There seems to be a dangerous crisis in progress between Russia and Georgia. During the past week, the Georgians have surrounded the headquarters of the Russian forces in Georgia with policemen and arrested four officers of the GRU (Russian military intelligence) for allegedly spying and conspiring with opponents of the government, in order (so they [...]

Our next anniversary guest post is written by the the great Jonathan Edelstein.
It’s starting to look like the season of referenda in the near abroad.
On September 17, less than a week from today, voters in the unrecognized republic of Transnistria, located between Moldova and Ukraine, will be asked to vote on whether to “renounce [their] [...]

From Lebanon’s Daily Star:
Turkey on Monday appointed a general who is expected to adopt a tougher line toward EU negotiations to replace the head the country’s powerful military, who was widely considered a moderate. The change in leadership, which was widely anticipated, comes as Turkey is insisting that Washington do more to crack down on [...]

Huge flap in Romania this week, as it’s been revealed that the Communist-era secret police recruited children to spy on parents and classmates.
This should come as no surprise. Nicolae Ceaucescu was a creepy little thug, and his Securitate were the scum of the earth. If you can think of a sleazy, evil activity, [...]

You can get away with this sort of thing while everyone is glued to their TV sets, watching 22 men chase a round thing, but eventually someone outside the country is likely to notice…
For four weeks now Lithuania has been without a government, ever since President Valdas Adamkus dismissed the ministers of the populist Labour [...]

When I lived in Vienna, in 2001-2002, I lived in the 11th District, Simmering, a roughish working-class suburb struck through with railway lines and motorway spurs. Specifically, I lived in one of the four huge brick gasometers of the former city gasworks, once Europe’s biggest, now redeveloped as a mixture of shops, flats and a [...]

Europe’s newest state, Montenegro, has just been given the go-ahead for the first step towards EU membership, as Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn agrees with the Montenegrins that a Stabilisation & Accession Agreement could be signed by the end of the year. Rehn is due in Belgrade next, although you’d have to be very optimistic [...]

For the first time since the fall of Communism, a national election in Hungary is not being followed by a change of government. Eszter points to a useful graphic from Népszabadság, a Bdapest daily newspaper, that shows the compositions of all of Hungary’s post-1989 parliaments. There’s an ebb and flow of parties (particularly the growth [...]

The German newspaper whose web site has marginally improved published an interview today* with Arthur Baghdasarian, leader of the second-largest party in the Armenian parliament. He has been president of parliament since 2003, and he is seen as a leading candidate to be president of the republic in 2008. They talk about whether or not [...]

Well, following up the last post on Belarus, it seems that German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has mirrored what went on in that Patterson School command post exercise to an eerie degree. In the simulation, apparently, Gerhard Schröder made a fool of himself by lining up with the Russians…and, strange to tell, Steinmeier has done [...]