Word: moldova
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Ninety-two years after the Russian Revolution and 20 years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe's last Soviet-style government is finally on its way out. In Moldova this week, four months after popular upheaval, the Communist Party accepted defeat in a national election. Four pro-Western opposition parties must now scrabble together a coalition which they say will distance the country from Moscow, more fully embrace democracy and integrate with Europe. "This is definitely the beginning of something new," says Viorel Ursu, Moldovan analyst with the Open Society Institute in Brussels. "The difference between...
...Moldova rarely features on the world's radar. There is even a board game called Where is Moldova?, designed to teach geography. Locked between Ukraine and Romania, it has the sad distinction of being Europe's poorest country. About a sixth of its population works abroad, largely in menial jobs on the streets of Western Europe. But it made headlines in April when thousands of Moldovans, mostly young people, took to the street crying fraud after elections that returned the Communist Party to power. Protesters torched buildings and ransacked the presidential palace. (Read: "Ghosts of Kosovo...
Most importantly, perhaps, Russia is incensed about E.U. efforts to draw the countries that lie between the E.U. and Russia closer into its orbit. Russia has traditionally regarded Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other former Soviet states along its border as its "privileged sphere of influence," in the words of President Dmitry Medvedev. The E.U.'s new "Eastern Partnership" initiative, launched in May, offers these countries economic integration and stronger political ties. Although the E.U. has shied away from talking about the prospect of membership, however distant, it hopes to help its eastern neighbors to become richer, more stable and more...
...maintain their traditional fighting weight in the region. They have given large loans to neighbors hit by the economic crisis and sought to strengthen regional security and economic organizations that tie their neighbors closer to Moscow. They have also taken a more hands-on approach to "frozen conflicts" in Moldova and the Caucasus to keep neighboring governments on their toes...
Lieberman's hard line is the product of his past. His family moved to Israel in 1978 from the Soviet republic of Moldavia, now Moldova. His father fought in the Red Army in World War II but, like many other Soviet Jews, later spent years of forced exile in Siberia. "In my home, we spoke only about Israel," Lieberman says. "It was a dream that one day we would come here." Upon arriving, Lieberman enrolled at Hebrew University, moonlighting as a bouncer at a student nightclub and becoming active in the right-wing Likud Party. In the late...