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A 5.6 magnitude earthquake, the strongest since 1917, shook Bulgaria's capital Sofia and the perimeter zone of around 100 km last night, followed by a number of strong aftershocks. No victims have been reported so far. The website Earthquake Reports has published live updates and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook were the first ones to spread the news. The hashtag #земетресение (”earthquake”) is used to communicate on the event through Twitter.
Young Bulgarians and guests from Italy, with support of the New Bulgarian University and project “Beautiful Europe” [bg] will meet on May 23 to discuss the “European idea” and what Europe means to Bulgarians at an event called “Blue Night” - an evening dedicated to the European idea [bg]. The event comes just one day before one of the brightest Bulgarian holidays - the Day of Slavic writing and culture.
Activists in Bulgaria have called for national protests against shale gas extraction on May 22. There is a Facebook event [bg] “National protest against shale gas and changes in Forest Law!”. Tensions are growing after The Greens' activist posted a video [bg] showing a secret meeting between the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) representatives and Chevron officials.
In the final segment of the report [ru] on the May 6 protest in Moscow, which ended in clashes with riot police, the Russian state-owned Channel 1 mentioned, among other things, a Spanish draft law [en] criminalizing online organization of public protests, as an example of the “much tougher” treatment of protesters by the “colleagues” of the Russian law enforcement officials “in the countries with the so-called established democracy.”
Sandra Jürs blogged in Estonian about her participation in the Skopje Marathon/Half-Marathon [mk, en] on May 6, 2012.
With the proliferation of mobile phone in marginal and underrepresented communities it is important for citizen journalists and activists to... More »
that map? Philippines and Malaysia are the closest to the Spratly this other map contained...
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Unfortunately, covering the Red Shirts as if they are pro-democracy and victims of state crimes,...
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Based on the Wikipedia list of countries, details.
Thanks for flagging this up, Vilhelm. It’s quite an issue.
A commenter on my site noted:
For people such as myself, who work outside Russia, nothing much has changed — but for people who either want to work in Russia, or stay more than 90/180, few options remain.
One can understand Putin’s animosity to NGOs, but at the same time most of the ordinary workers were Russophiles. Remember Wayan Vota, of Belly Button Window fame, who wrote endearingly about Russia while working for the Peace Corps.
Maybe Russia is now alienating some of its best ambassadors.
I’ve received some interesting comments off-site about this and I’ll write an update.
I welcome further coverage on this issue, not least because it is interesting to see how Russia handles visa regulations and residence of foreign nationals in the country. In recent years, not least the party in power – United Russia – has stressed the importance of foreign expertise to assist in developing and diversifying Russian business and economy. Tougher terms for foreigners in Russia thus seems as contrary to what actually is intended. Perhaps, it is a simple question of reciprocity as the wider implementation of e.g. EU Schengen rules may have been considered detrimental to Russia, why the country has imposed counteractive measures. Still, if you are right, Russian government officials should perhaps reconsider whether such regulations really are in the true interest of the country.
Thanks for the shout-out Copy Dude, I think about Russia often, and I have to say that I really enjoyed my time there and really glad I’m not there now.
Back in the day, Westerners were treated like rock stars – partly because we had our act together and partly because Russia didn’t. Now Russia has its act together again, and I can see the old pride coming back.
Then, they were annoyed the Peace Corps was there, “We’re not Africa! We a superpower!” but their exclamations rang hollow. Now.. well now they have a decent case to say they can do things themselves and don’t need or want foreign help.
My feelings? Good on them. Glad to see Russia strong again.