US Administration officials have announced that they expect the long-debated Bilateral Security Agreement, which will allow US forces to remain in Afghanistan after the end of 2014, to be signed by incoming president-elect Ashraf Ghani next week. Officials said the document would be official signed within “days” of his Monday inauguration. The deal allows some…
NATO has announced that a significant portion of Russian troops operating inside of Ukraine have been withdrawn by Moscow, though some troops have remained behind.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…
Opposition activists in Russia have organized peace marches in Moscow and other Russian cities this week, specifically to protest involvement in the Ukrainian civil war. Numbers of protesters were inexact, but BBC reports them to be at “tens of thousands,” and human rights organizations list approximately 50,000. Moscow police, however, report that only 5,000 protesters…
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…
US Secretary of State John Kerry is urging Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah to abide by the released audit results, which have not been made public yet. It is speculated by many that these results still show Abdullah losing by a wide margin of votes to his rival, the former Minister of Finance Ashraf 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…
Yesterday, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov announced that a new multi-billion dollar emergency fund would be created to counteract the effects of Western sanctions with a state funded stimulus. The bailout fund will last at least through next year, despite allegations by Russian authorities that sanctions would have little to no effect on the Russian…
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.”…
The outcome of the Afghan presidential elections appears destined to be delayed, at least in the near-term. Despite recent statements made by both candidates to the contrary, a resolution to the oft-delayed elections seems unlikely to arrive soon, as Ashraf Ghani recently declared that any “two headed government” cannot be tolerated. The negotiations for an…
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