Azerbaijan’s oldest and, by many standards, the strongest opposition party –Musavat– continues to experience a massive outflow of its key members. For the first time since the party restored its functioning in Azerbaijan in 1992, four senior and dozens of ordinary party operatives have left... MORE

On January 31, Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Council ruled against holding a national referendum that would have prolonged President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s term of office until 2020. Without objecting to Nazarbayev’s continuing presidential tenure, the council determined that resorting to a referendum in the form proposed, instead of... MORE

As the reform of Russia’s conventional armed forces continues, numerous policy planning issues have served to demonstrate the reactionary nature of many initiatives. Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov, has tried to avoid shouldering the blame for any mistakes while failing to prioritize policy. The latest instance... MORE

On January 29, Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, announced that investigators had determined the identity of the perpetrator of the bombing of Domodedovo airport in Moscow, which took place on January 24. According to official information, a suicide bomber detonated explosives... MORE

During the past month, President Dmitry Medvedev has turned into a disappearing and irrelevant figure in the Russian political arena. His lame-duck status was established beyond any reasonable doubt by the unreasonably harsh verdict against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev in late 2010 (Nezavisimaya Gazeta,... MORE

The retired former chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, is one of the most controversial political figures in Pakistan. Despite his once extremely close ties with the American Central Intelligence Agency during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Gul has since... MORE

Weighing the option to prolong President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s term to 2020 by referendum, Kazakhstan’s governing elite has engaged in an unprecedented open debate. The process is of a far broader scope than any old-fashioned deal-making among leadership factions. By the same token it has attracted... MORE

According to independent sources, who summarized their findings based on reports that have been officially published in the media by Russian authorities, Ingushetia had the second largest number of victims of violence in the North Caucasus in 2010, an unfortunate outcome similar to what happened... MORE

Russia’s natural gas sector has increased its domestic production and exports, apparently recovering in the aftermath of the recent economic downturn. However, the industry remains dependent on exports amid growing costs. Moscow’s official statistics appeared to indicate that the domestic gas sector managed to overcome... MORE