Although Central Asia as a whole has enough water to promote development, problems in sharing this critical resource among the region’s five post-Soviet republics—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan—are becoming downright severe. According to a new World Bank study, such localized water crises could reduce... MORE

Less than five years have passed since Kazakhstan experienced what may have been its most serious post-independence test of stability to date when, in December 2011, hundreds of people took to the streets in the western town of Zhanaozen, on the Caspian Sea. Clashes with... MORE

As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrated its first-ever National Security Day, anti-foreigner sentiment appears to have been made an official part of the Chinese state’s increased vigilance. A widely circulated cartoon depicted a stereotyped Western man seducing an unwitting Chinese woman into espionage... MORE

Since 2011, when then-President Dmitry Medvedev fired his and (much more importantly) then–Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, Russian liberals have dreamed of his return to the government. Indeed, liberal groups in Russia believe that Kudrin, seen as an outspoken pro-market reformer, could... MORE

Russian talks with Gulf states, in Doha, Qatar, aimed at freezing oil production and thereby raising prices, broke down on April 17 (RT, April 17). This failure to reach an agreement represents a major setback for Russia’s economy as well as its domestic and foreign... MORE

On April 11–16, representatives of an Iranian investment company, Hamrahian Group, visited Dagestan to explore possibilities for cooperation with the North Caucasian republic. The visit came just weeks after Dagestan’s governor, Ramazan Abdulatipov, visited Iran as a member of a Russian business delegation (Kavkaz Today,... MORE

Earlier this month, on April 19, the State Commission on the development of the Arctic Regions convened in Moscow to establish a single company to oversee all the logistics operations in the Russian Far North (Arctic.ru, April 19). The move came amidst news reports showing... MORE

Chemical, metallurgical and cement plants may soon be transferred from their current locations across northern China to the Russian Far East. This was the agreement reached in early April 2016, during Russian Minister for Far East Development Alexander Galushka’s visit to Beijing. The feasibility of... MORE

On April 21, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka delivered his annual “report to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly [parliament].” When speaking about the economy, Lukashenka did not use the words “crisis” or even “decline”; yet, he recognized the country’s inadequate labor productivity and competitiveness (Tut.by,... MORE

On April 14, Ukraine’s parliament replaced the cabinet of unpopular Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk with one headed by Volodymyr Hroysman, who had served as parliament speaker since November 2014. A former mayor of President Petro Poroshenko’s electoral and business stronghold of Vinnytsya, Hroysman has always... MORE