Crossing Tajikistan from west to northeast – Dushanbe to the Tajik-Kyrgyz border – and then Kyrgyzstan from south to north all the way to Bishkek via Osh, is one of the most extraordinary road trips on earth. Not only this is prime Ancient Silk Road territory but now is being propelled as a significant stretch…
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is an international organization, member states of which include Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As the name implies, the EAEU aims to integrate Eurasian economies in an economic union work together with all its potential trading partners. The Union’s reach now extends far beyond Eurasia: it has already established…
President Putin left nothing to doubt when he proudly proclaimed that Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union regional integration organization that it leads are strategically merging with China and its Belt & Road Initiative, with this process having unprecedentedly far-reaching strategic consequences for the supercontinent and 21st-century geopolitics as a whole. This year’s Belt &…
At first, it sounded like a geopolitical bombshell: Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev, 78, in power since 1991, dramatically announced his resignation. In a “special” address, significantly delivered in both Kazakh and Russian, Nazarbayev said: “As the founder of the independent Kazakh state, I see my future task in ensuring the coming to power of a…
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were involved in a joint cooking venture. Pancakes with caviar (blin, in Russian), chased down with a shot of vodka. It just happened at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. Talk about a graphic (and edible) metaphor sealing the ever-evolving ‘Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership’. For a few years now the Vladivostok…
Pakistan currency faces a plethora of economic problems caused by decades of domestic mismanagement, a US led war on terror in which Pakistan’s supporting role has cost lives and money with not so much as a “thank you” paid back in kind and a global economic scenario wherein the currencies of virtually all developing economies…
