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01.09.2010 :: EDITORAL

OUR NEW SITE
31.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Nil NIKANDROV

CIA in Honduras: the Practice of Selective Terror

"President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya was displaced slightly over a year ago in a coup staged by the local oligarchy and the US intelligence community. The coup came as a punishment for Zelaya's alignment with H. Chavez and other populist Latin American leaders. Since the time, the news flow from Honduras abounds with stories of political assassinations, the victims being activists of trade unions, peasant and student organizations, and the National Popular Resistance Front opposing the pro-US regime of Porfirio Lobo..."
31.08.2010 :: Eurasia

Aleksandr SHUSTOV

Islamization of Tajikistan

"In recent years Tajikistan has been involved in the process of active Islamization. Being one of the poorest countries in the region, and still healing wounds of a bloody civil war of 1992-1997, Tajikistan turned out to be receptive to Islam. The consequences of this will certainly affect not only the country's political regime and its relations with other countries of Central Asia but also security of Russia, where hundreds of thousands of migrant workers arrive from Tajikistan each year..."
30.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Tiberio GRAZIANI (Italy)

Geopolitics of Republican Italy

"The ongoing great geopolitical changes, mainly determined by Russia, could possibly enhance the strategic function of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea, just in the contest of the organization and stabilization of the new multi-polar system and of the potential Euro-Asian integration..."
27.08.2010 :: Energy of the Future

Vladimir YURTAYEV

Iran joins peaceful nuclear club

"Until the last moment the Western mass media continued speculations on possible military attack on Iran’s nuclear objects by the US and/or Israel. The launch of the Bushehr plant on Augsut 21 in fact put an end to this discussion. The threat of Chernobyl disaster’s repetition can chill even very hotheaded people. Now we can expect the US to start working on more complicated scenarios of its blitzkrieg in Asia..."
25.08.2010 :: Eurasia

Bogdan TSIRDYA (Moldova)

GUAM Back to Life?

"Media reported on August 6-17 that presidents M. Ghimpu and M. Saakashvili met in Georgia to declare their commitment to reanimating GUAM believed to be stillborn since 2007. At the moment Belarus – the republic going through a period of chill in the relations with Russia - is being lured into GUAM to fill in the vacuum left by Ukraine which no longer takes any interest in the bloc..."
25.08.2010 :: Eurasia

Pyotr ISKENDEROV

Shadows of Kosovo and OSCE Over Kyrgyzstan

"The first group of experts from the international commission investigating the June, 2010 clashes in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan plans to be in Osh by early September. Osh mayor M. Myrzakmatov reacted negatively to the plan. He told Russia's Kommersant daily that “the deployment of the OSCE police forces in South Kyrgyzstan would be tantamount to replaying the Kosovo scenario in the Fergana Valley”, obviously meaning that in the Kosovo case a piece of the sovereign country had been torn out of it by force..."
24.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Taras DYACHENKO

The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Will Echo in the Arctic

"The catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico has had repercussions worldwide. Oil grands like BP, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, and Conoco-Phillips are increasingly tapping into offshore resources, and in the process their marine expansion breeds heightened risks to the environment. In the nearest future, the offshore drilling will largely relocate to the Arctic zone..."
24.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Hannes HOFBAUER (Austria)

Kosovo is American

“Kosovo is Serbian”, is one of the key slogans in every political statement throughout Belgrade and Serbian Diaspora-meetings all-around the world. Orthodox monasteries all over the country seem to prove this point of view. “Kosovo is Albanian territory”, is the answer of the majority of the 1,9 million people living on this territory.>“Kosovo is European”, is the statement of Brussels authority underlining the fact of Kosovo being part of the “Euro”-zone and under EU-supervision. Historically Serbian, ethnically Albanian, economically European periphery. Yes and no. However, geopolitically, Kosovo is American.
23.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

David KERANS (USA)

Local Government Pain and Rolling Political Failure in the US

"The financial and automotive sector bailouts of 2008-09 effectively transferred enormous quantities of private sector debt onto the public sector... Local government in the US is not an insignificant backwater. States, counties, and cities now employ 14.4 million people (about 7.3 percent of the working population), and they collect about $2 trillion (about 13 percent of GDP) in taxes and duties of various kinds. (1) The recession has been choking local tax collections for three years now... tax receipts at the state level in FY2010 declined 12 percent below that of FY2008. And so states’ expenditures fell from $687 billion in FY2008 to $613 billion in FY2010... This is a dark prospect..."
23.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Sergei KAMENEV

