By Georgiy Voloshin (6/13/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

At the end of May, Kazakhstan hosted two important economic events – the 25th Council of Foreign Investors meeting and the Fifth Astana Economic Forum. On these two occasions, the country’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, announced upcoming changes in public policy with regard to foreign companies working on Kazakhstan’s lucrative energy market and formulated several proposals concerning the state of the world economy.

By Kevin Daniel Leahy (3/21/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The so-called “Emir of the Caucasus Emirate,” Doku Umarov, issued a video statement in early February in which he ordered those under his command to desist from carrying out attacks that might injure or kill Russian civilians. This statement was remarkable given that in the past number of years Umarov has associated himself with several high-profile rebel attacks on civilian targets in the Russian heartland. Some observers have taken the content of Umarov’s statement literally and interpreted his policy shift in the context of ongoing anti-government protests in Moscow and other Russian cities.

By Richard Weitz (3/21/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

One of the banes of the Central Asia & Caucasus region is that they have Iran’s hard-line regime as their neighbor. The clerical regime often fights with them over resources, uses their territories to wage spy wars, and exacerbates regional tensions through its generally aggressive policies.