Posts tagged azerbaijan

Here is what you can read on today’s Around the Bloc, TOL’s daily aggregation of the five most important news items related to Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union.

• In London, Putin lauds Russian judo team’s Olympic gold trifecta

• Uzbek bill to ban foreign military bases to affect U.S.
• Serbia seeks new IMF loan agreement for ailing economy
• Bosnia mulling ‘name and shame’ for tax evaders
• Azerbaijan reduces journalist’s prison sentence

Here is what you could read on Around the Bloc, the collection of the 5 most important news of the day in the former Soviet area.

Explosion on Bulgarian bus kills Israeli tourists

Russia to build Belarus’ first nuclear power plant

European Commission has harsh words for Romania in latest report

Hungary detains Nazi suspect

Presidential election in Nagorno-Karabakh heightens regional tensions

Baku’s skyrocketing weapons spending and saber-rattling rhetoric raise fears of an arms race in the South Caucasus.

An analysis of Azerbaijani military spending, based on annual presidential statements and figures reported in state media, shows Aliev is being slightly modest. The country’s military allocation is 22.5 times higher than in 2003, when it totaled $160 million.

The buildup, and the government’s rhetoric about it, have begun to fuel concerns in the international community about Azerbaijan’s intentions. In a recent report, the International Crisis Group worried that Aliev was preparing for military intervention in Karabakh, a move that would have much wider regional implications, given past Russian and Iranian support for Armenia and Azerbaijan’s close relationship with Turkey.

Read the full article on TOL’s website

Here is what you can read on today’s Around the Bloc:

Romania: High court upholds suspension of President 

Russia‬: Kremlin blames local officials in ‪flooding‬ that left 170 dead in ‪Krasnodar‬

‪Russian‬ ‪Wikipedia‬ protests ‘online censorship’ plans

‪Azerbaijan‬: Former president, once a scapegoat for loss of‪ Karabakh‬, returns from exile

Poland: Waiting in line for bread was never so much fun! 

Here is what you can read on today’s Around the Bloc:

Language bill passes in Kyiv with legislative sleight-of-hand

Romania’s government launches endgame to claim presidency

Treason charges for journalist in Azerbaijan

Moscow tightens the noose for dissenters

Polish amnesty offer gets modest response

Azerbaijani authorities claim to have thwarted an Islamic terrorist plot before the Eurovision Song Contest, but skeptics say Baku is trying to distract from criticism of its human-rights record.

BAKU | Azerbaijani authorities say they foiled an elaborate plot to bomb religious buildings, assassinate the president, and sow terror over the two months leading up to the Eurovision Song Contest last month in Baku.

The arrests of 40 men allegedly funded by insurgents in the Russian republic of Dagestan, like similar raids over the past few years, have sparked debate over the degree to which foreign-inspired Islamist terrorists pose a threat to the country. Many Muslims in Azerbaijan deny any connection between the growing number of new Islamic organizations and violent ideology, while critics of the government say Baku exaggerates the threat of terrorism for political motives.

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1. The mob follows the money, to Ukraine’s hotels

Reports of price-gouging by hotels in Ukraine have been surfacing for months ahead of the country’s playing co-host with Poland to the Euro 2012 soccer championship. But Spiegel Online reports on a new wrinkle, which it says a German tourist agency operating in the country, European soccer’s governing body, and the Ukrainian government “have been trying to keep out of the news.”

According to the magazine, organized crime groups are muscling in on the hotel trade before the tournament, which takes place from 8 June to 1 July. “A few weeks back,” the magazine says, “masked men wielding clubs and shields stormed” the lobby of the Slavutich Hotel in Kyiv to claim it for the Lushniki syndicate, which Spiegel describes as a notorious criminal gang. “In the hotel, the attackers beat employees and shot a guest.”

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