Around the bloc: Manhunt No Laughing Matter for Lithuanian Police
Comedy of errors includes a stolen Kalashnikov, an accidental shooting, culminates in resignation of interior minister.
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Comedy of errors includes a stolen Kalashnikov, an accidental shooting, culminates in resignation of interior minister.
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ECHR rules in favor of demonstrators injured in Bucharest uprising that brought down Ceausescu.
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Syrian Turkmen fighters, a Turkey-backed rebel group in Syria, claim they shot Russian pilots as they descended by parachute.
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Lawyer for Crimea native Oleg Sentsov, jailed for 20 years on terrorism charges, hopes for reduced sentence.
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Russia slaps restrictions on agricultural imports in first concrete action against Ankara.
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Until recently, anyone over 18 could buy deactivated guns in Slovakia, no license required.
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After legalizing blocking of internet, telephones during ‘counterterrorism’ operations, Dushanbe targets SIM cards.
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The American vice-president carries a message to Kyiv that Washington wants to see more progress in fighting corruption.
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Whether through death or court rulings, ex-Yugoslavs accused of gruesome crimes are slipping through legal cracks.
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Man was detained in January at a Turkish airport, but news of his arrest only surfaces now.
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After knocking down communism in 1989, Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe were burdened with a task of settling accounts with their totalitarian past both in institutional dimension – through legal compensation for the victims of crimes and persecutions, trying their perpetrators and developing institutional standards preventing functionaries of the former communist secret services and their co-workers from having an impact on public life (lustration) and also enabling the victims to have an insight into the documents collected in the past on them. Since, in the centre of the lustration debate an issue of exploring, developing and settling accounts with one of fundamental pillars of the totalitarian system i.e. former security forces was placed, one of the elements of settling accounts with the communist past was the creation of institutions responsible for taking over the archives of the communist special forces and revealing the network of agents of thepolitical secret service, as well, as conducting research and educational activities in that area. The text analyses the conditions in which that process occurred in Poland and her bordering countries: Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia.The concluding paragraphs of the article contain the assessment that the process of creating the institutions responsible for taking over the materials of the state security organs, their development and making them available was a part of a political ritual of transformation from totalitarianism to democracy. That transformation was experienced by all post-communist countries of Central Europe which chose a democratic variant of social development. The institutions established in order to accomplish that goal have similar competences apart from investigative functions possessed only by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. Lesser successes were achieved as far as the attempts to legal persecution of the perpetrators of communist crimes were concerned and it relates to the entire geographical area. The state of law proved to be an inefficient tool in bringing the guilty ones to justice within the course of passing years. Settling accounts with communism was never done in Russia. One may think that Russian leaders came to the conclusion that society is not ready yet for such a move since it would entail huge social and political costs and that its full realisation would be possible only after the natural generation exchange has been accomplished. The author puts forward a thesis that a future researcher of the historyof the post-communist era in Europe will be able to clearly distinguish the borderlines of the countries which have settled their accounts with a totalitarian past and of those where this has not been done with all the system, social and moral consequences of that fact.
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Georgian breakaway territory has cut off nearly all links with Tbilisi.
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Ukraine courts are biased and influenced by senior officials, former president claims.
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Aliyev regime faces mounting international pressure over crackdown on dissidents and journalists.
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Unverified accounts say Amiran Georgadze opened fire after officials rejected his demand for a giant bribe.
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The suspect’s name was on an official list of suspected ‘terrorists’ before her case went to trial.
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The present article is aimed at accounting for the social, economic, and cultural ways in which the Russian-speaking Lipovan inhabitants of Jurilovca village define and assume their belongingness to the biotope of Danube Delta in the North of Tulcea County, Romania. Two theoretical notions are followed in this regard, in terms of regional complex (according to Romanian geographer Simion Mehedinţi), and cultural area (as authored by the American anthropologist Clark Wissler). A series of social, economic,and cultural characteristics of Lipovan villagers outline the importance of fishing for the local livelihood as well as worldview, i.e. ethnicity, kinship, ethno-history, technical vocabulary, seasonal work, barter exchange, folk cookery, and the socialism vs. post-socialism perception. Beyond their traditional and contemporary ethnography, the crucial issue for the native villagers in Jurilovca is that of the very continuity of“their lake’s [unwritten] law” (as a vernacular representation) in contrast to the politics of renting out the local fishing areas. Therefore, the perspectives of the Russian-Lipovan “regional complex” of fishing within the “cultural area” from the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve appear to depend on the degree to which local aspects of customary law might be reconciled with the official legislation with respect to traditional ownership, genealogical inheritance, and the right of preemption.
