Ukraine Peace Talks Resume, Macedonia Frees Captive Migrants
Plus, four Tajikistani border guards released after months as Taliban hostages, and Kazakhstan nears the finish of a WTO membership marathon. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
OSCE Secretary General and ODIHR Director meet with President, other high-level officials on Belarus visit
MINSK, 16 June 2015 – Strengthening OSCE engagement with Belarus was the focus of a two-day visit to Minsk by OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier and Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Michael Georg Link which concluded today. Zannier and Link met President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Foreign...
The Muddled Thinking at the G-7 Only Encourages Putin
Leaders at the recent G-7 summit reaffirmed their commitment to keeping sanctions on Russia in place. They also agreed that sanctions will likely be extended until 2016 because Russia has failed to implement the Minsk II ceasefire agreement. But the summit ended on a disappointing note: The summit communiqué and all the G-7 leaders indicated that...
Celebrating Russia Day, the Country Finds Itself With No Future
The meaning of Russia Day, the holiday celebrated last Friday, June 12, remains obscure and even foreign for the majority of Russians. Overall, the population has mixed feelings about the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was precipitated by the declaration of state sovereignty of the Russian Federation (commemorated by Russia Day) and the...
Bringing Belarus Back in From the Cold (Part Three)
To read Part One, please click here.To read Part Two, please click here. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s policy is one of benevolent neutrality sympathetic toward Ukraine in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Belarus’s diplomacy and its trade policies tilt in Ukraine’s favor to the extent possible without antagonizing Russia (see...
Russia Shutters Northern Distribution Network
On May 15, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev issued a resolution closing the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a network of rail and road links across Russia and the post-Soviet space that had provided logistical transit to Afghanistan for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) military equipment and weapons since 2008 (Moskovsky...
Activist Flees Baku for Switzerland Refuge, Moldova Voters Remain Split
Plus, Saakashvili is poised to make big cuts in Odessa and the UN leader talks human rights in Central Asia. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Quickie Russian Citizenship in Transdniester
The consulate in the breakaway region of Moldova is reportedly creating lots of new citizens, who might need to be protected one day. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Soros – An American Oligarch‘s Dirty Tale of Corruption
Rarely does the world get a true look inside the corrupt world of Western oligarchs and the brazen manipulations they use to enhance their fortunes at the expense of the public good. The following comes from correspondence of the Hungarian-born billionaire, now naturalized American speculator, George Soros. The hacker group CyberBerkut has...
Orthodoxy and the Future of Secularism After the Maidan
In many ways the undeclared war between Russia and Ukraine has triggered seismic shifts in the religious landscape in the two countries. Although united by a common Eastern Christian faith tradition, Russia and Ukraine are increasingly separated by the same. …read more Source: Woodrow Wilson International Center for...
