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Steppe Change: How Russia’s War On Ukraine Is Reshaping Kazakhstan – Analysis

Introduction Kazakhstan experienced a year of shocks and change in 2022. In early January, the country was shaken for five days by widespread protests and unrest. The protests started over sharp hikes in fuel prices, but quickly swept up a range of other domestic issues, growing violent in the former …

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Macron’s Muddled China Outreach – Analysis

Just when it seemed the European Union was finally achieving strategic coherence as a global geopolitical actor, French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to China has shattered that myth. The French president and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, headed to China last week, hoping to …

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Credit Suisse Bailout: Swiss Parliament Complains In Vain

The government’s handling of the Credit Suisse meltdown was rejected by a frosty parliament this week during an extraordinary session on the historic UBS takeover. But the vote against the rescue plan has no legal consequences and has been all but ignored by financial markets and international media. On March …

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Why Do Most Countries Have Their Own Currency? Governments Wanted It That Way – Analysis

Among the many facts of modern life that are accepted without question by most ordinary people is that it is somehow perfectly natural, expected, and unremarkable that every sovereign state should have its own currency. We see this everywhere in names such as “the U.S. dollar” or “the Chinese yuan” …

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Rada Trajković: Everything that Vučić and the Serbian List should do in Kosovo, they do through the mafia and the parallel system

Aleksandar Vučić, the president of Serbia, is trying to maintain his importance and role on the international level through the issue of Kosovo – believes Rada Trajković, president of the European Movement of Serbs from Kosovo and advisor to the Minister for Communities and Return in the Government of Kosovo. …

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The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine

A Plan for Getting From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table After just over a year, the war in Ukraine has turned out far better for Ukraine than most predicted. Russia’s effort to subjugate its neighbor has failed. Ukraine remains an independent, sovereign, functioning democracy, holding on to roughly 85 …

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HUNGARY AND POLAND RELATIONS: POLES APART

The collapse in the hitherto close Polish-Hungarian relations has been collateral damage of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Warsaw expects serious gestures from Budapest to repair ties, but Orban hopes the estrangement is just a temporary blip. For years, Russia has been the elephant in the room during talks between Poland …

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Effective Impunity: How a Wartime Rapist Avoided Punishment in Bosnia

The case of a convicted rapist who fled Bosnia and Herzegovina and evaded a jail sentence highlights yet again the problem of war crimes convicts and defendants dodging justice by escaping to countries that will not extradite them. After being convicted, Ilija Juric never showed up to serve his sentence …

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How Fear of Albanians Went Mainstream in 1990s Italy

The anti-Albanian campaigns in the British media today are all too reminiscent of the targeting of Albanians in Italy and Greece 30 years ago – and need to be fought, not indulged.The recent anti-Albanian campaign in the UK has pushed Albanian politicians and intellectuals to take a stand in defence …

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How Bosnia’s Politicians Forgot the Sacrifice of State Department Friends

The resignations of four State Department officials protesting US inaction on the Bosnian war helped turn the tide of US opinion – but Bosnia has never recognised or rewarded their principled action.In late August 1992, George Kenney resigned as acting head of the Yugoslavia desk at the US State Department. …

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