Kazakhstan, once depicted as an island of stability invulnerable to the encroachments of Islamist extremists is no longer a safe place in turbulent Central Asia. Over the last seven months the Muslim-dominated country was shaken by a series of terrorist attacks in several cities in... MORE

The traditional meeting of the international Valdai club with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday lasted long into the night but still was an indubitable letdown. The privilege of raising direct questions with the real master of Russian politics was diluted by the awkward awareness... MORE

On November 5, a massive fistfight broke out between Ossetians and Ingush in the city of Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, following a car accident. The violence involved relatives of the accident victims, residents of nearby villages and the North Ossetian police. According to the Ingush side,... MORE

Syria ended its support for the Kurdish rebels of the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK) in 1998 and expelled PKK-leader Abdullah Ocalan, a move that ultimately led to his arrest in Kenya the next year. Now Turkey fears that Syria could use the PKK again against... MORE

In late June 2011, Henry Kissinger made a trip to Chongqing and allegedly told his flamboyant host Bo Xilai, the 63 year-old Party Secretary of the city, “As an intellectual visiting Chongqing, I saw the vision for the future by the Chinese leaders. I am... MORE

Kyrgyzstan’s recent peaceful presidential elections did not feature China as a campaign issue. For the most part, they focused on domestic issues and where foreign policy seeped in, it was mostly in the positive light that most Kyrgyz see Russia and separately its regional customs... MORE

Kazakh police in the western Atyrau oblast have arrested three men in connection with two bomb explosions in the downtown area of the city of Atyrau, the “oil capital” of Kazakhstan, on October 31. They have made full confessions, said the Prosecutor-General’s office on Wednesday.... MORE

Dagestan’s Interior Ministry reported today (November 11) that security forces yesterday (November 10) had detained a local resident with an improvised explosive device on the outskirts of the city of Buinaksk. A ministry source was quoted as saying that police unsuccessfully tried to stop a... MORE

Tajikistan has raised tensions with Moscow after a court in Dushanbe convicted a Russian citizen, Vladimir Sadovnichy, sentencing him to serve eight years and six months in prison for smuggling and illegally landing his aircraft on Tajikistan’s Kurgan-Tyube airport last March. While the details of... MORE

The two wars in Chechnya and related political and economic instability were the primary reasons for the massive exodus of both Russian and non-ethnic Russians from the North Caucasus. Even though the flight of ethnic Russians from the region has been extensively explored in scientific... MORE