Two leaders of Svoboda are allegedly banned from entering the US - but why?

It has been announced [in Russian] earlier today that two leaders of the Ukrainian far right Svoboda party, Oleh Tyahnybok and Ihor Myroshnychenko, have been presumably banned from entering the US. According to the above-mentioned source, it was the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre which asked the US Department of State to enter Tyahnybok and Myroshnychenko in the list of those whose visits to the US were undesirable.

In 2012, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre included both Tyahnybok and Myroshnychenko into its 2012 Top Ten Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic Slurs: Mainstream Anti-Semitism Threatens World Peace.

How Ukrainian History Should be Debated - a series of articles

A number of researchers replied to the smear article by Taras Kuzio, which has already been discussed here.

Special thanks goes to David R. Marples for providing an excellent platform for publishing these replies.

• Anton Shekhovtsov: Taras Kuzio’s Review of the “Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism” Workshop
• John-Paul Himka: Assessing the Prolog Legacy
• Halya Coynash: Limits of Tolerance
• Andriy Portnov: On Ukrainian Studies There and Here (Concerning the conference in New York and Taras Kuzio’s article)
• Jared McBride: On the Columbia Symposium
• Johan Dietsch: On Pluralism, Free Expression, and Intellectual Honesty
• Dominique Arel: On Context, Comparison, and Dialogue
• Tarik Cyril Amar, Per Anders Rudling, and Andreas Umland: Taras Kuzio’s Alternative Reality or How Not to Write about a Workshop (and Colleagues) –At Columbia or Anywhere Else

Ian Read (Fire+Ice) plagiarised "Gilded by the Sun"

Fire+Ice's "Gilded by the Sun" is regarded, by the fans, as one of the best songs of this apoliteic band.

However, very few know that Ian Read, leader of Fire+Ice, plagiarised most of the song lyrics from The Anvil of Ice (Winter of the World, Vol. 1) written by Scottish fantasy/sci-fi author Michael Scott Rohan and published in New York in 1986. Below is the comparison of the Rohan's and Read's versions of the song (Rohan's version does not have a title).

Out of harm's way. On the EU-Ukraine relations and the Tymoshenko issue

My most recent article for openDemocracy:

Out of harm's way
The moral case for releasing Yulia Tymoshenko is overwhelming. But her imprisonment might be a blessing in disguise for the Ukrainian opposition, argues Anton Shekhovtsov.

My other articles for openDemocracy:

• The West on Ukraine: when ‘anti-racism’ becomes xenophobia
• Security threats and the Ukrainian far right
• Ukraine: the far-right in parliament for the first time