Mon 22 Jun 2009
The president of Russia's troubled North Caucasus region of Ingushetia, Yunusbek Yevkurov is in critical condition after his convoy was hit by a car bomb explosion this morning near Nazran. He is the fourth official to be wounded or killed in Daghestan and Ingushetia in the last three weeks in an incident that bears signs of an assassination attempt by the North Caucasus resistance. Yevkurov’s younger brother and three of his bodyguards were reportedly killed in the blast, and five other bodyguards were injured. Some reports suggest that the attack was the work of a suicide bomber. The 48-year-old career military intelligence officer was appointed President of the Republic of Ingushetia eight months ago by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
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Mon 22 Jun 2009
Former Moldovan parliamentary speaker Marian Lupu, having recently quit the ruling Communist Party (PCRM), has announced his decision to accept the offer of the DPM to top its list in the upcoming early parliamentary elections of July 29th.
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Mon 22 Jun 2009
On 20 June the High Representative in Bosnia, Valentin Inzko, announced that he had annulled the conclusions previously adopted by Republika Srpska's (RS) parliament, obliging the entity's institutions and officials to oppose any future transfer from the entity to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). In a statement published on the Office of the High Representative's (OHR) website, Inzko said the resolution violates both the Dayton Peace Agreement and BiH's constitution, as it undermines BiH's exclusive competencies. Inzko's move came after he met RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik and Parliament Speaker Igor Radojicic to discuss the controversial resolution.
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Fri 19 Jun 2009
On June 18th Belarus resumed supplies of its dairy products to Russia after Moscow agreed to lift its embargo.
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Fri 19 Jun 2009
On Thursday 18 June talks in Brussels aimed at settling the Croatian-Slovenian border dispute once again failed. This decreased the chances for Croatia to complete its EU accession talks by the end of this year.
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Thu 18 Jun 2009
On Tuesday (16 June) Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had a special meeting with the country's military chief General Ilker Basbug to discuss an alleged plot to discredit the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party and destabilise the government.
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Thu 18 Jun 2009
The Newsflash of the European Forum of Democracy and Solidarity is a bi-monthly news bulletin covering relevant political developments in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, and the South Caucasus. Click here to read the first Newsflash of 2010.
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Wed 17 Jun 2009
Florence Hartmann, former employee of the International Criminal Court for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), is charged with contempt of court for having quoted in her book and article from confidential documents of the Milosevic trial. The documents contained information about the military command structure of Serbia according to which the ICTY judges concluded that Milosevic was without any doubt a member of a criminal organisation with the intent to destroy Bosnian Muslims as a group, not just in Srebrenica but also in other towns in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH). Furthermore, it was concluded from the notes that Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian-Serb military leader and war crime fugitive, did not just receive men and weapons from Belgrade, but his orders as well.
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Wed 17 Jun 2009
Starting 09:00 local time on June 17th Belarus tightened the customs control over cargo traffic on the border with Russia following Presidential instructions in a signal of further deteriorating relations between the two.
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Tue 16 Jun 2009
On Monday 15 June masked police armed with sticks, attacked dozens of protesters from the youth pro-opposition groups, which were rallying outside the Tbilisi police headquarters. The demonstrators (about 50 people) were protesting against the arrest of six people who were sentenced in connection with the June 12 incident outside the Parliament, when a fight erupted between protesters and the parliament guard. Irakli Abashidze, a close ally of Irakli Alasania, leader of Alliance for Georgia, was among the protesters that were beaten-up by the police.
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Tue 16 Jun 2009
On June 16th Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin officially dissolved the parliament and set the date for the early parliamentary elections for July 29th, a Wednesday.
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Tue 16 Jun 2009
Post-election protests in Iran following Ahmadinejad victory
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Tue 16 Jun 2009
On 16 June Iran’s powerful Guardian Council said it is ready to recount disputed votes from the presidential election of 12 June. In this election the incumbent president Ahmadinejad won the election with 62.6% of the votes, while his rival Mir Hossein Mousavi only received 33.75% of the votes. Mousavi is considered the moderate candidate, who is more Western oriented and has the support of students in Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has upheld the election result, urged the Guardian Council to "precisely consider" the complaints. The election has been disputed by the main opposition leader Mousavi and by other moderate candidates, saying the election was rigged. Ahmadinejad denied these allegations. This triggered mass protests in cities in Iran, the biggest protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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Mon 15 Jun 2009
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On June 14th, Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenko did not attend a Moscow summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, raising the stakes in an escalating trade conflict with Russia.
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Mon 15 Jun 2009
On Sunday 15 June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded in a political statement on television to uncommon pressure from Washington by finally giving his backing –with rigid conditions- to the establishment of a Palestinian “state”. The speech is widely seen as an attempt to defuse the growing rift between Israel and the U.S and comes after Obama's address to the Arab world 10 days ago.
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