Page 6 - bne_October 2018_20181001

6 I The Month That Was bne October 2018
Politics
Eastern Europe
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko reshuffled the govern- ment in August due to the fact that some senior officials “drank a lot”, which is “unacceptable,” he said. "I want to publicly say that heavy drinking is unacceptable," Lukashenko said.
Russia Today aired an interview with Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshi- rov, the two Russians accused by the
UK of belonging to the Russian secret service GRU and responsible for carrying out the military-grade chemical attack on Russian ex-spy in the town of Salisbury.
Ukraine’s main anti-graft body the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has accused the Infra- structure Minister Volodymyr Omely- an of illegal enrichment and failure to declare income. The official received UAH2.17mn ($77,000) as official income during the period from January 1, 2000 to April 26, 2018, while his expenses amounted to at least UAH3.45mn only in the period from 2008 to April 26, 2015, the NABU said.
Almost 42 % of Ukrainians would support their country joining Nato as the preferred option for guaranteeing security, according to a poll conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initia- tives Foundation and Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS). A total
of 35.3% back Ukraine's non-aligned status, 6.4% favour a military alliance with Russia and other CIS countries, and 16.3% were undecided, Interfax news agency reported on September 11.
Central Europe
Polish President Andrzej Duda called the EU an “imaginary community, from which Poland benefitted only a little”. His remark caused uproar in that part of the Polish society that does not side with the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, of which Duda is an iron loyalist.
Six EU member states from CEE make little or no effort to enforce laws criminalising foreign bribery, a new report from Transparency International revealed. They are among 22 countries accounting for 39.6% of global exports who are failing to enforce the OECD anti-bribery convention.
Southeast Europe
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s job approval rating fell
to 44.5% in August from 53.1% in the previous month, according to a survey by Metropoll, an Ankara-based polling outfit. Erdogan’s powers were expanded after the recent election with the inception of Turkey’s first ever executive presidency which abolished the role of prime minister.
Following months of delays, Bosnian lawmakers adopted key amendments to the criminal code, demanded by the European Union. Adoption of the changes will show Bosnia’s political will as a cred- ible EU partner in fighting serious crimes, the EU delegation to Bosnia said.
Gay marriage could be ruled out in Romania after senators on September 11 backed a proposal to change the Constitution so that it would state explicitly that the family is based on the marriage between a man and a woman. A referendum on the issue will be held on October 7.
Political scandals seriously lowered support for Bulgaria’s ruling coali- tion, a poll from local agency Mediana showed. The most significant recent
scandal surrounded a deadly bus crash in August that caused the deaths of 17 people.
Eurasia
Gennady Gagulia, prime minister of the Georgian separatist republic of Abkhazia, was killed in a car accident. Gagulia’s vehicle was involved in a crash with a car whose driver was "in a state of intoxication”, and terrorism has been ruled out.
The campaign for the municipal elec- tions in the Armenian capital Yerevan was formally launched. The contest is seen as the first electoral test for the new government under Prime Minister Nikol Pashninian that took power in the spring.
An Uzbek imam was sacked after urging the president to allow hijabs and Islamic beards. Since taking office in 2016, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has pledged to liberalise Uzbekistan, but the dismissal of the imam for seemingly exercising his free speech and the recent arrests of bloggers on Islamic matters appears to demonstrate an unwilling- ness to follow through with certain promises.
Four Tajik opposition groups officially set up a coalition in Warsaw. The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), Movement for Reforms and Progress, Forum of Freethinkers of Tajikistan and Association of Migrants
of Central Asia had been in talks for a year before announcing the coalition.
Iranian women adorned with more than 150 grammes of gold are now banned from exiting the country. The move might be seen as one of the more extreme measures introduced since Iran’s economy was destabilised by the reintroduction of heavy sanctions against Tehran by the US.
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