An already shaky Russian economy has been made worse by plummeting oil prices that could cause the Russian economy to recess by 1.2%. Sberbank CIB, Russia’s most important lender, estimates that if the price of crude remains around $90 per barrel that it will shrink, and additional estimates show that if the price of crude…
Kazakhstan appears poised to reclaim its place among the world’s leading gas and oil producers in the coming years. Kazakh Deputy Energy Minister Magzum Mirzagaliyev recently announced that Kazakhstan’s long-awaited Kashagan oil field will resume crude oil production during the second half of 2016. The supergiant (>10 billion barrels) which became operational in 2013 but…
Tajik national and Ph.D. student at the University of Exeter Alexander Sodiqov was recently released by Tajik authorities and has successfully returned to Canada, where he is expected to continue his doctoral studies. Sodiqov, who had been researching separatist groups in the restive Tajik autonomous region of Gomo-Badakhstan, was detained on charges of sedition and…
As P5+1 members get ready to renew talks with Iran surrounding its much maligned nuclear program, the possibility of a nuclear deal, while still not guaranteed, is still extant. Sources close to the deal have oscillated from initially optimistic, to overtly pessimistic, to somewhere in between, though at the current juncture it appears that both…
Newly elected Ukrainian President and former chocolate magnate Petro Poroshenko addressed the UN General Assembly earlier this week. Poroshenko, in a cautionary address directed principally at the United States and the European Union, warned that removing sanctions currently levied against Moscow too quickly could lead to a ramping up of Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine,…
NATO has announced that a significant portion of Russian troops operating inside of Ukraine have been withdrawn by Moscow, though some troops have remained behind. The withdrawal has struck many as curious given the fact that EU negotiators have not made headway with their Russian counterparts in cease fire negotiations, and Ukrainian and Russian forces…
The outcome of the Afghan elections has finally been made clear. Officials in Kabul have announced that the next President of Afghanistan will be Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank official that was heralded as the front-runner during the election run-off held shortly after initial elections terminated inconclusively. The announcement of Ghani…
The government of Kazakhstan is looking to two of its neighbors on the Caspian Sea to solve a domestic gasoline crisis. Almaty has entered into talks with Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, two states that are not only rich in oil as is Kazakhstan, but also boasts of stronger infrastructure to develop their natural resources. The Kazakh…
Conflicts between ethnic Han Chinese and the Uyghurs, a Turkic minority that has historically inhabited the province are expected to continue as the regional Chinese government announced the closing and subsequent “rescuing” of children from religious schools. The closing of schools not sanctioned by the local government has seen the removal of over 190 children…
Ukrainian defense minister Valery Heletey announced on Sunday that NATO would begin delivering weapons to government forces to, as he put it, “stop” Vladimir Putin. Heletey said he had discussed the supply agreements with NATO defense ministers during the summit in Wales during the first week of September. NATO statements described the shipments as “non-lethal.”…
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