A week ago (April 2), Georgian Defense Minister Irakly Alasania said he “does not exclude the possibility” that there will be terrorist acts in the run up to the Sochi Olympics, noting that Tbilisi is doing everything it can so that Moscow will not be... MORE

Since March 21, new year’s day or “Newroz” for Kurds and Central Asian nations, Turkey has been witnessing a historical transformation in its decades’ old Kurdish question. On this day, Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a terrorist organization that... MORE

Since the beginning of this year, Syrian Ossetians have been arriving in North Ossetia. Six refugees arrived in the republic at the end of January, and 12 more followed in February. The Ossetians from Syria arrived in the North Caucasus at the invitation of the... MORE

On March 25, Alena Kupchina, the Belarusian deputy minister of foreign affairs, met with Maira Moira, the European Union’s envoy to Belarus (https://www.mfa.gov.by/press/news_mfa/e9045fcd71ff4ac8.html). The increased frequency of such meetings is caused by the necessity to improve relations in advance of the September 2013 Eastern Partnership... MORE

President Vladimir Putin recently signed into law legislation that allows Russian regions to choose their form of election for governor. They can now do it either through popular elections or through votes in their parliaments (www.kremlin.ru/acts/17786). Thus the new law permits regions to reject popular... MORE

The annual report of the Russian human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, is interesting not so much for its conclusions as for the distrust it evokes among the country’s population. Ordinary Russian citizens have a skeptical attitude toward Lukin’s activities. The law enforcement agencies, in turn,... MORE

Six months into Georgia’s regime-change, “transfer of powers” and “co-habitation,” these processes are still far from “orderly.” The most (or best) that may be said is that they are peaceful, in the sense of being non-violent. However, former government officials are being threatened with repressions,... MORE

Dagestani billionaire Suleiman Kerimov is set to leave the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, according to a report published in the newspaper Izvestia on March 29. Kerimov is among the wealthiest Dagestanis close to the Russian government. The parliament’s lower house,... MORE

Both the European Union and Ukraine will lose if an association agreement is not signed this year, but European politicians would rather have Ukraine bear the responsibility for such a failure, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on his recent visit to Hungary (kmu.gov.ua, March... MORE

On March 31, Prosecutor General Archil Kbilashvili threatened to summon Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for questioning in at least three parallel criminal investigations. One of these would focus on the president’s responsibility for the 2008 war with Russia.Separately, on April 1, Public Defender (Ombudsman) Ucha... MORE