Daisy Sindelar is the vice president and editor in chief of RFE/RL.
There is growing alarm in the Russian capital, Moscow, where hundreds of pigeons are suffering from a mysterious ailment that causes lethargy, a drooping head, and eventually death. Health officials have called for calm. But a number of Muscovites have expressed concern about the sick and dying birds, with some referring to them as "zombie pigeons."
For generations, left-handed children in the Soviet Union and elsewhere were frowned upon. Today, as the world marks International Left Handers Day, psychologists say "lefties" should be celebrated, not shunned.
Against a backdrop of Russian sweeps to detain labor migrants, Uzbek, Tajik, and Kyrgyz workers talk of being detained despite having legal status as well as beatings, starvation, and extortion.
In the countries of the former Soviet Union, many patients with cancer and other terminal illnesses die in severe pain because of a shortage of drugs and ignorance about end-of-life care. But in Ukraine, the government has taken steps to ease the suffering of its terminally ill patients.
When revered filmmaker Rustam Ibragimbekov was nominated to run against Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan's presidential election, many hoped the October vote would finally represent a legitimate political contest. Since then, however, a criminal investigation and unsuccessful efforts to shed his Russian citizenship have kept Ibragimbekov out of Azerbaijan -- raising doubts about when, if ever, he'll return.
In recent years, Russia has imposed bans on everything from Moldovan wine to Belarusian milk and Georgian mineral water during political disputes with its neighbors. Now Moscow is announcing it's blocked imports of Ukrainian chocolate.
Azerbaijan's opposition National Council has nominated celebrated screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov as its presidential candidate in the October election. Revered by the cultural elite for films such as "White Sun of the Desert" and "Burnt by the Sun," Ibragimbekov also enjoys support in Russia and the United States and may go far in shaking up Azerbaijan's election season as autocrat Ilham Aliyev seeks a controversial third term.
David Cameron becomes the first serving British prime minister to visit Central Asia with a two-day trip to Kazakhstan. But questions remain as to whether he'll raise the issue of the dubious Kazakh human rights record.
Speculation has emerged in Baku that a pro-government party in Azerbaijan nominated the country's first lady, Mehriban Aliyeva, to run against her husband, President Ilham Aliyev, in elections this fall. The party now says the nomination was a mischievous stunt by political rivals. But the rumored nomination has fueled talk about how the powerful, high-profile first lady would fare as president.
Vano Merabishvili, the jailed former prime minister of Georgia, this week staged a brief hunger strike, successfully demanding, among other things, that prison officials install a television set in the cell where he is being held pending trial for abuse of office. The demand might seem frivolous. But it’s not the first time that access to television has been defended as a basic human right.
Azerbaijan's first lady, Mehriban Aliyeva, has never taken a back seat to her powerful husband. But could she replace him as president?
Nursultan Nazarbaev has a powerful enemy in “runaway” oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov. Now, with Ablyazov’s wife and daughter in state custody, he appears to hold the upper hand.
Azerbaijani activists and authorities alike have been watching with keen interest four days of antigovernment protests in their historic ally, Turkey. But the messages they're taking away may be different.
Kyrgyz officials have declared a state of emergency in the district surrounding the Canadian-owned Kumtor gold mine, which has been the target of massive protests by locals claiming the mine has poisoned their drinking water. The government itself has accused the mine of environmental violations and has used the issue to demand a new contract with the owners, Centerra Gold. But what's really known about the environmental impact of the mine?
The Kyrgyz parliament is calling for the ouster of nearly a dozen high-ranking officials who they say orchestrated the release of a Chechen criminal boss from jail. Aziz Batukaev was freed from Naryn prison and flown to Chechnya in April after Kyrgyz officials ruled he was suffering from leukemia and required urgent medical treatment. But Kyrgyz lawmakers now say Batukaev's illness was a ruse, and have presented pictures of the crime boss smoking and enjoying a sumptuous meal while in prison.
It was one year ago that Kazakh authorities announced a mass murder at a distant outpost on the Kazakh-Chinese border. Since then, the sole surviving border guard has been convicted and jailed, but many questions remain unanswered.
A report by RFE/RL and Swedish television documenting links between Gulnara Karimova and large-scale bribery has drawn a furious response on Twitter, where the Uzbek president's daughter and her supporters have posted a flurry of tweets criticizing the report and speculating that Karimova's rivals within Uzbekistan are to blame.
The arrest of Vano Merabishvili, Mikheil Saakashvili's most powerful ally, appears to tighten the noose around the weakened Georgian president, who has seen his support base crumble since Bidzina Ivanishvili's rise to power last October. But observers in Georgia say the arrest may also be a response to a vicious religious crackdown against gay-rights groups – and a sign that Ivanishvili's true rival is no longer Saakashvili but the church.
Documents leaked to Swedish investigative journalists and reviewed by RFE/RL appear to offer fresh evidence of a link between Swedish telecom giant TeliaSonera and Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the president of Uzbekistan.
The multinational musical glitzfest known as Eurovision holds its final in Sweden. But the main sponsor of this year's contest raises eyebrows for its ties to human rights abuses in the former Soviet Union.
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