Several reports circulated through the international media in early April indicating that a new semi-autonomous state, tentatively named Jubaland (or alternately “Azaniya”), would be created in southwestern Somalia to contain the Somali militant outfit Harakat al-Shabaab. Jubaland is purportedly being created by Kenyan authorities to... MORE

On April 25 and 26, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov paid a “working visit” to the occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia unilaterally “recognizes” as states. He visited Russian army and border troop cantonments, met with the Moscow-installed local leaders, and used... MORE

On April 21, Gazeta Yuga, a weekly newspaper that is published in Nalchik, reported on the continuing efforts of Circassian groups in Kabardino-Balkaria to help their ethnic kin stuck in the fighting in Libya. Some activists in the North Caucasus have proposed that Libyans of... MORE

Russia has pledged to expand its trade with China but commercial ties between the two nations remains focused on energy. During his trip to China for the BRICS summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), on April 13, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged to... MORE

Russia is moving fast to gel the stalemate in Libya, pin down the US and NATO there, and exploit their predicament by casting itself as a conflict-resolution facilitator (EDM, April 21).Moscow is in a hurry because time is not yet on its side.  NATO and... MORE

The development of the popular uprising in eastern Libya transformed the Arab Revolution from a “spectator sport” for the rest of the world and created real problems for Russian national interests. Russian experts on the Middle East were quick to warn of the dangers of... MORE

China released its latest national defense White Paper on March 31. The document, entitled China’s National Defense in 2010, is the seventh that the Chinese government has released since 1998 when it began publishing the biannual defense White Papers [1]. Like all of China’s defense... MORE

Japan has been dealt a number of blows over the past few years which have put the country’s high-tech production capacity at risk. Most recently the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan in March has directly affected production efforts through rolling blackouts and... MORE

Each recent decade has witnessed its own tectonic shifts that recast the world. Commentators called them revolutions. In the late 1980’s it was the “Velvet Revolution,” which began in Eastern Europe, included the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and ended with the multiple civil wars... MORE

Ukraine’s leadership has left Moscow’s invitation to join the Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan Customs Union unanswered even after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin personally traveled to Kyiv to advertise its benefits. Instead, Putin was told once more that the problem of expensive Russian gas is... MORE