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Eastern & Central Europe

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7 February 2012

Ukraine: Netizens React to Popular File-Sharing Website's Shutdown

Written by Tetyana Bohdanova · Ukraine

The news of the shutdown of Ukraine's most popular file-sharing website caused quite a stir online. Tetyana Bohdanova reports on the netizens' varied reactions to the controversy.

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Balkans: Online Platform Tracks Reports From Areas Hit by Record Snowfall

Written by Danica Radisic · Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria

Since last week, the Balkans have been hit by massive snow storms, the likes of which have not been seen in over a decade, if not longer. Danica Radisic reports on relevant initiatives launched by the region's online community, including the new Ushahidi platform for tracking verified information on road blocks, power outages and other critical points and information in the entire region.

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6 February 2012

Russia: Practice of Compulsory Military Service Comes Under Attack

Written by Donna Welles · Russia

Russia's compulsory military service practices are under attack due to a variety of reasons, including economic inefficiency, governmental corruption, and brutal hazing rituals that incite young conscripts to take their own lives. Donna Welles reports.

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5 February 2012

Russia: Day of Protests Divides Citizens

Written by Alexey Sidorenko · Russia

Despite temperatures of -20 degrees, thousands of Russians went out to the streets to participate in election manifestations. Some, organised online, were protesting against the elections and possible re-election of prime minister Vladimir Putin. Others, partly organised by pressure and bribes as well as fear of possible revolutions manifested that Putin should stay.

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31 January 2012

Moldova: Anti-Government Protests Receive Little Endorsement From Netizens

Written by Diana Lungu · Moldova

For the past two weeks Moldovans have been out in the streets, protesting. These protests, however, have received very little endorsement from Moldova's online community. Diana Lungu explains why.

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30 January 2012

Ukraine: The Story of Anna Boiko's Life

Written by Tetyana Bohdanova · Ukraine

"She is a cheerful, talented, strong person. A person who has been through a lot, who is full of knowledge and memories," writes Olya Suprun about her 75-year-old grandmother, whose memories she is sharing on the award-winning blog called "The Story of Anna Boiko's Life." Tetyana Bohdanova reports.

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Updates about Eastern & Central Europe

8 February 2012

Freedom of Speech

An anti-ACTA rally took place in Bratislava on Feb. 4. On the protest's Facebook page [sk], nearly 7,500 people wrote they would attend, and over 3,800 wrote they'd “maybe” attend. The weather was cold and windy; the recent news from Poland, which has postponed the ratification of ACTA, was good; and it's unlikely that anything will be approved before the Slovak early elections in March. As a result, only 500 people or so showed up for the rally [sk; photos; video]. This week, a number of Slovak and Czech politicians announced they were in favor of postponing the ratification of the controversial treaty.

• Tibor Blazko

7 February 2012

Breaking News

GV Author Ruslan Trad is tweeting - here, here, here, and here - about the severe flooding in southern Bulgaria, which was caused by heavy rainfall of the past few days and has killed at least eight people in the village of Bisser. The latest tweet came about an hour ago: “Breaking: Maritsa River’s dike broke close to the village of Generalovo, municipality of Svilenhrad, huge wave.” More photos from the disaster in the village of Bisser - at the Facebook page [bg] of the Bulgarian National TV's fundraising effort to help the victims.

• Veronica Khokhlova

3 February 2012

War & Conflict

Streetwise Professor and Siberian Light critically discuss Russia's ambitious plans, presented by vice-premier Dmitry Rogozin, to build an aircraft carrier and six submarines annually over the coming years.

• Vilhelm Konnander

RuNet Echo

Ex.ua, a file-sharing site that the authorities shut down two days ago, is now back online [uk], though its content is still inaccessible. @bl4ka tweets [ru]: “The DDoS revolution has won! […]” @VsemPohuy tweets [ru] about the DDoS attacks that followed the shutdown, and the situation in the country in general: “Ex.ua's back, it's now okay to stop DDoS-ing the sites of [the Interior Ministry], the president, etc. That students continue to be killed at police stations, that's [no big deal].” Journalist Pavel Sheremet writes [ru] about “the hackers' revolution”: “There was [Orange Maidan], then [“Tax Maidan”] […]. Now there's a Maidan on the internet.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

2 February 2012

RuNet Echo

Anonymous hackers had allegedly hacked an inbox of pro-Kremlin activist Kristina Potupchik and publicised [ru] a ‘price-list' of posts of the most popular Russian bloggers. Government-sponsored Nashi were caught several times on organizing paid campaigns aimed to influence blogosphere's opinion. The prices vary from 130 to 1000 US dollars per post.

• Alexey Sidorenko

1 February 2012

RuNet Echo

RosMiting.ru (Russian meeting), a community portal of protest actions, had launched. The portal accumulates information about protest events in various cities of Russia. It was created by the same team which started other interactive portals such as RosYama, RosPil, RosAgit, and RosVybory, politically-engaged crowdsourced communities and interactive portals developed in 2010-2012.

• Alexey Sidorenko

RuNet Echo

Ulyanovsk-based blogger Oleg Sofyin (LJ-user lis73) won a court case against Ulyanovsk governor Svetlana Openysheva, lenta.ru reports [ru]. Openysheva tried to sue Sofyin for publishing a post where he described a phone call during which someone named Azat threatened him if he will continue to post critical articles about Openysheva. Despite winning the case, blogger writes [ru] that people fear to support him because they're afraid of possible consequences.

• Alexey Sidorenko

Comments on "Eastern & Central Europe"

Bulgaria: Thousands Take Part in Anti-ACTA Protests

Black March Boycott protest ACTA, do NOT buy Movies, Music or Video Games for the month of March. Get the...
Great article,great job.Even though we have much bigger problems in Bulgaria than ACTA i feel proud and happy that young...
Next time we will be there again :)