Stories from 19 November 2007
Serbia: A View on the Status of Kosovo
Balkan Anarchist writes about Kosovo and his own views on the situation: “In the interest of being respectful to both sides in this issue, how about, instead of claiming how Kosovo is just Serbian or only Albanian, we say Kosovo is both Serbian and Albanian! Why not? Not to mention...
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Fear of Another War
TOL's Balkanizer writes: “When Bosnia turns up on the NYT editorial page, things are not good.” And: “…Bosnians, regardless of ethnicity, do not see a clear way out of this crisis.”
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Government Crisis
A Fistful of Euros explains Bosnia and Herzegovina's government crisis: “Short version: the representative of the Serb entity, the Republika Serbska (RS), has resigned from the Council of Ministers. The Presidency (which is really a council composed of three Presidents, one from each ethnicity) accepted his resignation today. Officially this...
Serbia, the EU: Stability and Association Pact
A Fistful of Euros writes about Serbia's Stability and Association Pact with the EU (SAA), to be signed in Jan. 2008: “It looks like Brussels is trying to strengthen the ‘liberal and Western’ strain of Serbia’s politics before December, when problems are likely to arise with Kosovo.”
Russia: More on Khodrkovsky's Case
Robert Amsterdam posts an update on Mikhail Khodrkovsky's case: “The State’s conduct in this case is in clear violation of Russian and international law, and true rule of law courts from Switzerland to Strasbourg to Amsterdam are confirming what we have been arguing from the beginning – that the persecution...
Russia: “From Russia With Hate”
Via Moscow Through Brown Eyes, a rather shocking video story about the Russian neo-Nazi, posted on Current.com.
Russia: Moscow's Gastarbeiter
Moscow Through Brown Eyes offers an approach to writing about migrant workers in Moscow: “[…] it demands the excavation of Russia’s imperial pasts, a detailed examination of the labor question in the former Soviet Union and the contributions of migrant workers, a serious investigation of the nationalist rhetoric of Russia’s...
Russia, Israel: Football Game
Siberian Light writes about Israel's football victory over Russia.
Russia: Thoughts on the Election
Mark MacKinnon thinks that “there's going to be nothing like a real election to observe” in Russia on Dec. 2.
Russia: Itar-Tass Reviews ‘The New Cold War’
Mark MacKinnon is surprised that his book – The New Cold War – gets a positive review from the Russian state-run Itar-Tass news agency: “Now maybe, just maybe, the Kremlin will give me another visa.”
Russia: “Health Care”
La Russophobe re-posts a TOL story on Russia's prescription medicine and “the nightmarish ordeal of millions of cancer, diabetes, and heart patients.”
Russia, Mexico: Yuri Knorozov
De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis writes about life and work of Yuri Knorozov, a scientist renowned, among many other things, for his role in the deciphering of the Maya script.
Saudi Arabia: Raped and Punished
A Saudi girl was gang-raped and then punished for being raped, reports Saudi blogger Rasha, in a post which generated a hot debate in Mideast Youth.
Turkey: Armenian Stories
Myrthe at Internations Musings reviews a book of short stories by Turkish-Armenian writer Jaklin Celik.
Iraq: Yezidi Kurds
Blogger Amity briefs us about Yezidi Kurds in this post.
Israel/Palestine: A New Understanding
There are a lot of grassroots collaborations between Israelis and Palestinians that take place in a variety of arenas, but which get little attention and tend to be marginalized because of the larger political agendas that separate the two groups, writes Matthew in Mideast Youth.
Egypt: Middle East Report Out
The new issue of Middle East Report is out, with a focus on youth, announces The Arabist.
Armenia: Rising Prices
The Armenian Libertarian-Socialist Movement takes a look at various theories in circulation to explain recent price rises in Armenia.
Egypt: Yamli Search
Yamli Search is very intriguing new search engine that transliterates Arabic written in the Latin alphabet into Arabic proper, and then runs that query through Google, says The Arabist.
Brazil: Extreme poverty is halved
Edson Lima [pt] comments on a good piece of news: “Brazil has accomplished, ten years before the deadline set by the UN, the target of halving the percentage of the population that live in extreme poverty”. According to a report by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA), beteween 1990...
Georgia: Imedi Returns
TOL Georgia reports that journalists at the Georgian TV station Imedi which was taken off the air during the recent opposition protest will resume their work by writing for a local newspaper.
