Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

RFE/RL Headlines 6/7/2011 9:03:44 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 Why Is This Strain of E. Coli So Hard To Trace And So Dangerous To Health? The European E. coli outbreak has killed 22 people so far and left hundreds hospitalized -- mostly in Germany. It is proving an enormous challenge for German investigators to track down. Why is this outbreak so hard to pinpoint and why is it so damaging to health? More   Egypt Staves Off 'Revolution Of The Hungry' Simmering discontents continue to roil Egypt four months after the toppling of former President Hosni Mubarak. But amid dire predictions of economic collapse, Egyptians may have cause to thank some surprising outside donors as the interim government embarks on an expansionary program aimed at easing their financial pains. More   Iran, FIFA Clash Over Hijab Iran has complained to FIFA after the world soccer body banned its women football team from playing an Olympic qualifier match. Iran says the unexpected ruling that its players' Islamic dress broke FIFA rules has dashed the team's hopes of competing in the 2012 Olympics. More   News NATO Pounds Tripoli, Prompting Fury From Qaddafi NATO warplanes unleashed an unprecedented daytime bombing assault on government targets in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, driving the country's leader, Muammar Qaddafi, to pick up the phone and furiously declare on state television that he will never surrender. More   Moldova's Communists Remain Leading Party Following Local Elections More than 12,000 local posts were up for grabs in elections in Moldova on June 5, and the preliminary results indicate that the even division between the Communist Party and the three-party West-leaning ruling alliance remains the status quo. A runoff seems likely in the hotly contested race for mayor of the capital, Chisinau. More   Syria Crackdown Feared After 'Attack' Syrian television has reported that more than 120 security troops were killed in battles with "armed gangs" at a town close to the border with Turkey. But some question those claims, saying it could be a government cover-up or justification for another deadly crackdown to crush a popular uprising. More   From Our Bureaus Russian Court Makes Record Award An appeals court in central Russia has ordered a company to pay 1.3 million rubles ($46,600) to the widow of a worker killed in a plant accident last year. More   Belarusian Market Vendors Plan Strike Vendors at a major Minsk market announced on June 7 that they will hold "a warning strike" on June 15 to protest the market owner's decision to annul its contracts with the stall-keepers. More   Soviet Busts Found In Tajik Parliament Workers renovating the Tajik parliament building were surprised to find four Soviet-era busts -- including one of Josef Stalin -- stashed away in a hidden room. More   Belarus: In Camera Trial For Journalist A prominent Polish-Belarusian journalist charged with insulting Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka will go on trial next week behind closed doors. More   Prominent Activist Beaten In Moscow Bakhrom Hamroev, who works for the Moscow-based human rights organization Memorial, was hospitalized after the June 6 attack and Moscow police have launched an investigation into the incident. Hamroev told RFE/RL by phone that the attack appears to have been planned. More   Serbia Restarts Payments To Mladic Following Ratko Mladic's arrest on May 26 in a small town near Belgrade, Serbian officials paid about 50,000 euros ($70,000) to the war crimes indictee's family in pension arrears that had accrued since late 2005. More   The Power Vertical Exit 'The Tandem,' Enter 'The Team' More   Chaikhana Photo Gallery: One Year After The Violence -- Images Of Osh RFE/RL correspondent Daisy Sindelar is reporting all week from Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, where residents and authorities are commemorating the victims of ethnically charged bloodshed a year ago that killed some 470 people. You can follow her tweets at @DaisySindelar. More   Behind The Gates, A Family's World Comes Slowly Back To Life Azyn Yusupov has lost nearly everything. But one of his biggest regrets involves the sparkling white gates that once secured his seven-room home in the Uzbek mahalla, or neighborhood, in the city’s northern Osh District. More   Caucasus Report Countdown To Karabakh Conflict Talks In Kazan During the G-8 summit in Deauville in late May, the presidents of France, Russia, and the U.S., the three countries that jointly co-chair the OSCE Minsk Group, issued a statement calling on the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to "finalize" at their planned meeting in Kazan on June 25 the so-called "Basic Principles" for resolving the Karabakh conflict. More   Watchdog Kazakhstan Extradites Uyghur Journalist Arshidin Israil, a Uyghur refugee from China and a contributor to Radio Free Asia (RFA), RFE/RL's sister organization, was extradited on May 30 from Kazakhstan to China, where he faces charges of terrorism. In court documents, Israil wrote that he believed the charges were politically motivated, issued by the Chinese government in response to his reporting for RFA on Uyghur protests in western China in 2009. More   Gandhara Peshawar: A City Alive In The Shadow Of Death Shaheen Buneri writes from Peshawar, a city struggling to stave off militancy and recapture its cultural heritage. More   Commentary Yanukovych Relies On Soviet Nationalism To Stay In Power During, and since the 2004 presidential elections, the inciting of inter-regional conflict has been a strategy forged by Ukrainian and Russian political consultants (“technologists”) working for Yanukovych and the Party of Regions to ensure they remain in power. More   Video Archive Victims Of Afghanistan's Heroin Trade Hundreds of addicts gather under one of the Kabul's bridges to buy and use heroin. One addict, who says he first tried heroin while a refugee in Iran, talks about trying and failing to kick the habit. Video by Sayedjan Sabawoon, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan More   Photo Gallery Archive One Year After The Violence: Images Of Osh RFE/RL correspondent Daisy Sindelar is reporting all week from Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, where residents and authorities are commemorating the victims of ethnically charged bloodshed a year ago that killed some 470 people. You can follow her tweets at @DaisySindelar. More