Europe

This end of year has been quite tumultuous in Europe: European citizens are in the street, rating agencies threaten to downgrade the rating of some members of the Eurozone, the race to elections is going full speed in several EU countries, all this taking place in a dire economic and political climax. The political debate […]

Yet another euro crisis summit is over, and yet another deal has been struck. This time, the deal has taken the shape of an intergovernmental agreement. If I am not mistaken, and I may very well have lost count by now, that makes nine summits and five deals in the past 19 months. Although it […]

At least 23 and perhaps as many as 26 of the 27 members of the European Union have agreed to an inter-governmental agreement that may or may not save the euro from the bond market vigilantes. A full-blown treaty failed because there was not unanimous support for the idea – Britain stood alone in saying […]

For Azerbaijan’s political and human rights landscape, 2011 was a year of tumult, small triumphs, and anguish. I’ve written a great deal on topics this year such as the arrests and imprisonment of Jabbar Savalan and Bakhtiar Hajiyev, the opposition protests in February through mid-June, and the tragic death of Rafiq Tagi, stabbed to death […]

Georgia 2011 was the year when former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze put the finishing touches on her long campaign to discredit former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze. Ms. Burjanadze began her re-branding effort from responsible, clear-headed opposition leader to uncompromising radical after forming her own political party in 2008. The disastrous Russo-Georgian War in the same […]

Summary of 2011 For the EU, any summary of the 2011 will necessarily be dominated by the sovereign debt crisis. The crisis, starting in late 2009, seems to have no end. The past year, and the year before that, has seen a string of crisis talks resulting in an ever-increasing number of initiatives: First the […]

Reflecting on 2011: where to start? 2011 has been another busy year for writers, analysts and students of foreign policy: from the Arab revolutions, to the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, to the war in Libya, to the Euro crisis, to the domestic turmoil in the US, so on and so forth. Instead of examining certain […]

The son of the Iranian ayatollah who issued the 2006 fatwah calling for the assassination of Azeri author Rafiq Tagi has issued a statement on his web site praising Tagi’s murderers. Sheikh Mohammed Fazel Lankarani, a prominent ayatollah like his late father, has written on his site that “Without a doubt, the man who performed […]

Wednesday, November 23, 2011, Germany sold 10-year Bunds at its debt auction worth 3.64 billion euro with an average yield of 1.98%, and the bid-to-cover ratio was 1.1 , while the Bundesbank retained the remainder of the 6 billion euro offering. To most people, that’s just Wall Street gobbledegook, but in fact, it is a […]

I just wanted to post this powerful photo taken by Aziz Elkhanoglu today at Rafiq Tagi’s funeral.

Another sad day for Azerbaijan, a country saddled with more than its fair share of injustice and pain. Rafiq Tagi, who was hospitalized a mere three days ago after being stabbed by unknown assailants, died today in a Baku hospital of complications after initial treatment for his wounds and surgery to remove his spleen. He […]

In a shocking incident, independent journalist Rafiq Tagi was stabbed repeatedly today in Baku, according to this RFE/RL report. Tagi is best known for his thought piece entitled “Europe and Us,” published in 2007 in the Sanat newspaper. In the article, Tagi compared modern Muslim societies to their European counterparts, and argued that Islam had […]