It took a week for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to produce a pair of plausible suspects in the shocking murder of Boris Nemtsov on February 28 (see EDM, March 2). Last Saturday (March 7), FSB Director Aleksandr Bortnikov reported to President Vladimir Putin... MORE

On March 2, a court in the southern Dagestani city of Derbent ruled that the criminal case against the city’s mayor, Imam Yaraliev, was illegal. Prosecutors appealed the court’s decision, accusing the mayor of abuse of power. A criminal investigation was launched against Yaraliev on... MORE

When, in December 1918, the Red Army captured Minsk and the short-lived (established on March 25, 1918) Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR) ceased to exist, multiple nationalist activists fled Belarus and found refuge in several European countries, including Germany. After Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party... MORE

On February 25, Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev made a televised address to the nation to announce an early presidential election that will take place on April 26. The head of state used his right to call an early election granted to him by article 41(3-1)... MORE

Istanbul has experienced another series of murders of Chechens who fled to Turkey from persecution back home during the second Russian-Chechen war. After the start of that war in the fall of 1999, thousands of Chechens flocked to Turkey seeking political asylum. According to unofficial... MORE

Moldova has a new government, the Alliance for a European Moldova (AEM), since February 28, after elections and an agitated interregnum. It is a minority coalition and, moreover, an internally divided one, requiring cooperation with the Communist Party’s “constructive opposition” (see EDM, March 5). The... MORE

Having been in office for just over two years, President Xi Jinping has already laid claim to being the third most powerful politician of post-liberation China, just after Chairman Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic reforms. Having gained control over what... MORE

The meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has since styled itself the Islamic State in an affirmation of its broader aspirations of dominion over a self-declared caliphate beyond the territories where it exercises control, has aggravated the Middle East’s already... MORE

On February 4, the Central Military Commission (CMC) issued a new revision of the Military Grassroots Construction Guidelines (jundui jiceng jianshe gangyao) for People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel. The guidelines and the accompanying press articles highlighted leadership and PLA concerns on managing foreign espionage threats... MORE