Recent Posts

China’s Expansion Could Meet Challenges in Balkans in 2022

The rising superpower may confront some checks from its rivals in the Western Balkans this year – though probably not enough to significantly curb its regional ambitions. The second year of the COVID pandemic has deeply transformed global relations. Major world powers underwent significant political and economic changes while learning …

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Uncertainty Ahead For Xi’s China – Analysis

In 2021 China was, and in 2022 again will be, dominated by the domestic economy, relations with the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic and President Xi Jinping. Despite spectacular bounce-back growth in the first half of the year, China’s economy had slowed dramatically by year’s end. Worries centred on the …

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Kazakh President Announces CSTO Troop Withdrawal, Criticizes Predecessor

Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev says troops from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will begin withdrawing from Kazakhstan in two days as the situation calmed following the deadliest violence in the ex-Soviet republic’s three decades of independence from Moscow. In a televised address to parliament on January 11, Toqaev …

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Iran, Qatar Discuss Afghanistan, Yemen

The foreign ministers of Iran and Qatar talked about a range of regional and international issues, including the latest developments in Afghanistan and Yemen. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian held a meeting with his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani in Doha on Tuesday. The two senior diplomats talked …

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Surkov Says Russia Must Expand Or Die, The Most Dangerous Of All Possible ‘Prescriptions’ – OpEd

Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s former chief ideologist, has published a new programmatic article in which he argues that the solution to Russia’s domestic malaise lies in imperial expansion. Indeed, he says, Russia must expand territorially or die (actualcomment.ru/kuda-delsya-khaos-raspakovka-stabilnosti-2111201336.html). Many Russian commentators have suggested that his analysis of the domestic situation …

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