Stories about Eastern & Central Europe from December, 2011
Macedonia: Pioneering Battery Disposal Initiative
Greener, a Macedonian NGO, blogged [mk] about their pilot-project Go Clean [FB page, mk], which aims to grow into a national campaign for proper disposal of used batteries and accumulators.
Russia: AIDS Epidemic – “Shame Russia Shame”
International organizations are taking notice of Russia's AIDS epidemic and the hurdles the country faces in combating it. Recent international attention has been directed toward Russia's healthcare system, the stigma attached to those infected, and Russia's drug policies. Donna Welles reports.
Macedonia: Twitter Hashtag for Prime Minister – #Ж
The Macedonian Twitter community is using the hashtag #Ж (uppercase of the Cyrillic letter romanized as Zh or Ž) as the shortcut symbol referring to the Macedonian PM. Filip Stojanovski explains why.
Macedonia: Health System Software Vendor Lock-in
Novica Nakov warned [mk] that the state discriminates against users of operating systems like GNU/Linux or Mac OS X, purporting vendor lock-in by forcing medical doctors to use the latest version of Windows as the only platform for the obligatory e-health card software [mk] by the Fund for Health Insurance...
Macedonia, Greece, Turkey: Bridging the Divides Through Multilingual Reporting
Two recent initiatives by civic-minded journalists added value to the e-content in local languages from Macedonia and nearby countries: Diversity Media is offering news analysis through text and audio podcasts in Macedonian and Albanian, and Balkon3.com is enabling “peeking over the neighbors’ fence” in Macedonian, Turkish, Greek, and English. The...
Russia: Moscow Election Committee Calls to Prosecute Popular Blogger
Moscow Election Committee had issued an official letter to the Prosecutor's office and the police to start an investigation of probable defamation against Oleg Kozyrev, one of the top Russian bloggers, blogger reports [ru]. The letter is the reply to Kozyrev's complaint letter he had sent to the Committee earlier.
Russia: Social Network In-Between Security Services and Free Market
As social networks in Russia like Vkontakte play an ever increasing role in communication between post-election protesters, so too grows the interest of the security services to limit them. This conflict leads to a hard choice: whether Vkontakte should respond to security service requests, or allow its users uncontrolled protest activity.
Russia: The Opposition in St. Petersburg Fails to Reach Understanding
December 2011 post-election protest events consist of two elements: 'professional oppositioners' and concerned citizens. In Moscow those two elements managed to get together. In St. Petersburg, however, the meeting was let down by one of the parties. Citizens responded with confusion and disdain.
Macedonia: Christmas Tree Made of Plastic Bottles
Inspired by the example of Kaunas, Lithuania, Macedonian Twitter users made a Christmas tree from plastic bottles at the Skopje City Park on Dec. 25, to raise awareness of everyone's responsibility for the environment. The action's organizers used their blogs [mk, mk, mk, mk] as a starting point for the...
Hungary: Presidents in Correspondence, Journalist in Blind Copy
Attila Mong, a Hungarian journalist, has obtained and published on his blog the letter sent by José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, to the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán. Marietta Le reports.
Video Highlights: Protests, Elections, Culture and GV
A selection of Global Voices' recent and interesting stories including video from Middle East and North Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, Eastern and Central Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America, selected by Juliana Rincón Parra.
Macedonia, Poland: Remembering Solidarność
Macedonian blogger Zoriv reminisced about the fall of socialism by publishing original photos [mk] he made during the 1981 protests in Warsaw, Poland, organized by Solidarity Trade Union.
Macedonia, Nepal: First Female Macedonian on Major Himalayan Peak
Macedonian climbers Ilina Arsova and Ilija Ristovski have successfully climbed the Himalayan summit of Ama Dablam, on Nov. 18, 2011. Ilina wrote about this achievement on her blog, in Macedonian and English.
Russia: Opposition Faces Online Communication Problems
The ability to broadcast the events of December 2011 in Russia live online, has made people around the world and in the country the spectators of a truly historical event – the December 22 gathering of some 100-150 opposition activists, who represented thousands of the netizens and millions of not-connected Russians.
Russia: Phone Hacking Case Unites Opposition
The leaking of private phone conversations of a prominent Russian opposition leader to the media has given rise to many issues and left a lot of questions unanswered. Dmitry Davidov reports.
CEE: More on Václav Havel and His Legacy
More posts on Václav Havel and his legacy from around the region's Anglophone blogosphere: Richard Byrne of Balkans via Bohemia; CzechFolks.com; Petr Bokuvka of The Czech Daily Word – here and here; Jeremy Druker of TOL's East of Center; Tjebbe van Tijen and Mary Kaldor for OpenDemocracy.net; Giustino of Itching...
Czech Republic: A Tribute to Václav Havel
A tribute to Václav Havel, by Luboš Motl of The Reference Frame: “[…] Havel has been an unusually strong moral autority that has influenced even people such as me who ultimately found out that they disagree with him about many pretty fundamental things. He's been proposed for a peace Nobel...
Russia: Alexey Navalny Released From Jail
“Everyone's waiting for Navalny ) 5 more minutes! pic.twitter.com/3BRHiuGa,” tweeted [ru] @varlamov a short while ago, posting a picture of the crowd waiting outside a Moscow prison for activist Alexey Navalny‘s release. @plushev tweeted [ru]: “Absolutely fantastic numbers. In the middle of the night, some 5,000 people are viewing [the...
Global Voices: Donate Today
2011 has been an extraordinary year for online content. Global Voices has been there as revolutions happened, dictatorships fell, and network effects rippled through the cities and neighborhoods of our contributors reporting from around the world.
Russia: Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the 2012 Presidential Election
Incarcerated since 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is once again in Russia's political spotlight as presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov vows to pardon him if he's elected next spring. Donna Welles reports.
Poland: Change to Drug Law, Change in Policy?
On December 9, an important change was introduced to Poland's drug policy: an amendment to the law on illegal drug possession came into force, which would allow prosecutors to abandon initiation of the criminal procedure against those in possesion of drugs. Anna Gotowska reports.
About our Eastern & Central Europe coverage
Filip Stojanovski is the Central Europe editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.
Daria Dergacheva is the Eastern Europe editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.
