Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

RFE/RL Headlines 8/23/2011 8:07:58 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 Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Leader Wants Reforms Across The Arab World The Muslim Brotherhood, long suppressed by former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, has formed the Freedom and Justice Party to contest the country's upcoming elections. RFE/RL Writer at Large James Kirchick sat down with Brotherhood leader Essam el-Erian in Cairo to discuss many topics, including post-Mubarak Egypt, Shari'a law, and why he wants to see revolutions spread across the Arab world. More   Belarus On The Brink Discontent simmers in Belarus as the economic crisis gripping the unreformed post-Soviet economy shows no sign of abating. And with winter approaching, economists warn that the pain is only just beginning with more hikes on food, utilities and consumer goods on the horizon. More   Reporter's Notebook: As Battle For Tripoli Rages, Libyan Exiles Celebrate An Early Victory As reports of scattered gun battles across Tripoli continued, cheering Libyans took to the streets of the Tunisian capital, waving the horizontal red, black, and green flag, that of the short-lived Kingdom of Libya that the anti-Qaddafi rebels have adopted as their own. More   From Our Bureaus Azeri Opposition Has Democracy Plan Azerbaijan's opposition Public Chamber is to present authorities later this week with a plan it calls a "road map to democracy. More   Baku Protests French Karabakh Visit Baku has lodged a formal protest with the French Foreign Ministry over an ongoing visit to the breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh by four French parliament deputies. More   Kazakh Web TV Journalists Link Inspections To Coverage A web-based television channel in Kazakhstan says it has been subjected to intrusive inspections because of its independent news coverage. More   Taliban Commander 'Trained In Iran' A Taliban commander captured in southwestern Afghanistan claims to have received military training in Iran to target a major dam in the region. More   Kazakh Jailed For Labor-Lawyer Protest A Kazakh activist has been jailed for 14 days for staging a protest demanding the release from jail of a labor lawyer who represented striking oil workers. More   Jailed Kazakh Activist Again Denied Transfer To Open Prison A Kazakh opposition activist jailed on hooliganism charges has again been denied a transfer to an open prison. More   Extradited Uzbeks Tried For Extremism Twelve Uzbeks recently extradited from Kazakhstan have gone on trial in Uzbekistan on religious-extremism charges. More   Tajik Singer Freed In Amnesty A Tajik pop star who helped her fiance escape police custody was among more than 100 women inmates freed under a prisoner amnesty. More   Iran To Extend Gender Segregation To Preschools Boys and girls at Iranian preschools are to be separated in the latest instance of gender segregation in the Islamic republic. More   Commentary The Fall Of Robert Sturua Sets A New Standard In Georgian Public Life If in a western democracy a public figure who receives his salary courtesy of the taxpayer said something similar to recent xenophobic comments by theater director Robert Sturua, he would not remain in office for very long. More

RFE/RL Russia Report 8/23/2011 6:48:49 PM A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about domestic and foreign-policy developments in Russia. For more stories on Russia, please visit and bookmark our Russia page .

 

Russian Opposition Marks 20th Anniversary Of Flag's Reinstatement About 200 demonstrators have marked the 20th anniversary of the end of a failed Soviet coup with a march in central Moscow. More   Two Kyrgyz Policemen Arrested In Connection With Beating Death Two policemen in southern Kyrgyzstan have been arrested in connection with the death of a Russian citizen who authorities say was beaten in custody. More   Russia Detains Kyrgyz Citizen Wanted As Suspect In Murder A Kyrgyz citizen allegedly involved in deadly ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan last year has been detained in the Russian republic of Khakassia. More   Communists Protest Putsch Anniversary More than 100 activists have protested about poor social services in the southwestern Russian city of Biisk. More   Interview With Boris Nemtsov On August 1991 Putsch: 'We Were Romantic...We Were Very Naive' Boris Nemtsov has played many roles in post-Soviet Russia. He was a reformist member of the Russian Republic's Soviet-era parliament in 1991, served as governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, and as first deputy prime minister in the late 1990s. More   Can Russian Plan Kick-Start Stalled Nuclear Talks With Iran? It has been seven months since nuclear negotiations with Iran stalled over the issue of Tehran's right to produce fuel. Now, after initial skepticism, Iran is showing signs it might return to the table under a new Russian step-by-step plan. More   Watching The Soviet Coup From Central Asia Twenty years ago, an attempted coup took place in Moscow as a last-ditch effort to save the Soviet Union. The coup collapsed within three days, ironically speeding up the demise of the Soviet Union and paving the way for Soviet republics to gain independence. RFE/RL speaks to Central Asian politicians about how they remember the events of August 19-21, 1991. More   Podcast: Stepping Out Of The Shadow Of The Soviet Empire In Episode 32, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov reminisces about the August 1991 events in Russia and reflects on what went wrong across post-Soviet states after the collapse of the empire. RFE/RL's Armenian, Ukrainian, and Uzbek broadcasters visit with host Pavel Butorin to discuss their countries’ efforts -- or lack thereof -- to break away from their Soviet past. More   20 Years After The Big Breakup, Does The 'Former Soviet Union' Still Exist? Two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, its successor states encompass squeaky clean Scandinavian-style democracies like Estonia, autocratic despotisms like Uzbekistan -- and everything in between. Is it even possible to speak of a coherent "post-Soviet space" anymore? More   Rewriting History: Karimov The Brave Uzbekistan, like other former Soviet republics, is preparing to mark 20 years of independence, and media in the country are focusing on the role President Islam Karimov played -- or allegedly played -- in securing Uzbekistan's freedom from the Soviet Union. More   Anzhi Makhachkala Makes A Splash Daghestan appears set to make headlines in Russia for something other than the continuing terrorism and violence that have increasingly plagued the North Caucasus republic. More   Chechen Teen Recounts Attempts to Disarm Utoeya Gunman Two Chechen teenagers living in Norway are being hailed for their role in rescuing dozens of young people trapped on the island of Utoeya during a massacre by a far-right extremist last month. Rustam Daudov and Movsar Dzhamayev, who emigrated with their families to Norway after living through the war in Chechnya, say they hurled stones in an attempt to disarm Anders Behring Breivik before helping other teenagers attending the island's Labor Party youth camp find shelter in a cave. More   Russia's Indispensable Man Vladimir Putin isn’t going anywhere. All other analysis of where Russia is headed post-2012 must proceed from this basic assumption. More   Five Questions On The Russian Economy The recent tremors in the world's financial markets have reverberated in Russia, where stocks have wildly fluctuated and the ruble dropped 3.9 percent in the course of a week. Sergei Seninsky, economics analyst for RFE/RL's Russian Service, explains the key issues facing Moscow's policymakers. More