By Mitchell Orenstein WASHINGTON, DC: With America’s Republican presidential candidates lining up to declare their fealty to a flat tax — a system of personal-income taxation that assesses a single rate for all — opponents have focused on why it is a bad idea to raise taxes on the poor in order to reduce them for …

By Mitchell Orenstein WASHINGTON, DC: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is a master of political survival. But, following a recent 64 percent devaluation of the currency, the clock appears to be running out on his prolonged misrule. Lukashenko was forced by the removal of Russian oil-price subsidies in 2009 to beg, borrow, or steal enough funds to …

By Mitchell Orenstein WASHINGTON, DC: As pro-democracy protests sweep the Arab world, Belarus, Europe’s grim quasi-Soviet redoubt, has taken a turn for the worse since President Aleksander Lukashenko violently suppressed post-election demonstrations in December and imprisoned seven of the nine candidates who stood against him. But, as Western governments — and European Union government, in particular …