Looking ahead to 2016, Mongolia’s government publicized a series of major developments in its large state-owned mining projects of Oyu Tolgoi (OT) and Tavan Tolgoi (TT), which could pull the country’s battered economy out of its downward spiral of disappearing foreign direct investment (FDI) and... MORE

Russia and Belarus have some of the closest relations in the post-Soviet space. Both are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). And together, the two countries make up the Union State.... MORE

When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed in December 1991, its integrated military-industrial complex was shattered and split up among 15 newly independent countries. Ukraine received many significant assets, including top-notch fighter and aircraft plants as well as the USSR’s most advanced shipyards... MORE

Moscow’s reaction to the downing of a Russian military jet over Turkey has been unusually harsh. In his address to the Russian parliament on December 3, President Vladimir Putin continued his diatribe against Turkey’s leadership. “If anybody thinks that after having committed a cowardly military... MORE

On November 28, the Kremlin announced the implementation of a series of economic sanctions against Turkey in response to the latter’s shooting down of a Russian Su-24 military jet that had violated Turkish airspace (Kremlin.ru, November 29). In line with Ankara’s previously announced rules of... MORE

A landmark agreement signed in October saw China extend “emergency fuel assistance” to Nepal in the wake of the serious fuel shortage there. It is expected to pave the way for greater bilateral cooperation. The fuel agreement was preceded by a sharp deterioration in India-Nepal... MORE

The Ukrainian national oil and gas company, Naftohaz Ukrainy, plans to sue Russia over the assets lost in Crimea following the peninsula’s annexation by Russia last year, Naftohaz CEO Andry Kobolev said on November 4 (Interfax, November 4). The seizure by Russia of Chornomornaftohaz, Naftohaz’s... MORE

China has set the tone for government policy over the next five years with the announcement of the results of the Fifth Plenum of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (State Council Information Office, October 30). Amid the various announced plans for increased transparency, a... MORE

While the outcome of this past month’s presidential elections in Belarus continues to be discussed, the major news refrains have become the debate on a Russian airbase in Belarus, rapprochement with the West, the prospects for economic reform, and labor migration to and from Belarus.... MORE

The recent stock market turmoil and the economic slowdown in China have kept analysts busy projecting where the economy is going and what the government will do. The Chinese government has also issued a number of reforms of state-owned enterprises and other aspects of the... MORE