In October 2008, two months after Russia’s invasion of Georgia, a diplomatic process was launched in Geneva to implement the armistice agreements signed on August 12 and September 8 that year. Two and a half years later, the fifteenth round of negotiations concluded in Geneva... MORE

US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Moscow has been planned primarily as a promotion of business ties and Western support for President Dmitry Medvedev’s announced modernization efforts. “We see the vice president’s trip as trying to expand into new dimensions of reset with a... MORE

As anti-government protesters, whose numbers continue to swell, call for an escalation of demonstrations, Yemeni President Salih reiterated his intention to stay in office until the presidential election in 2013. The Salih government rejected the most recent five point plan put forward by the Joint... MORE

On March 4, Russia’s security services reported they managed to kill one of the leaders of Ingushetia’s insurgency, 30 year old Khamzat Korigov. Initially, the government sources said Korigov had detonated a bomb when the security agents surrounded him in Ingushetia’s principal town, Nazran. Later,... MORE

Objective Sirte: Gains and Setbacks Among Libya's Rebel Forces

The March 5 meeting in Sochi between the Armenian, Azerbaijan and Russian presidents, Serj Sarksyan, Ilham Aliyev and Dmitry Medvedev, respectively, resulted in a joint declaration, but once again failed to produce the much-expected breakthrough on the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. This was the... MORE

The Russian defense ministry plans to convene a broad-based meeting on March 14 to discuss the results of military reform and its prospects during the next decade. On March 3, Viktor Ozerov, Chairman of the Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee confirmed that the full... MORE

The social upheavals occurring in the Middle East, triggered by the suicide of a fruit vender in Tunisia earlier this year, have been largely precipitated by a number of factors ranging from economic mismanagement, inflation, unemployment, corruption and lack of political rights and freedom. But... MORE

At a press conference on February 28, former Belarusian presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich outlined details of tortures at the KGB Detention Center in Minsk. Mikhalevich had been released a few days earlier on condition that he turned informant for the secret police. Instead he used... MORE

On March 1, a blast destroyed the home of a suspect militant, Eduard Ulbashev, in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Chegem district.  One day earlier, on February 28, Ulbashev himself was killed in a shootout with the police.  Government forces reported that two explosive devices equal to 25 kilograms... MORE