Russia will open a new base in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, later this year. Osh once hosted a Soviet airbase and is strategically located in the Ferghana Valley, extremely close to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The agreement will last for 49 years, to be renewed thereafter. All soldiers there will have diplomatic immunity, a courtesy not extended to […]
It’s hard to believe, but the people of Afghanistan will go to the polls in just over three weeks to choose their next president. Though the incumbent Hamid Karzai is the clear favorite, but his return to the state’s head office is not assured as challengers Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani have gone on the […]
“Our future is certain; it’s the past that keeps changing’ was how Soviet dissidents lamented the re-writing of history. If only they knew what was coming! Today’s Russia may have lost the certainty of a Communist future, but certainly not the state’s stranglehold over the past. Russia is not alone, of course. The teaching of […]
One of the greatest challenges facing the United States, its NATO allies, and the Afghan government is how to handle what is sure to be a rising prison population. The US/NATO troop surge has been followed by more aggressive efforts to take back Taliban-dominated areas and these missions have inevitably led to an increase in […]
The president of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, earned 85 percent of the vote, winning the July 23rd election, which came as no surprise to anyone, whether the Kyrgyz population or any of the major powers. His opponent, SDP leader Almazbek Atambayev, ran a weak campaign that few expected to succeed. It is hard to write this […]
Excuse me World, how are you feeling about the NATO presence in Afghanistan? What are your thoughts about a possible return to rule by the Taliban? While WorldPublicOpinion.org asked the world, well almost 65% of it (actually just a few thousand scattered people), to share their thoughts on such questions in a recent survey last […]
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) recent resolution marking August 23rd as a day of remembrance for Nazism and Stalinism has sparked quite an uproar over the past couple weeks. Russia’s Federal Assembly (the 176 member Federation Council and 450 member State Duma, respectively) issued a statement that the decision to equate […]
Here are three Afghan-related pieces I read recently that I want to comment on: 1. MountainRunner.us, Tom Broun Tom Broun, a US military officer assigned to NATO, discusses the implications of the ongoing ‘Why Afghanistan Matters’ contest being hosted on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube on a guest post for Mountainrunner.us. Broun analyzes the media coverage […]
Russia and Italy just go together. Because Italy had the warmest relations with the Soviet Union of any Nato member state, Russia’s best-selling car was based on a Fiat and manufactured in a town named after the head of the Italian Communist Party. But it’s no longer movies, Ladas and socialism that keep the two […]
‘Opposition supporters who attended the Friday Prayer service in Tehran had responded to calls to chant “Death to America!” by chanting “Death to Russia!” instead’, Robert Mackey writes in today’s New York Times blog. Though I completely agree with the commenter who noted ‘I’m not sure that “Death to Russia!” is the best way to […]
That question, asked at Russia’s opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta back in 2006, after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, was answered on Wednesday with the slaying of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova. “Who is to blame for Natalya’s murder?”, asks Oleg Orlov, head of Moscow-based Memorial. “His name is Ramzan Kadyrov.” Indeed, writes the Christian Science […]
President Nursultan Nazarbaev recently signed a new law placing blogs, social media networks, and chatrooms under the rubric of “mass media”, effectively creating criminal liability for users of these internet communication platforms and permitting the government to shut down and censor websites as it sees fit. The government denies this law as being any kind […]
Popular from Press
