At time when leaders in China and Japan were expecting to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the two states with a series of celebrations across both countries, instead leaders in both states are working to contain the latest nationalist flare-ups... MORE

The late patriarch Deng Xiaoping said famously about U.S.-China relations: “There are limits as to how good—or how bad—Sino-U.S. ties can become.” Can the same be said for China and Japan? While relations between the two most powerful Asian countries have apparently been heading toward... MORE

Zerkalo Nedeli, an influential Ukrainian weekly, has accused the country’s Defense Minister Dmytro Salamatin of misinforming President Viktor Yanukovych over a contract to deliver armored personnel carriers to Iraq. Salamatin reportedly lied when he wrote to Yanukovych last month, citing Iraq’s ambassador to Kyiv that... MORE

ANGOLA Operation Shows China Testing Overseas Security Role On August 25, officials from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS) escorted 37 suspects back to China for violent crimes—including human trafficking, kidnapping, robbery and blackmail—against Chinese émigrés in Angola. The MPS made the arrests in... MORE

A Georgian news agency surprised everybody on August 28 with the announcement that the country’s armed forces had launched a special operation against an armed group near the Russian-Georgian border. It was presumed that the armed group had crossed from Russia into Georgia in the... MORE

Following a summer lull, August 2012 became one of the most eventful periods for Azerbaijani politics, featuring several key developments, which may significantly affect the situation in the region. First, after several months of negotiations and numerous visits of Russian delegations to Azerbaijan, it became... MORE

On August 28, one of the most respected spiritual leaders of Dagestan of the past century, Said Atsaev, was murdered in the village of Chirkei, located 25 kilometers northwest of the city of Buinaksk. Better known as Sufi Sheikh Said Efendi Chirkeisky, Atsaev was a... MORE

During the mass public protest demonstrations in Moscow that began last December, one of the most popular public slogans has been “Putin—vor [thief]!” This catchphrase unites opposition forces that in most cases have little else in common: pro-Western liberals, Marxist leftists and pro-Nazi nationalists—the three... MORE

On August 19, a suicide bomber attacked the funeral of a police officer in the village of Sagopshi in Ingushetia’s Malgobek district. Seven police officers were killed in the attack and at least 15 other people were wounded, nine of them seriously. Ilez Korigov, the... MORE

Four years after launching the reform of Russia’s conventional Armed Forces, which many wrongly equate with “military reform,” a bleak picture is emerging from within the military concerning its progress to date. The Russian Ministry of Finance recently published figures related to defense and security... MORE