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Belarus

Country archive · 40 posts

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Featured stories about Belarus

Kyrgyzstan: Facebook Post Spurs Row with Belarus

A photo uploaded on Facebook suggests that Janysh Bakiyev, the brother of the former Kyrgyzstani president ousted by 2010 protests, lives in Minsk. This has sparked an extradition request, the withdrawal of an ambassador and the storming of an embassy.

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Russia, Belarus: Medvedev and the “Belarusian Circus”

Russia: Success of National Wrestling System Explained

Russian wrestlers are often considered to be the best in the world. Citizen media suggest that a possible explanation for this is the relationship between politics and wrestling in Russia.

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Belarus: East and West and Nothing in Between? 25 July 2011
Belarus: Independence Day Clapping Protest (Videos) 6 July 2011
Belarus: Police Crack Down on Minsk Protest 24 June 2011
Ukraine: Memories and Photos of Chernobyl in August 1986 28 April 2011
Belarus: Beyond Bomb or Blast 12 April 2011

Latest stories about Belarus

22 September 2012

Belarus: Early Voting Boosts Turnout Amid Calls to Boycott Elections

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · Eastern & Central Europe

The parliamentary election in Belarus is to take place on Sunday, Sep. 23, but the early voting has already begun, and the turnout may end up being high, despite calls to boycott the vote.

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23 June 2012

Belarus: Views From the Ground

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · Eastern & Central Europe

Below is a selection of some "views from the ground" - recent posts by Belarusian bloggers about the situation in the country and what it is like for ordinary people to live there.

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28 May 2012

Belarus, Russia: An Online Charity Auction with People for Sale

Written by Teplitsa · Translated by Catherine Lawlor · Eastern & Central Europe

The idea of auctions as a fundraising tool is not a new one in the charity world. Sometimes, there is even a market for people: dinners with celebrities and business-breakfasts are sold under the hammer, too. Now, Belorussian and Russian projects are putting this logic to use online today.

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17 March 2012

Belarus: The 2011 Minsk Metro Explosion – A ‘Hall of Mirrors’

Written by Donna Welles · Eastern & Central Europe

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Vladislav Kovalev and Dmitry Konovalov - the men convicted and sentenced to death for their actions surrounding the April 2011 explosion in a Minsk subway station - have been executed despite international appeals to Belarusian President for clemency.

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12 April 2011

Belarus: Reactions to Subway Explosion

Written by Ashley Cleek · Eastern & Central Europe

A bomb blast inside the Oktyabrskaya station of the Minsk metro has so far left 11 dead and wounded hundreds. Ashley Cleek had been collecting information and bloggers' reactions in the chaos that followed the event.

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19 December 2010

Belarus: Presidential Election Day Ends in Protests and Crackdown

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · Eastern & Central Europe

December 19, the 2010 presidential election day in Belarus, ended in mass protests, arrests and violent clashes with the riot police in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Below is a small selection of citizen media reports on what happened.

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5 October 2010

Russia: Medvedev Addresses the People of Belarus via Video Blog

Written by Yelena Osipova · Eastern & Central Europe

Two weeks ago, Belarus' current leader and future presidential hopeful (yet again) bashed the Russian President's blog. Medvedev responded by sending a video blog message to the people of Belarus. Yelena Osipova looks at the details of this exchange.

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8 July 2010

Russia-Belarus: Godfather of refused offers

Written by Vilhelm Konnander · Eastern & Central Europe

Is it a deliberate provocation, a government-engineered attack on a foreign head of state, a gas-giant's attempt to rock Russian foreign policy - or simply an example of good and critical journalism? Questions abound in the Russian-language blogosphere following Russian TV-channel NTV's 4 July screening of "The Godfather" - a documentary about Aleksandr Lukashenko, omnipotent president of neighbouring Belarus.

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10 November 2009

Ukraine: Flu Stats, Panic, Gauze Masks (and Some Lingerie)

Written by Veronica Khokhlova · Eastern & Central Europe

According to Ukraine's Health Ministry, 1,031,597 people in Ukraine have fallen ill with "flu, acute respiratory illness and their complications (pneumonia, etc.)" between Oct. 29 and Nov. 9 - and 174 of them have died. In the Ukrainian blogosphere, much of the discussion of the current medical emergency focuses on whether there are enough reasons to panic or not.

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29 July 2009

Belarus, Russia: Bloggers React to Graphic Chechen War Video

Written by Mikola Andrejeu · Eastern & Central Europe

On July 3, Belarusian blogger Tatsiana Elavaya posted a provocative video showing the assassination of captive Russian soldiers by Chechen guerrillas during the 1999 war in Chechnya. The video had been available elsewhere before, but when Tatsiana posted it on her blog, the reaction of the Cyrillic blogosphere was unprecedented.

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Quick Reads about Belarus

26 April 2013

Chernobyl: “The Most Horrifying Phone Talk of the Century”

chernobyl dispatchers

April 26, 2013, marks the 27th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster. Andriy Pryimachenko of peredova.com has created a video transcript [ru] of the audio recordings of the conversations that took place shortly after the blast between the dispatchers of the plant's firefighting unit and other firefighting dispatchers and officials. On his Korrespondent.net blog, Ivan Mateyko comments [uk] on this “most horrifying phone talk of the 20th century”:

[...] Hard to guess what these people were thinking back then and whether they knew how serious the situation and its possible consequences were, but the horror in their voices is evident. [...]

Veronica Khokhlova

28 March 2013

‘Good Morning Earth!': Tweets from Space

Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield), a Canadian astronaut “currently living in space aboard ISS as Commander of [Expedition 35],” has been tweeting his amazing photos of the Earth daily since Dec. 2012.

Veronica Khokhlova

10 March 2013

The State of Torture in the World in 2013

On January 23, 2013, an excerpt from the annual report of l'ACAT-France, A World of Torture 2013, makes a fresh assessment of the state of torture in the world [fr]:

“A report called A World of Torture in 2013, assesses torture practices that continue to be alarming, from Pakistan to Italy, by way of South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Bolivia. From authoritarian regimes to democratic countries, none are exempt from criticism on the topic. In 2013, torture remains as endemic, omnipresent and multi-faceted as ever”.

Abdoulaye Bah

28 February 2013

World's Grumpiest Traveler Smiles Virtually :-)

It's not true that Vitaly Zelkovsky [ru], better known as “the world's grumpiest traveler,” never smiles. He does – virtually, at least. Reacting to the unexpected fame, Zelkovsky re-posted a Broken News Daily “report” about himself and exchanged a few words with two of his VKontakte friends. Both times, he used smilies:

“[...] If you work hard enough on something, it will definitely bring results :-)”

“You should just do what you love to do and the reward will find the hero :-)”

Veronica Khokhlova

12 September 2012

Belarus, Ukraine: No More Gratis UK Visas for Chernobyl Children?

According to this online petition, bringing Belarusian and Ukrainian children affected by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster to the UK for recuperative charity-sponsored visits will soon cost an additional £86 per child in visa fees.

Veronica Khokhlova

20 June 2012

Caucasus: Photo Reports by a Belarusian Blogger

Ani Wandaryan (@GoldenTent) links to this photo report [ru] from Armenia by Anton Motolko, a photographer, blogger and traveller from Minsk, Belarus (LJ user toxaby, @Motolko). More of his photos [ru] – from Azerbaijan and from Georgia.

Veronica Khokhlova

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