Latest Articles about Europe
Opposition Divided Ahead Of Ukrainian Presidential Elections
One day after the Ukrainian presidential elections officially started on July 3, four major candidates filed their papers with the Central Election Commission. The oligarchic regional clans and political parties of the pro-presidential camp have united behind Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. His own Party of... MORE
Nato Summit Takes Stock Of Ukraine’s Performance
Meeting on June 29 at the level of heads of state and government, the NATO-Ukraine Commission reviewed implementation of the NATO-Ukraine Action Plan adopted at the alliance's preceding summit in Prague, November 2002. The Commission's June 29 review focused both on long-term military and security... MORE
Baltic States Are Welcomed Into Nato, But Russia Still Looms In The Background
The Istanbul summit marked the entry of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into NATO as full members. In one of the keynote addresses during the summit, Latvia's President Vaira Vike-Freiberga spoke for all the ten countries that joined NATO between 2002 and 2004. She looked back... MORE
Rumsfeld In Moldova, Voronin At Nato, Demand Russian Withdrawal
En route to Istanbul for the NATO summit, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stopped in Moldova and conferred with President Vladimir Voronin. Rumsfeld's formal purpose was to thank Moldova for contributing 44 de-mining specialists to the coalition force in Iraq until March, and its... MORE
Ukraine Turns Down Early Membership Prospecyt In Nato
President Leonid Kuchma was finally able to meet President George W. Bush at the June NATO summit in Istanbul. Over the last three years the Bush administration had rebuffed attempts by Kuchma to return to the cozy U.S.-Ukrainian relationship of the 1990s under President Bill... MORE
Russian And Ukrainian Authorities Resort To Inter-ethnic Violence To Block Yushchenko
A November 2003 document prepared by Russian "political technologists" working for Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the Presidential Administration, has been leaked to Ukrayinska Pravda (June 25). The report outlines how President Leonid Kuchma could win a third term by discrediting his main opponent as a... MORE
Viktor Yushchenko Lines Up High-profile Election Team
On the eve of the official July 3 launch of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections, front-runner Viktor Yushchenko announced three important steps in his campaign strategy. The three-pronged approach will help Yushchenko consolidate a wide-embracing election campaign against his main opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych,... MORE
Unresolved Gongadze Murder May Be Issue In Ukrainian Elections
Tension has again re-surfaced surrounding the autumn 2000 murder and beheading of Ukrainian opposition journalist Heorhiy Gongadze. On June 17, Hryhoriy Omelchenko, head of the parliamentary committee investigating the murder, announced that his commission had reached a unanimous verdict. The commission concluded that Ukrainian President... MORE
East Versus West In Lithuania
On June 22, five days before the Lithuanian presidential election runoff, the government's Special Investigations Service (SIS) raided the offices of four political parties, seized financial and other documents, and announced "corruption" indictments against five politicians from those parties. The four parties are: Social-Democrats, led... MORE
Osce In Moldova: Showing The Flag For What It’s Worth
A delegation of 27 Vienna-based ambassadors to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from member countries visited Moldova on June 9-12. This unprecedented, mass descent was followed by the visit of OSCE's Chairman-in-Office for 2004, Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Minister Solomon Passy, in... MORE