Russia and Pakistan After the Sochi Fourlateral Summit

"The August 18-19 Sochi summit attended by the leaders of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan – the second fourlateral one after the July, 2009, Dushanbe meeting - showed that the format indeed helps to address the geopolitical problems of Central Asia and to strengthen peace and security in the region... President Medvedev expressed Russia's interest in joining the $7.6 bn Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline construction project (the pipeline will stretch over 1,000 km) and in helping Pakistan upgrade the Karachi metallurgic plan built in 1985 with the Soviet assistance..."
22.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Aleksandr SHUSTOV

Fourlateral Summit in Sochi

"On August 18-19, the presidents of Russia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan convened for the second time in Sochi. The summit was mainly necessitated by the recent tensions between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and by the coming pullout of the US forces from Afghanistan. No doubt, the withdrawal will tilt the geopolitical balance in Central Asia and, in particular, will expose Tajikistan – a republic sharing a long and poorly equipped border with Afghanistan – to serious risks..."
22.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Elena PUSTOVOITOVA

The Rising Star of Gen. Hamid Gul

"The former General holds that the longer the US forces stay in the region – in Iraq and Afghanistan (or in Pakistan, if they choose to move into the country) - the more they will antagonize the respective populations... Gul's understanding of the causes of the September 11 tragedy deserve particular attention. He is convinced that it was a covert operation aimed at creating a pretext “for entering Afghanistan and using it as a launch pad to enter Pakistan and dominate the region”..."

20.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Ajdar KURTOV

Bushehr Saga Nearing Completion

"Marking the completion of a saga which began in the middle of the XX century, on August 21 Iran will officially open the nuclear reactor at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant... What Iran is getting – in full compliance with the international law and without any violations that might threaten peace and international security – is a purely civilian power industry installation. Threats to peace and international security, as, for example, John Bolton's statements clearly show, are posed by another country..."

20.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Alexander BARENTSEV

Iran and the Struggle Against Drug Mafia: Feasibility of Public Executions

"According to the UN statistics, Iran is the global champion in terms of the efficiency of anti-drug efforts and drug demand reduction. Iran shares a 2,00 km border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Due to the absence of proper security systems in these countries, drugs are smuggled relatively easily from their territories into Iran. In response, Iran is building fortifications, tightening security in its border-zone villages - and hangs drug dealers publicly on cranes so that the corpses face the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan..."

19.08.2010 :: Eurasia

Vladislav GULEVICH (Ukraine)

Russia Ousted from Uzbek Economy

"The region of Central Asia is an epicenter of global interests. Competition between the U.S., Russia, the EU, China, India, Iran directly impacts the regional economy, and Uzbekistan is one of the main routes for financial inflows into Central Asia..."

18.08.2010 :: Eurasia

Hovannes NIKOGOSYAN (Armenia)

Expecting a War, Hoping the Expectations Will Not Materialize

"...It is an open question when exactly the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan became a reality again, but in the public sphere - in comments and statements – the only issue concerning the hot phase of the conflict seems to be “When would be the best time to start?”, while concerns over the imminent catastrophic consequences of the escalation no longer have a pacifying effect... No doubt, on August 19-21 Russian President D. Medvedev's visit to Yerevan will dot the i's..."

18.08.2010 :: Eurasia

Andrei ARESHEV

Russia-Armenia: improvement of relations amid information attacks

"Months before the official visit of President Dmitry Medvedev to Armenia scheduled for August 19-21, experts in both countries focused on bilateral relations between Moscow and Yerevan, a thing which proves the following: like the whole post-Soviet territory, the Caucasus remains a place where Russia, the West (U.S. and the EU), Turkey, Iran and some other countries are playing a complicated geopolitical game... The situation in Central Asia and the Caucasus shows that the West has been sequentially implementing its tasks in Russia's geopolitical area, trying to weaken its authority there and separating it from its geopolitical partners..."

18.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Elena PUSTOVOITOVA

Destroying the Iraqi Statehood: Operation Almost Complete

"The US got into Iraq uninvited and plans to leave without asking for the UN approval or consulting the Iraqi security forces which will be left with a country where the foreign occupation has practically unleashed a civil war... Upon leaving it to the fire of civilian strife in Iraq to burn on its own, Washington will have all the reasons to conclude that the operation aimed at destroying Iraq's statehood is complete..."

17.08.2010 :: Оrbis Terrarum

Semion DEZHNEV

One Body is Nobody

"Foreign partners of the Russian business readily resort to non-market methods to debar Russian investments from their countries. The Russian business community is too familiar with the treatment. In 2006 Gazprom bid to buy Centica, a British gas-distribution company, but met with staunch resistance... Germany was equally uncooperative when Gazprom attempted to buy into the distribution grids of Ruhrgas... The story of the acquisition of two Swiss corporations – Oerlikon and Sulzer – by Russia's Renova took an even more intriguing turn..."