27 November 2007

Stories from 27 November 2007

Russia: Saami Parliament

  27 November 2007

Russia's Saami “want to set up their own parliament to control the dispersal of government funds allocated to their numerically small nationality,” Window on Eurasia reports.

Russia: Kasparov's Hunger Strike

  27 November 2007

Garry Kasparov is in jail and on “forced hunger strike” – and Robert Amsterdam believes that the ongoing crackdown on the opposition “reveals tremendous insecurities related to an unsustainable state model.”

Poland: Kapuściński's Translators

  27 November 2007

Our Man in Gdansk writes about a collection of stories by translators of Ryszard Kapuściński: “It was to have been birthday present, but Kapuściński died before it appeared. The contributions vary widely in subject matter, some not referring at all to translation making it less than essential reading for the...

Poland: Tusk's Long Speech

  27 November 2007

The beatroot reports on the recent “policy statement” speech by Poland's new prime minister: “Tusk drones on for three hours […] Meanwhile Kaczynski, Gosiewski and Dorn lose consciousness, as did most of Poland. It was agony. Like listening to paint dry.”

The Balkans: A Dialect of Serbo-Croatian

  27 November 2007

Balkan Anarchist writes at length about an East Herzegovinian dialect of the Serbo-Croat language: “Although the Serbo-Croatian language is not particularly under threat – well, the language isn't, but the use of the name “Serbo-Croat”, it must be admitted, has significantly dropped ever since the break up of Yugoslavia –...

Georgia: Campaign Begins

  27 November 2007

Following on from a state of emergency declared earlier in the month, Resistance Georgia reports that the campaign for a snap presidential election in earlier January has already started. However, the anti-Saakashvili blog says that the signs are not good for a free and fair election.

Armenia: Labor Dynamics

  27 November 2007

Social Science in the Caucasus comments on a World Bank report on labor dynamics in Armenia. The blog of the Caucasus Resource Research Center says that its findings revealing that up to a third of Armenian youth neither work nor study are in line with its own.

Armenia: “Voting” Underway

  27 November 2007

With the presidential election in Armenia less than three months away, the Armenia Election Monitor 2008 blog reports that voting is already underway. However, rather than casting votes for a presidential candidate, the vote taking place is being conducted by one political party interested in learning which of two possible...