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Nationalists are dead set against a border rectification agreement with Montenegro, and heightened cooperation with Serbia.
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This article is devoted to problematic aspects of the interaction and activity coordination of territorial customs bodies of the State Fiscal Service (SFS) of Ukraine, with local state administrations and local self-government bodies.The article provides the author's definition of «interaction», which is «a pre-determined and agreed procedure of departmental, interdepartmental and supra-departmental relationships between the subjects of public law, which is carried out in certain areas of their activities and within their competence as regards the implementation of the tasks assigned to them in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine». In addition, the author draws legal parallels between the concepts of «interaction», «assistance» and «coordination» in the field of state customs affairs. In this connection it is proved that the interaction in the sphere of state customs business is the principle of Ukrainian SFS customs houses activities and their means of contact with other state bodies and those of local self-government for the purpose of the Ukrainian SFS customs interaction with other state authorities and local self-governments in the sphere of state customs business and the implementation of certain concerted actions aimed at a particular result. At the same time, coordination as measures of administrative-legal nature determining the ways to regulating the resolution of the issue of interoperability between the public law bodies in the field of state customs affairs is the function of the Ukrainian SFS customs, other state bodies and those of local self-government, which aims at creation of such a model of relations between the actors, which enables implementing the agreed objectives with the least expenditure of time and money.Based on the analysis of the current legislation of Ukraine on state customs affairs, the author discloses the main aspects of the Ukrainian SFS territorial customs bodies’ activities promotion, and coordination and interaction of the Ukrainian SFS territorial customs bodies with local state administrations and local self-government authorities.It is also established herein that the interaction acts as an integrating factor, through which abilities of the Ukrainian SFS territorial customs bodies, other bodies of state power and those of local self-government are conditionally joined in some coherent system based on a common objective, and therefore it is necessary to clearly define the concept of «interaction» in the sphere of state customs affairs securing it in the provisions of the Customs Code of Ukraine and clearly outlining the forms of such cooperation.The author focuses on the fact that despite the importance of interaction between the Ukrainian SFS customs houses and local state administrations and local self-government bodies in the sphere of state customs business, which activates the solution of a whole range of issues, namely arranging for the frontier, interregional and international cooperation, ensuring the rule of law and public order, fighting against corruption and organized crime, etc., an adequate legal regulating mechanism for such interaction has not yet been established. Besides, the issue of forms of the Ukrainian SFS customs interaction as the territorial bodies of SFS of Ukraine with other executive power bodies and the ones of local self-government is addressed.Based on the results of the study the author notes that the interaction of the Ukrainian SFS customs offices and local state administrations with local self-government bodies is an inherent quality, link and component of the Ukrainian SFS Customs offices functioning organization, which aims to improve the state customs service implementation standards by the Ukrainian SFS customs houses and to ensure the said implementation efficiency. However, in the course of interaction of the Ukrainian SFS customs with local state administrations and local self-government bodies each of the mentioned organizations specializes in solving their specific tasks in accordance with their subject expertise, and forms a clear organizational system. The complementarity of such kind helps to improve the state customs affairs conductance quality and is realized through the coordination of performance of the Ukrainian SFS customs offices, local state administrations and local self-government bodies as the interaction subjects through normative, informational and analytical provision for the interaction and concretization of the activities of each subject within the planned activities.
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The aim of the article is to overview notification, i.e. a procedure provided in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU that requires the EU member states to inform the European Commission about certain measures. The author introduces the legal basis and discusses procedure applied in four types of notification: notifying state aid, notifying adoption of harmonisation measures, notifying technical regulations and notifying draft legislative provision in the field of competence of the European Central Bank.
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