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From: Transitions Online <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: New at TOL
Date: 27 December 2000 17:55
Transitions Online (TOL) (http://www.tol.cz) is the leading Internet
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Gift memberships cost only $25. Order online at:
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NEW AT TOL:
INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION: In case you missed it, on Tuesday 26 December,
washingtonpost.com, in cooperation with Transitions Online, presented a
live, Internet discussion about politics in Yugoslavia and the outcome of
the Serbian elections. TOL Senior Editor Tihomir Loza stepped in to answer
readers questions when Milos Vasic, a writer for the weekly Vreme and a TOL
consultant, couldn't make it because of persistent power outages in
Belgrade. You can read the transcript of the program at:
http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/00/vasic1226.htm
Watch for more washingtonpost.com/TOL online discussions on events and
issues of regional importance in the coming year!
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culture, history, travel and life. Each bimonthly issue is a colorful,
objective window into the reality of Russia, past, present and future. To
start a subscription, visit:
<http://www.russian-life.com/store/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=4242&aff=5>
To visit the rest of our website, where we sample stories from the
magazine, back issues of our FREE weekly e-mail newsletter, plus some great
resources (like a worldwide events calendar and directory of
Russophile-related businesses), simply go to: http://www.russian-life.com
*******************************************************
SPECIAL HOLIDAY ISSUE: This week TOL features 10 of our best articles of
the year. From flawed elections in Belarus and Azerbaijan to a triumphant
march on Belgrade, from reopening history in Lithuania and strained
relations in Central Europe to life in a tiny Krygyz village and a freezing
winter in Russia's Far East, these stories were all illustrative of an
eventful 2000.
We'll be back with new material next week. Happy New Year from the entire
TOL staff!
*******************************************************
Worlds Apart (April)
by Tim Judah
http://archive.tol.cz/apr00/worldapart.html
In the struggle for Kosovo, language has long been a weapon of war. Today,
just as the Serbs have been driven from Pristina as well as much of the
rest of Kosovo, so has Serbian. What remains for the ethnic Albanians is
the sticky politics of their own divided language. In the Kosovar capital,
the old bilingual signs are gone, storefronts with Cyrillic writing are
history, and the statue of Vuk Karadzic, the 19th-century founder of modern
literary Serbian, which stood outside the university, has been toppled.
Even to be heard speaking Serbian on the streets is to risk death. With the
Serbian language largely exiled from Kosovo, inter-Albanian language
politics raise the question of a unified state.
Fumbling With History (May)
by Howard Jarvis
http://archive.tol.cz/jul99/specr05001.html
Ten years after regaining their independence, most Lithuanians would prefer
to forget their painful wartime history and get on with living. An
economic recession is driving them to worry about the future, rather than
dwell on the past-and the powerful Catholic Church is not exactly
encouraging dialogue. But a number of recent events have opened wounds that
have been festering for over 50 years. Many are the result of positive
efforts by some Lithuanians to bring the subject of the Holocaust back into
the public eye.
Rebels and Refugees: Central Asian Dilemma (June)
by Alisher Khamidov
http://archive.tol.cz/jul99/specr06001.html
Summer has come back to Karabakh-a village of 5,977 people located in the
Batken province in southern Kyrgyzstan. Some 50 families from the
province's barely accessible mountainous villages found refuge here after
Islamic rebels invaded their homes last August. But now that the planting
season has arrived, all but 20 people have returned to their land. Before
the incursion last fall briefly thrust it into the international arena, the
Batken province-which covers some 11,000 square miles, with a total
population of 380,000-never made headlines. Insignificant and desperately
poor, the region was once heavily subsidized by the Soviet government.
Cotton-Pickin' Students (September)
by Rustam Temirov
http://archive.tol.cz/sep00/cottonpi.html
Last fall, Ikbol and Bashir Khalilov set out to visit their daughter,
Nazira, then a first-year medical student at a regional college in Jizzak,
200 kilometers south of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. But instead of a
cluttered and over-crowded dormitory bustling with student life, the scene
of the much-anticipated visit was a cotton field. Only two weeks after the
term gets underway, all students outside the capital city of Tashkent are
obligated to suddenly pack up their books, and head to the cotton fields to
work for free until December.
Nuclear Reactions (October)
by Lubos Palata
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=5&NrSection=2&NrArticle=330
The distance between the small Austrian city of Friestadt and Temelin, a
Czech nuclear plant, is around 70 kilometers. But to locals it seems more
like seven. They feel they live next to a time bomb, which can blow up at
any time--just like Chernobyl. That fear is almost ubiquitous and has
intensified since the plant's launch on 9 October. Claiming that the plant,
a controversial Russian-Western hybrid, is inherently unsafe, activists
have repeatedly blocked border crossings between the two countries. The
result has been the lowest point in Czech-Austrian relations since the fall
of communism.
Bulldozing the Regime (October)
by Dragan Stojkovic
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=5&NrSection=2&NrArticle=317
In the early morning hours of 5 October, a mighty wind began to blow
through the wooded area of Sumadija in central Serbia. The people from the
city of Cacak were on the move. The night before, citizens had gathered in
the town square to listen to their mayor, Velja Ilic, speak about the
scheduled protest in Belgrade the next day. As Ilic spoke to the crowd that
night, he was visibly moved and he told the citizens that tomorrow he was
fully prepared "to win or die." TOL's Belgrade stringer retraces a caravan
of protest from Cacak to Belgrade to the beginnings of democracy.
Victory For Lukashenka-So Far (October)
by Alex Znatkevich
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=5&NrSection=2&NrArticle=345
The opposition is crying foul over Belarusian parliamentary elections and a
local election commission member told TOL how she had crossed Gypsy names
of the voting registers to boost voter turnout. Meanwhile, President
Alyaksandr Lukashenka's support is eroding and the opposition doesn't seem
to be gaining any in return.
Two Steps Backward? (November)
by Mihai Constantin
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=6&NrSection=2&NrArticle=425
Maria Runcanu, a 68-year-old retiree, angrily waves an empty plastic bag in
the capital city's Obor marketplace. "I worked in a shoe
factory for 40 years. My pension is 1,200,000 lei ($48). How am I
supposed to live with that? My medication and house payments cost
that. What am I suppose to eat?" she says. For the last 10 years,
Romania has suffered high unemployment and inflation, with many
people living on the fringes of society. Sick of failed reform and a
beleaguered economy, Romanians look set to re-elect leftist Ion
Iliescu.
The Mother of Manipulated Elections (November)
by Seymur Selimov
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=6&NrSection=2&NrArticle=385
President Heydar Aliev's ruling party, New Azerbaijan (YAP), swept to
massive victory in 5 November parliamentary elections, and paved the way
for a transfer of power from father to son. But it was a poll that could
mean much more than the simple selection of a new crop of deputies.
International observers and local opposition parties claimed vast
irregularities, throwing into doubt the oil-rich country's possible
membership in the Council of Europe.
A Less Than Cozy Christmas (December)
by Nonna Chernyakova
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=6&NrSection=2&NrArticle=463
When winter temperatures start to drop, keeping warm in Russia's Far East
means being remarkably resourceful--stuffing old pillow cases or clothing
into empty cans, soaking them in vegetable oil, and lighting them on fire
to make a miniature heater or cooking stove, for example. It means wearing
outdoor clothing inside and whole families huddling together in one room.
Sometimes it even means freezing to death. Local authorities are blaming
the federal government and the energy provider for the crisis, while the
federal government is blaming the local authorities for negligence. The
people are less concerned with who's at fault--they're just plain cold.
*******************************************************
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based in Prague and uses a network of local correspondents to provide
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