Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

RFE/RL Headlines 6/9/2011 6:59:41 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 In Afghanistan, IMU-Taliban Alliance Chips Away At The Stone Northern Afghanistan, for years seen as a bedrock of stability amid the chaos of war, is being pushed further into turmoil with every kill and every capture. More Russia's 'Izvestia' Undergoes Transformation From Broadsheet To Tabloid Russia's venerable "Izvestia" newspaper was once the broadsheet of choice for much of the Soviet intelligentsia. The paper is now being rebranded as a tabloid with two-thirds of its staff being cut in the overhaul. More A Year On, Osh Rape Victims Still Live In Shadows It is now fairly well-known how many people died and how much property was destroyed when clashes broke out between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in southern Kyrgyzstan last year. What is less certain is how many women and men were subjected to rape, a crime that casts a profound stigma on its victims. More News Google Kazakh Traffic Through .Com The search engine giant Google has begun diverting its Kazakhstan traffic through its main portal, google.com, instead of its Kazakh website, google.kz. More Allies Pledge $1.3 Billion To Libya Rebels Libyan rebels gained pledges of more than $1.3 billion in aid today, as Western and Arab nations met in Abu Dhabi to focus on plans for a post-Muammar Qaddafi Libya. More Clinton Says Assad Can't 'Reverse' Changes U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to refrain from violence as the United Nations called on the Syrian regime to halt its "assault on its own people." More U.S. Announces New Iran Sanctions The United States has announced sanctions against three Iranian groups and one person over human rights abuses in Iran since the country's disputed 2009 presidential election. More No 'Rush For The Exits' In Afghanistan Defense Secretary Robert Gates says there will be "no rush for the exits" by the United States in Afghanistan. More Poland's Lech Walesa Hospitalized The deputy director of the Gdansk hospital said former Polish President and Nobel peace laureate Lech Walesa was in stable condition and he believed that the hospitalization would not be long. More Serbian-Born Writer Wins U.K. Prize Belgrade-born author Tea Obreht has been awarded Britain's prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction for her debut novel, "The Tiger's Wife," an examination of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The 25-year-old Obreht, who lives in the United States, is the youngest author to win the prize. More Snag For Kazakh Bill On Afghan Mission Kazakhstan's upper house of parliament has refused to consider a plan to send servicemen to join NATO-led forces in Afghanistan. More Russia 'Should Pay More' For Radar A senior Azerbaijani official says his country wants Moscow to pay more for the use of a radar station that is part of Russia's warning system against attacks from beyond its southern frontiers. More From Our Bureaus Squeeze On Russian Rock Critic Russian officials have unexpectedly inspected a Moscow rock club that has agreed to host a concert on June 10 to support prominent music critic Artyom Troitsky. More Armenian Military 'Interested' In Acquiring Russian Rocket Artillery A senior Russian defense industry executive says Armenia wants to acquire Russian rocket artillery systems that have a firing range of up to 90 kilometers. More Uzbek Asylum-Seekers Extradited Kazakh officials say they have extradited 29 Uzbek asylum seekers to Uzbekistan. More Uzbeks Arrest Tajik Border Guard Uzbek officials have said that an armed Tajik border guard was arrested in Uzbekistan's Surkhandarya region on June 7. More Bashkir Muslim 'Harassment' Denounced The Tatar community in Bashkortostan says it will hold a mass rally in Ufa next week in support of a Bashkir youth campaign against what they call anti-Muslim actions by security forces. More Sale Of Georgian-Flagged Ship Approved The crew of a Georgian-registered ship who made a dramatic escape from Libya earlier this year could finally be on their way home soon after a ruling by a court in Malta. More Iran: Concern Over Prisoners' Children Some 350 Iranian civil activists have written an open letter expressing concern about the plight of the children of political prisoners. More Transmission Please Select Your Preferred Truth "The New York Times" today ran an article on the largest retail bank in Russia, Sberbank, and its decision to test out a new high-tech ATM with voice-analysis software that backers say amounts to a built-in lie detector. More Chaikhana A Different Osh The anniversary of the sad events in southern Kyrgyzstan is here. The tales of horror of the clashes on June 10-15, 2010 between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks are already being retold. More Outpost Washington The Reset Hits a Pothole The collapse of NATO-Russia discussions on missile defense could have an effect on the rapprochement between Russia and the West. More