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NEWS
  »  Finnish Contest No More Between Right and Left
     In an uncharacteristically lively election campaign in this nation of five million people, Finns head for the polls in a second round of voting Sunday to elect a new president.
  »  BELARUS: Political Prisoners Facing Oppression
     "I had to fight to be treated like a human, not animal," dissident Nikolai Avtukhovich wrote from prison. Last month Avtukhovich, Belarusian political activist and entrepreneur, convicted to five years in the penal colony for illegal storage of five cartridges for a hunting rifle, cut his veins.
  »  Romanians Discover Street Protest
     For more than a week, thousands have been demonstrating in cities across Romania. Participants from all walks of life bring to the fore the broadest array of demands in what looks like a celebratory discovery of street protest. The main call is against lack of transparency and accountability in decision-making.
  »  CZECH REPUBLIC: Castration for Sex Offenders Triumphs
     The Czech government has defied calls from international human rights groups to stop the "degrading" practice of surgically castrating sex offenders.
  »  EUROPE: Unrest Spreads Eastwards
     Protests in Hungary and Romania are the first signs of anti-systemic mobilisation in the Eastern half of the continent. While protests in both countries indicate dissatisfaction with their governments' authoritarian turn, their origins differ, as does the European Union's reaction to them.
  »  KAZAKHSTAN: Dissent Stifled Amid Indifference
     President Nursultan Nazarbayev, re-elected last April with an improbable yet typical 93 percent, presided last weekend over parliamentary elections that maintained his iron grip on his oil-rich country's parliament, and further stifled dissent.
  »  EUROPE: Separate Schools for Roma Challenged
     A school in Slovakia has defended its decision to segregate Roma children from other students after a court ruled the practice breached equal rights laws.
  »  HUNGARY: Civil Society Steps in as Opposition
     The massive overhaul of Hungary's political system by the conservative Fidesz party is raising fears the country's days as a liberal democracy may be numbered. With opposition parties powerless, it is civil society that has awakened to support a more participatory democracy.
  »  SERBIA: Royalty Rehabilitated in Retrospect
     Serbia saw the first rehabilitation of a member of its royal family earlier this month, in a move by the supreme court described by historians as "deeply moral" and necessary - for generations who remember the Karadjordjevics as well as those who have learned about them from the history books.
  »  EUROPE: Co-ops Off to a Promising Start
     A small wave of consumer cooperatives is rising in Central and Eastern Europe, attempting to provide food that is locally produced and healthy, and to build conviviality.