On November 21, Mongolia held local elections for the Citizens’ Representative Khurals [councils] of the provinces and the capital city. The voting resulted in a victory for the Mongolian Democratic Party (DP), which already holds a majority in the State Ikh Khural—the national parliament—and controls... MORE

In early December, the Anti-Crisis Fund Council of the Eurasian Economic Community approved the latest (fourth) tranche of a $3 billion loan (Belarusian Telegraph Agency, December 7), approved in June 2011 to assist Belarus in overcoming an economic crisis. The Council is expected to release... MORE

On December 6, speaking at the conference, “Perspectives of Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian relations under the new government,” held in Tbilisi, Georgia’s Minister of Reintegration Paata Zakareishvili stated that the country should expect first concrete results from its engagement with Abkhazian and Ossetian separatists within ten... MORE

On November 30, the deputy director of OJSC Northern Caucasus Resorts, Vladimir Yevdokimov, upbraided the Kabardino-Balkarian authorities for obstructing the company’s expansion plans in the republic. Earlier, several members of the republican legislature stated they would veto allocation of land to OJSC Northern Caucasus Resorts.... MORE

Mongolia grabbed the headlines on November 15–16 by the announcement that Japan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) were engaging in direct senior-level talks in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar about the issue of North Korea’s abduction of Japanese nationals. The presence of... MORE

The World Congress of Tatars, an organization created 20 years ago to link Tatarstan with ethnic Tatars living outside the borders of that Middle Volga republic and one that has been closely tied to Kazan’s intellectual and political elite, has called for Tatarstan to seek... MORE

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks about Russia’s efforts to “re-Sovietize” the countries of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have apparently touched a nerve with the Kremlin. Secretary Clinton warned that the United States is well aware of Russia’s intentions to... MORE

On December 4, Kazakhstan’s parliament and the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies held a joint conference on the future of Central Asia–Afghanistan relations. This conference was attended by representatives of Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, including diplomats, researchers and political experts, as well as the deputy... MORE

For the first time since the end of the Soviet Union, Moscow has dispatched internal troops to a republic outside the North Caucasus to suppress what it calls “nationalist band formations” in Bashkortostan. Not only does that mean that there is a new “hot spot”... MORE

On November 28, the opposition Patrioty Rossii (Patriots of Russia) party’s faction in the North Ossetian parliament walked out of a parliamentary session to protest United Russia’s unwillingness to cooperate with the opposition. Earlier, the republican parliament had decided that a joint commission would distribute... MORE