Latest Articles about Domestic/Social

Never Say Forever: How Russia’s Borders Became Imaginary
Video footage of how enthusiastically the inhabitants of Kherson, with tears of joy, greeted their liberators from the Ukrainian Armed Forces has spread globally (YouTube, November 13). Against this backdrop, the official published data on the results of the “referendum” held by the occupation administration... MORE

Will Mass Protests Force Xi to Change Course on Zero-COVID?
The apparent failure by Beijing to determine new ways to handle the COVID-19 pandemic given what many consider the largest mass protests since the student movement of 1989 has exposed the limited abilities of the new Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership to handle unexpected events... MORE

Kazakhstani President Tokayev Receives Mandate for Promised Reforms
Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev secured a second term in office following the snap presidential elections held on November 20, winning 81 percent of the vote. Tokayev will serve a single seven-year term, according to changes in the country’s constitution that increased the mandate from five to... MORE

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant: A Case of Russian State Robbery (Part Two)
Read Part One Here. Russia began installing managers and technical staff at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) soon after seizing the plant by military force on March 4 and well before officially annexing Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region to Russia (see Part One). Moscow completed the... MORE

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant: A Case of Russian State Robbery (Part One)
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is the most valuable economic asset that Russia has plundered from Ukraine during the present military invasion. The Russians captured this nuclear plant with armored forces that broke into the plant’s perimeter on March 4. Russian military and National... MORE

Russian National Unity Day Against the Backdrop of the War in Ukraine
One of the new holidays introduced by the Kremlin, which was invented in response to the alleged impending threat of a color revolution within the country, Russian National Unity Day, will be held annually on November 4. Ostensibly commemorating the liberation of Moscow from the... MORE

Putin’s Nuclear Blackmail Hits US Resolve and Chinese Wall
The missile that landed in Eastern Polish farmland on November 15, killing two people and injuring three, caused a sharp international crisis, which was treated by Warsaw with due care and the utmost responsibility. Had the stray projectile been a Russian sea-launched Kalibr or an... MORE

“Unity and Struggle”: The Campaign to Study the 20th Party Congress
On November 16, members of the local Young Pioneers group attended a lecture by Sanjianxi village party chief Gao Shuzen on the “Spirit of the 20th Party Congress” (二十大精神, ershida jingshen) in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province (China Youth Net, November 16). [1] Gao,... MORE

China’s Economy: More Debt than Meets the Eye
Introduction Since the beginning of this year, investment banks and international financial organizations, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have steadily downgraded their forecasts for the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) GDP growth in 2022 to around 3.2 percent (Nikkei Asia, October... MORE

After Samarkand Summit, the OTS Charts a More Independent Course
On November 11, a summit of the leaders of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) convened in Samarkand, Uzbekistan (Report.az, November 5). This major gathering came amid the OTS’s re-emerging significance as a key regional organization and a critical platform for rapprochement between the Central... MORE