WHAT IS BOSNIA PEACE BY PIECE

Progress towards peace in Bosnia shows in every newly stocked store window, on every traffic filled road in central Bosnia, and in the smiles of every roller skating child on Sarajevo’s once deadly streets. But it is all too shaky, a few arrests of alleged war criminals, local quarrels in Sarajevo and in Mostar, or … Read more

WHAT IS CENTRAL ASIA

PROBLEMS OF WEALTH, A WEALTH OF PROBLEMS In 1996, Central Asia became more clearly than ever the object of a new form of international rivalry, particularly in the renewed regional contest over Afghanistan. Some analysts referred to this rivalry as a new “Great Game”, harking back to the term made famous by Rudyard Kipling and … Read more

WHAT IS THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

LOCATION, CLIMATE, LANGUAGE, RELIGION, FLAG, CAPITAL The Russian Federation, or Russia (until 25 December 1991 officially known as the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic RSFSR), constituted the major part of the USSR, providing some 76% of its area and some 51 of its population in 1990. It is bounded by Norway, Finland, Estonia and Latvia … Read more

DEMOCRATIZATION AND CONFLICTS IN RUSSIA AND THE NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES

Democracy is a discussion. Vaclav Havel, Present of the Czech Republic There is an ongoing discussion in post Soviet societies about whether democracy has brought more good or more evil. What makes the discussion fairly hot is people’s firsthand experience with the protracted and severe conflicts that have become manifest as democratization, or “detotalitarization”, unfolds. … Read more

RUSSIA AND IRAN: A TACTICAL ALLIANCE

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states of Central Asia and there Transcaucasus became a central focus for Russian foreign policy makers. Given these states ties to the Middle East, Moscow now tends to view its policy toward Iran through the lens of Theran’s policies toward Central Asia and the Transcaucasus. … Read more

BANGLADESH’S EXPERIMENTS WITH PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY

The parliamentary form of government in Bangladesh is rooted in the Constitution of 1972. Since then 13 amendments have been added, mos important being the 4th, 5th, 8th, 12th, and 13th, incorporating the changes: (4th) from the Indian parliamentary type to the Frenc presidential form, and the establishment of a one-party system (St deleting secularism … Read more

THE PROBLEM OF PEACE IN THE MODERN WORLD

How to secure permanent and lasting peace among the nations of the world is the biggest problem facing mankind today. It is far more evident now than ever before that peace in the modern world is a matter of peace between nations. Men as individuals in society have learnt to live together in peace. Cults … Read more

CHINA: THE WORLD’S NEXT SUPERPOWER

China is the world’s largest country in population and the third largest in area. With the longest continuous history of any present-day nation, China for over 3,000 years has been a center of civilization. Today it is a major regional power in East Asia. Since 1949 the country has been divided into two separate entities: … Read more

ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BOSNIA, KASHMIR AND PALESTINE

ETHNIC CLEANSING of self determination or for the betterment of their rights, largely “Ethnic cleansing” means uprising of a particular race for the right motivated by the religion or at times due to the colour of one’s skin. The “Ethnic cleansing” has emerged not in some Asian or Arabic              … Read more