Belarus

Risky business

November 16, 2011

The Economist weighs in on the risk of foreign businesses operating in Cuba:  Standing beside Belarusian tractors and Chinese machine parts at Havana’s annual trade fair last month, Rodrigo Malmierca, Cuba’s foreign trade minister, said the presence of 3,000 executives from over 60 countries proved the appeal of joint commercial ventures with the Cuban government. [...]

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Our Little Castro in Belarus

July 30, 2010

Konstantin Sonin, a Professor of Economics at the New Economic School in Moscow, penned an article in the Moscow Times where he compares the economic and political consequences of Moscow’s support of local “tsars:” Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko. The political life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro goes on and on, thwarting all attempts to [...]

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Youth movements in post-Communist societies

October 15, 2009

Olena Nikolayenko, a visiting scholar from Stanford University, presented a paper entitled: “Youth Movements in Post-Communist Societies: A Model for Nonviolent Resistance,” at last month’s  2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. An abstract of the paper: Over the past decade, the rise of youth movements applying nonviolent methods of resistance against autocratic incumbents [...]

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Embargo, Cooperation, Agreement

November 6, 2007

Via AP: Cuba pledged to sign nearly $450 million in contracts with hundreds of U.S. and international firms, kicking off the island’s largest annual trade event despite decades of economic sanctions. Less than two weeks after President Bush asked lawmakers to renew a 45-year U.S. economic embargo against the Communist-run island, Cuban officials touted their [...]

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