
Latest Articles about Middle East
BUSHEHR REACTOR FURTHER STRAINS RELATIONS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND IRAN
Last fall Sergei Kiriyenko, chief of Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), announced that September 2007 is the final deadline for Iran to launch the Bushehr nuclear reactor (see EDM, September 20, 2006). Bushehr was partially constructed in the 1970s by Germany's Siemens, but it... MORE
Internet Mujahideen Face-Off Over Sunni-Shiite Divide
The ongoing sectarian strife in Iraq remains a subject of intense debate on Arabic-language radical Islamist online chat forums in the context of the perceived emergence of a Sunni-Shiite divide in the Middle East. More recently, tensions between the United States and Iran over Tehran's... MORE
PROBLEMS WITH TREATY MAY TURN INTO STANDOFF BETWEEN KREMLIN AND TATAR AUTHORITIES
The fate of the power-sharing treaty between the Russian federal authorities and the Republic of Tatarstan demonstrates how unpredictable political life in Russia has become. On February 21 the Federation Council (upper house of parliament) rejected the power-sharing treaty, even though it had been ratified... MORE

THE SHADOW OF FEBRUARY 1917 HANGS OVER PUTIN’S FINAL YEAR
Yesterday’s legislative elections in 14 regions of the Russian Federation have not been the focus of political debates in Moscow during the last few weeks. Rather, it was an historic event that was typically downplayed by Soviet historiography – the Revolution of February 1917. Indeed,... MORE

MOSCOW’S “HEALTHY FORCES” SET BACK IN ESTONIA’S PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
Pro-Western, pro-market parties won a convincing victory in Estonia’s March 4 parliamentary elections, despite Moscow’s efforts to prevent such an outcome. This election’s political ramifications -- like those of Estonia’s elections in the early and mid-1990s -- transcend the country’s confines. A decade ago, election... MORE

LUKOIL AT THE CROSSROADS
The destruction of Yukos by the Russian state left Lukoil as Russia’s largest oil company not controlled by the Kremlin, though of necessity loyal to it and often in its graces. Lukoil’s nominal independence from the state is about to end, however. This privately owned... MORE

KOMMERSANT DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT FALLS TO HIS DEATH
Last Friday, March 2, Ivan Safronov, a defense correspondent for Kommersant newspaper, fell to his death from a fourth-story window in his apartment block in central Moscow. The Moscow police are treating the death as suicide, but they still opened a criminal investigation to look... MORE
TURNING THE BALTIC SEA INTO A SECOND BOSPORUS?
The Russian government recently declared its intention to turn the Baltic Sea into an oil-shipping corridor to Western Europe, carrying up to 150 million tons of Russian oil annually aboard tankers. This intention constitutes only the most recent threat to maritime safety and ecology in... MORE

BELGIUM – GAZPROM’S NEXT “HUB” IN EUROPE?
European Union host country Belgium traditionally has been an advocate of EU integration. But its latest actions illustrate the absence of an EU energy policy and the member countries’ growing tendency to strike bilateral energy deals with Russia. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, along with... MORE
RUSSIA USING CSTO TO COUNTERBALANCE NATO
On February 28 Nikolai Bordyuzha, secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), addressed a meeting of students from the Russian-Tajik (Slavonic) University in Dushanbe. Ostensibly he promoted the CSTO as an organization that seeks to create an integrated security system dealing with military and... MORE