connection to the place. More   Photo Gallery Archive Remembering The Victims Of The Minsk Bombing Authorities in Belarus have begun the task of identifying the 12 people killed in the April 11 explosion at a subway station in central Minsk. More   Minsk Subway Blast Kills 12 Belarusian authorities have vowed to hunt down the perpetrators of an explosion in a subway station in the capital, Minsk, that killed at least 12 people. More   Belarus Memorial Service For Minsk Victims In Minsk, one day after a subway bombing killed at least 12 people and injured more than 200 others on April 11, Belarusians gathered to mourn. More