Yesterday, a Moscow court slapped the wrists of ultranationalist leader Alexander Belov with an 18 month suspended sentence for hate speech at a rally of his Movement Against Illegal Immigration. Belov, whose name fittingly means ‘White’, agitates to cleanse the country of non-Slavs under the slogan of ‘Russia for Russians’ (his movement’s logo, a black […]
The magazine business new europe (bne) has recently issued a special report on Kazakhstan. The journal covers eastern, southeastern and central European markets. The special report on Kazakhstan is especially interesting right now as the country is closely tied to world markets and is therefore struggling. KazakhGold, the state gold company, listed on the London […]
US Defense (or is it War) Secretary Robert Gates spoke candidly about the war in Afghanistan to group of reporters yesterday aboard an Air Force plane. Gates, who has gone from a seemingly short, holdover type term to one filled with significance, warned that unless “a perceptible shift in momentum” occurs with the Obama administration’s […]
The Heads of State of Afghanistan (Karzai), Pakistan (Zardari), and Iran (Ahmadinejad) met in Tehran on Sunday for the first trilateral meeting between the neighboring states in years. Extremism, terrorism, and drug trafficking were the main issues on the agenda, but the most important accomplishment was setting a tone of cooperation for future dealings. The […]
This Memorial Day, I would like to pay tribute to all those American military men and women fighting in Afghanistan and beyond. Actually, I would like to go further and thank all those Americans who have sacrificed for this country by serving in our militaries throughout our history, whether in Vietnam, Iraq, WWII, etc. To […]
It is very easy to just sit here and write about US political and military strategy in Afghanistan and discuss how these battles are either won or lost and lose track of what is actually happening in the lives of the individuals actually doing the fighting (and dying), both Americans, Europeans, Afghanis, etc. The iconic […]
Rakhat Aliev, President Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, has been living in Vienna, Austria since 2007 after a public split with Nazarbayev. Ever since, he has been denigrating the Kazakh leadership. He has finally put it all in a book, published in German and Russian, called The Godfather-in-Law. It is available in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The book […]
In the below one question daily briefing by the US State Department, Spokesman Ian Kelly attempts to describe the ongoing process of the so-called civilian surge in Afghanistan. Though the ‘people surge’ is considered an integral part of the Obama administration’s Afghan strategy, many have wondered where exactly they were going to obtain the necessary […]
It took a matter of hours for President Hamid Karzai’s administration to deny the rumor that his government was to take on former U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad as a CEO or ‘unelected prime minister’ of the central Asian state. The New York Times reported yesterday, based on unnamed American and Afghan officials, that Karzia would […]
Afghan school girls have been targets of the Taliban ever since the group starting gaining power in the country in 1994 and the group remains vigilant in stopping women from gaining access to such basic rights, especially an education. The Taliban have burned down hundreds of girl schools in the past few years and has […]
The Soviet Union worshipped the Olympic games as a proof positive of Socialism’s inevitable victory, one mustachioed female shotputter at a time. Those days may be history but their absurdist spirit lives on in the most appropriate of venues: the Eurovision Song Contest. Just as Russia used to go to great lengths to demonstrate its […]
The US House of Representatives passed a $94.2 billion dollar funding bill for Afghanistan yesterday, but cracks may be appearing in overall US support of the war effort there. The bill passed 368 to 60, with 51 Democrats and 9 Republicans voting against providing more funds for a conflict that new President Barack Obama has […]
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