Daisy Sindelar is the vice president and editor in chief of RFE/RL.
Ethnic Armenian soldiers during the war for Nagorno-Karabakh (file photo) (Photolur) Well over a decade after conflicts in the South Caucasus froze, the International Committee of the Red Cross says new cases of missing people continue to emerge. Significant progress will, it fears, have to wait for final peace agreements.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's visit to China comes on the heels of similar visits by other leaders of former Soviet republics. With Georgia's ties to Russia fraying, what is he hoping to gain from looking east?
Just over a year ago, tens of thousands of Ukrainians led an extended public uprising that toppled the country's entrenched, pro-Russia regime. The powerful images of the Orange Revolution remain locked in the minds of many in the West. But time has not stood still in Ukraine. The losers of the Orange Revolution are now poised to be the winners of March 26 parliamentary and regional elections. Will Kyiv still look West after the polls close, or will Russia resume center stage?
Yuliya Tymoshenko (epa) She was called the "Joan of Arc" of Ukraine's Orange Revolution. With her striking looks and trademark wrap-over braid, 45-year-old Yuliya Tymoshenko was a galvanizing presence during the tumultuous weeks of December 2004, and a key ally of the man who would become president, Viktor Yushchenko. Tymoshenko was ultimately rewarded with the premiership, and set out to battle corruption in the country's political and entrepreneurial ranks. But just eight months later, she was unceremoniously ousted by Yushchenko. Since then, Tymoshenko has set her sights firmly on the March 26 parliamentary election. Her political bloc is likely to be a part of any future coalition government -- and she may even get a second chance as prime minister.
It hasn't been a good year for the Belarusian press. Independent newspapers have had to fight to survive as authorities clamp down ahead of the country's presidential elections on March 19. But some newspapers are flourishing. "Sovetskaya Belorussiya," the main state daily, on March 15 printed a celebratory 330,000 extra copies -- ostensibly to mark the country's Constitution Day.
Early voting in Belarus's presidential election begins March 14 and pits President Alyaksandr Lukashenka against three candidates with little chance of winning. But the vote's outcome may be less important than the public response it could provoke.
It's been a surprise to no one that Russian figure skaters have dominated the Winter Olympic Games in Turin. But Chinese and Japanese skaters have also proved themselves a force to be reckoned with.
Many people associate the Soviet-era nuclear industry with its failures, including the 1986 Chornobyl disaster and the continued environmental contamination of plants like Mayak. But Russia is looking to move beyond that legacy. The Kremlin has endorsed an ambitious plan to build a new generation of reactors at home and abroad. It also says it is ready to build an international center to offer nuclear energy technology to the world while keeping weapons proliferaters at bay. It's not the first time Russia has sought to rekindle its atomic industry. So what's behind Russia's latest vision of a nuclear future?
People in Georgia are stocking up on kerosene and firewood in the wake of the 22 January early-morning pipeline explosions that cut off the main gas supply to the South Caucasus country. The blasts came as temperatures have hit near-record lows.
Record cold has paralyzed life in much of Russia, and there have been numerous reports of zookeepers trying to keep their animal charges warm by adding vodka and table wine to their water.
Moscow appears to have retreated in its quarrel with Kyiv for the sake of key gas consumers in Central and Western Europe. Has it lost any chance of being an "energy lifeline"?
(RFE/RL) More than 70 people -- most of them schoolchildren, and all but a handful of them girls -- have now been affected by a mysterious ailment in an eastern district of Russia's war-torn republic of Chechnya. During the past week, residents have been struck by sudden bouts of tremors, nausea, and shortness of breath. Some doctors have reported incidents of psychotic episodes, with patients experiencing panic attacks or mania. Some regional authorities have said the illness is suggestive of nerve-gas poisoning. But toxicologists have reportedly found no evidence to substantiate the claim. RFE/RL reports on what may be behind Chechnya's apparent mystery poisoning.
President Lukashenka has brought forward presidential elections and given opponents just days to register, all part of a strategy to deflate the opposition, analysts say.
Russians' confidence in their leaders is rising (AFP) Around the world, public confidence in governments is falling. At the same time, however, confidence in the national government in Russia is on the rise -- and has risen every year since 2001. This is the conclusion drawn by authors of a survey commissioned by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and published on 14 December in Geneva.
Lidiya Yusupova, a lawyer from the Chechen capital Grozny, is set to receive this year's prestigious Rafto human-rights award.
Mikhail Khodorkovskii -- once Russia's richest man -- was recently sent to a penal colony some 6,000 kilometers from Moscow. But one of his lawyers told RFE/RL today that the world has not heard the last of the former Yukos head.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov is in Washington for talks aimed at bolstering Kyiv's economic and trade status. In particular, Yekhanurov is seeking U.S. support for Ukraine's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
A participant in the UNICEF project frames his shot How do you help a teenager cope with the memories of a trauma on the scale of 2004's massacre in Beslan, which killed nearly 200 children and robbed hundreds more of mothers, fathers, siblings, and friends? The UN children's agency UNICEF, as part of its rehabilitation work in Beslan, has invited young people to tell their stories through photographs. The weeklong workshop in July resulted in thousands of images of life in the North Ossetian city one year after the tragedy. The project allowed many of the participants to return to the still-devastated site of School No. 1, as one UNICEF official put it, "with the safety of being behind the camera."
Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, slain on 8 March (file photo) The Kremlin is refusing to return for burial the body of Aslan Maskhadov, who was killed on 8 March in an apparent gun battle with federal forces in Chechnya. Russian officials say the slain Chechen leader was a terrorist, and that by law his body should n-o-t be handed over to relatives. Federal forces also destroyed the house where Maskhadov was allegedly killed. But rights groups are warning that Russia's actions could have dire consequences.
Refugees fleeing the Darfur region of Sudan British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it a "crime that has no name" -- the Nazis' deliberate and systematic extermination of as many as 6 million European Jews. But a name was soon found -- genocide, literally the killing of a people or nation. The Genocide Convention adopted by the United Nations in 1948 was meant as a pledge to ensure the horrors of the Holocaust would never be repeated. But since then, the world community has consistently failed to prevent the occurrence of genocide in places like Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and northern Iraq. Why has the promise of "never again" proven so difficult to honor?
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