Russia
Swine Flu follies: Reactions and overreactions to virus's spread
November 10, 2009As the swine-flu virus continues to spread through the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the measures taken by some governments range from bizarre and befuddled to possibly political. Moldova: Add Politics And Stir In Moldova, which has 269 confirmed...
YouTube police whistle blower fired in Russia
November 09, 2009By Brian Whitmore Routine falsification of evidence. Pressure to arrest the innocent. Poor working conditions. And a low salary. Aleksei Dymovsky, a police major in the Black Sea port town of Novorossiisk, finally decided enough was enough. So last...
Moldova reports second lethal case of swine flu
November 04, 2009The second lethal case of swine flu has been registered in Moldova. The victim is a 35-year-old man who has recently returned from Russia. According to Deputy Health Minister Oleg Lozan, the man came to Moldova on Thursday evening [29 October]. The...
- Ukraine: Swine Flu mania in Kyiv
November 03, 2009By Irene Chalupa Upon landing at Kyiv’s Boryspil airport on Sunday afternoon, I was met by Ukrainian passport-control personnel in surgical masks. I suddenly noticed that a number of people on line were also wearing masks of various sizes...
Romanian parliament simplifies citizenship acquiring procedure
October 31, 2009The Parliament of Romania has approved the amendments to the Citizenship Law, proposed by Romanian President Traian Basescu and making the citizenship acquiring procedure substantially easier for Republic of Moldova residents. In its new shape, the Law...
Stalin returns to the Moscow Metro
October 14, 2009Produced by Alexander Kulygin of RFE/RL's Russian Service Josef Stalin’s name and image once graced the walls of the Moscow metro, but they disappeared during the era of de-Stalinization in the 1950s. Now, months before the 130th anniversary...
Russia Owes Its Greatness to the Golden Horde, Gainutdin Says
September 28, 2009By Paul Goble Ravil Gainutdin, the head of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR), has touched off a firestorm by his comments about the role of Islam in the past and future of Russia, a reminder if one is needed of how sensitive almost all historical...
- No End Of Frozen Conflict In Moldova's Transdniester
August 18, 2009By Gregory Feifer Forlorn concrete apartment blocks greet visitors just across the heavily guarded border of this lush sliver of land along the Dniester River. Elderly men push baby carriages through the half-abandoned streets: it's mostly the very...
US Prosecutors Charge Three In Largest Identity Theft In History
August 18, 2009Officials in the United States have charged a 28-year-old American man and two foreign accomplices -- identified as "having resided in or near Russia" -- with data theft from an estimated 130 million credit and debit cards. That makes it the...
- Russia: Dam Disaster Opening New Era of ‘Technogenic’ Disasters
August 18, 2009By Paul Goble The deadly disaster at the Sayano-Shushensk dam in Khakassia, the fifth largest hydro-electric facility in the world, occurred because officials sought to generate more electricity than the dam was designed to produce and because Moscow...