In Hungary, Viktor Orbán faces two challenges: his eroding power and a liberal Budapest
After opposition groups scored big in local elections, Hungary’s right-wing prime minister needs to decide where to take his party. In early January, when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor [...]
Bulgaria Monthly Digest: water crisis and Turkstream launch
– On December 21st, a state of emergency was declared in Pernik, a mining town in Western Bulgaria about 25 km away from Sofia. Water restrictions had been imposed there in mid-November and [...]
Georgia Monthly Digest: doctor released, and fake accounts removed
– From December 1st through the 8th, the Tbilisi International Film Festival screened a diverse row of movies, from classic and modern Georgian films, such as Inhale-Exhale (Dito [...]
North Caucasus Monthly Digest: minors returned from the Middle East and new sanctions against Chechen officials
– Murder of Ingush anti-extremism official. On November 2nd, the head of the Ingush anti-extremism agency, Ibragim Eldzherkiev, was shot dead in Moscow along with his brother, Akhmed [...]
Bulgaria Monthly Digest: Prime Minister Boyko Borissov visits Washington, and the country is struck by protests
– On November 25th Deputy Director of the National Police Office Blagorodna Makeva announced that in 2018, more than 31 000 reports of domestic violence had been received by the police in [...]
Croatian Presidential Election: between continuation and change
Croatia will see its voters head to the ballots on December 22nd to elect a new president. In the (likely) event of no candidate receiving more than half of all votes, there will be a run-off [...]
Ukraine Monthly Digest: President Zelenskyy to meet with Putin, and movie depicting the Holodomor premiers
– On October 1st, news broke that representatives from Ukraine, Russia, the separatist territories of Luhansk and Donetsk, and the OSCE had signed the Steinmeier Formula, a slimmer, [...]
Georgia Monthly Digest: vote to change election system takes political crisis to a new level, and Georgian doctor sentenced to two-months detention in South Ossetia
– On November 8th, the premier of the co-produced Swedish-Georgian film And Then We Danced, centered on a love story between two young male dancers of the Georgian national ensemble, took [...]
Monthly Digest: professor confesses to killing fiancee and Russians want more freedom according to new survey
– On November 4th, the former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev gave an interview to the BBC in which he said that nuclear weapons must be destroyed to “save the planet and [...]
