In contrast to its neighboring countries with vast oil and gas resources, Tajikistan has the most important resource in the world; large reserves of fresh water. Some of this water is now being used for a single dam, the Nurek, which provides the country’s electricity. Unfortunately, the dam alone cannot provide enough power for Tajikistan’s […]
The Vagina Monologues of Soviet studies is finally here! After years of being made to feel guilty and ashamed about their past, of knowing that they did not fit into the virgin/whore, dissident/collaborator straitjacket of Western sovietology, ordinary ex-citizens of the USSR can thank Alexei Yurchak for an empowering and nuanced take on everyday Soviet […]
Watch former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato speak about “Russia today from the European perspective”, a lecture organised by the Foreign Policy Association for the Game Changers series.
Just as I was discussing on my other blog the Pakistani state’s inability to control or effectively coexist with the Islamic culture and religion within its borders, Islamabad announced a new deal allowing the Swat region to be ruled by Sharia law. This is yet another deal the Pakistani government has made with one of […]
According to the International Crisis Group, Tajikistan may be headed for economic collapse. http://www.rferl.org/content/Tajikistan_On_The_Road_To_Failure_Think_Tank_Concludes/1492820.html The country has been subsisting on remittance payments from migrant workers in Russia, but work is drying up quickly. Many are headed home. Some of the workers who have decided to stay are not making enough to send back, either from […]
I don’t want to beat a dead horse here, but there continues to be breaking news regarding the closure of the US Manas base in Kyrgyzstan. Alexander Cooley at the Herald Tribune has an inside view of the US displacement from the air base and argues that the US did the prudent thing by walking […]
It is amazing how much the US media is now concentrating on the war in Afghanistan as the war in Iraq is dropping further and further onto the back pages. This also appears to be true in looking at US government entities as Afghan envoy Richard Holbrooke is seemingly everywhere and we do not even […]
Last week, I spoke in front of the San Diego World Affairs Council North Chapter (an affiliate of FPA) about the rising objectives and capabilities of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Here is my presentation in slides (go to the bottom of the page). I though some you might be interested in some of the articles […]
“In 1999, while taking a break from my PhD to try to get rich in the fine jewellery business, I nearly became the world's largest counterfeiter of Fabergé eggs”. So begins jeweller-turned-philosophy professor Clancy Martin's hilarious account of his aborted attempt to create an international criminal operation involving an oligarch-mobster and using a group of […]
Just what sort of person would confess to reading the FPA Russia blog? In the first of an occassional series, we caught up with Scott Spires, a Moscow-based linguist, translator, writer, and recreational Russia Blog user. FPA Russia Blog: How do you like living in Russia? SS: I love it, despite the occasional aggravations and […]
Newly appointed Afghanistan/Pakistan US ‘representative’, which gives him a bit more power than an ‘envoy’, stated during a Munich security conference that the war in Afghanistan will be a ‘long and difficult struggle,’ one which is 'tougher than Iraq.’ Not exactly breaking news, but it's important to know where Mr. Holbrooke stands and how he […]
_ FPA Russia blog sometimes gives the Guardian's Russian man Luke Harding a hard (ahem) time, but hats off to him for today's chilling and well-researched investigation into rising skinhead and neo-Nazi violence. Ultranationalist gangs, whose members are mostly in their early 20s or even younger, are responsible for over 300 brutal killings since 2004. […]
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