Eurasia

While Trump Fiddles, China declares Eurasia Open for Business at At Shanghai Cooperation Org. Summit

Beijing raised its profile at the annual Shanghai Cooperation Council summit of non-Western countries just by providing a forum. London (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – China hosted the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO) last week at its port of Tianjin, drawing a crowd of world leaders from 20 non-Western countries. The […]

China

The Shanghai Cooperation Org. Summit and the Middle East in a Multipolar World

Middle East Monitor

By ‏Peiman Salehi | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Beijing was accompanied by a striking military parade and a series of ambitious economic proposals. Much of the global commentary presented the event as further evidence of a transition from US dominance to a new Chinese […]

Archaeology

Ancient Nomadic Scythians Found to be Ethnically Diverse

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The more genetic history that is done, the more it is clear that ancient ethnonyms, the names given supposed ethnicities, put a variety of peoples under a single rubric. I talked recently about how the Phoenicians, long thought to be what we would now call Lebanese, were actually a multi-ethnic […]

Eurasia

Can the Caspian Sea be Saved from turning into an environmental Disaster?

Global Voices

Written byNurbek Bekmurzaev ( Global Voices ) – The Caspian Sea, the largest enclosed body of water in the world, faces a grim future in the form of significant desiccation, loss of flora and fauna, and large-scale pollution. All these processes have already started and their further deterioration poses immense risks for the economies and […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Why Russia fears the Emergence of Tajik Terrorists

Richard Foltz

(The Conversation) – It has emerged that the four gunmen charged in the murder of at least 139 concert-goers at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall theatre were all citizens of the small post-Soviet nation of Tajikistan in Central Asia. Does their nationality have anything to do with their alleged terrorism? Many Russians probably think so. Tajikistan, […]

Armenia

Jerusalem: Jewish Settler Movement makes bid for Large Expanse of Christian Armenian Quarter

The Conversation

By Svante Lundgren, Lund University | – The Armenian quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City is facing its biggest crisis in a long time. A Jewish businessman with connections to the radical settler movement is poised to develop a quarter of the neighbourhood’s territory, with plans to build a luxury hotel. If this goes ahead, it […]

Armenia

In the Caucasus, the US Priority is Fossil Fuels, not Armenians

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Edward Hunt | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Officials in Washington are doubling down on their efforts to create a new energy corridor that runs through the Caucasus, a major transit route for trade and energy that connects Europe and Asia. Focusing on Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries at odds over […]

Armenia

From Armenia to Gaza: War, Crimes, Truth and Denial

Tomdispatch

By Arnold Isaacs ( Tomdispatch.com) – This month’s catastrophic violence in Israel and Gaza — specifically, the contradictory statements from each side on the other’s war crimes — has taken me back to a revealing personal moment almost exactly 18 years ago, recalling a different war in a different part of the world. That day […]

Armenia

The Death of the Armenian Dream in Nagorno-Karabakh was Predictable but not Inevitable

Ronald Suny

By Ronald Suny, University of Michigan | – (The Conversation) – Thirty-five years ago, more than 100,000 Armenian protesters took to the streets to convince Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that Nagorno-Karabakh – an ethnically Armenian enclave stuck geographically in the neighboring republic of Soviet Azerbaijan – ought to be joined to Armenia. In recent days, […]