Last month amendments were passed to the law codifying the FSB’s surveillance of those citizens deemed to be threats to national security. Nicolai Petro, unlike some Western commentators, sees these as potentially making Russia's domestic security procedures among the world's most transparent.
The British prime minister’s charge that Pakistan plays a prominent role in exporting terrorism is grounded in an assessment of the Afghanistan war's core strategic realities, says Shaun Gregory of the Pakistan Security Research Unit.
The Georgia-Russia war of August 2008 refroze a region. The small Black Sea nation of Abkhazia is the key to its unblocking, says Neal Ascherson.
A vicious short war between Georgia and Russia erupted on 8 August 2008 over one of Georgia's “occupied territories”, South Ossetia. Two years on, Mikheil Saakashvili remains in power, surrounded by another cluster of ambitious young colleagues. Tbilisi’s construction projects are transforming the
The Beijing leadership’s obsession with order and control in face of citizens' search for justice highlights the dysfunctional nature of China’s political system, says Li Datong.
For the last 12 months Russian cities have witnessed regular demonstrations to protest restrictions on the right to assemble enshrined in Article 31 in Russia’s Constitution. 31 May was no exception in Moscow, with particularly brutal police involvement. Strategy-31 is spreading: will the authorit
In half a generation, a period that straddles two presidencies, politics has lifted millions of Brazilians from misery. Arthur Ituassu explains how it was done.
The International Court of Justice ruling on Kosovo’s declaration of independence benefits Serbia too. But what of its effects on Bosnia? Florian Bieber considers the implications of the ICJ opinion.
Many Russians experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union as defeat in a third world war and held Gorbachev responsible. However, a recent Levada Center survey shows attitudes are changing. 43% now see the end of the Cold War as a victory, Alexei Levinson reports. And whatever the regime thinks,
The proxy contest for influence between the European Union and Russia in a wide arc of states encompassing eastern Europe, the Caucasus and central Asia is changing shape, says Katinka Barysch.
With hustings for the Labour Party Leadership well underway, the five candidates have been busy battling to distance themselves from the era of Blair and Brown. But what have they had to say about electoral reform, civil liberties, human rights and Iraq, and how does each of their respective votin
The achievement of Isaias Afewerki’s regime in Asmara is to have used confrontation with its neighbours to entrench its survival. It is a political lesson that the international community still needs to learn, says Selam Kidane.
