KYRGYZSTAN’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: NEW GAME WITH OLD PLAYERS
By Erica Marat (10/19/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Kyrgyzstan is about to hold presidential elections that will potentially mark the first peaceful and lawful transfer of power in the country and in the region. Most in Kyrgyzstan expect Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev to win the elections. The question, however, remains whether the elections will proceed without major violations and move Kyrgyzstan one step further in political development, or cause a deeper divide within the country into north and south.
AMBIVALENCE IN GEORGIA’S EU PERSPECTIVE
By Niklas Nilsson (10/19/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Attention to the Eastern Partnership Summit held on September 30 focused largely on Belarus’ refusal to participate and the implications of the Timoshenko trial for Ukraine’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA). However, the summit also highlighted some of the problems inherent in EU engagement with its Eastern neighbors, and especially in the case of Georgia. While Georgia’s EU orientation has become stronger after the 2008 war, many of the reforms required from Georgia to start negotiations for a DCFTA conflict with Georgia’s own market liberalization reforms.
RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES IN KAZAKHSTAN: DREAM OR REALITY?
By Rafis Abazov (10/5/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
This fall several thousand students in Kazakhstan will enter universities of a very different type – research universities.
CONCERNS OVER URMIA LAKE BOOSTS NATIONALISM AMONG AZERBAIJANIS IN IRAN
By Emil Souleimanov (10/5/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Mass demonstrations of ethnic Azerbaijanis protesting the drying up of Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran, the Middle East’s largest water reservoir and the third largest salt-water lake in the world, recently struck the cities of Iranian Azerbaijan. Although information from the region is scarce, numerous reports state that hundreds of protesters have been beaten, arrested and mistreated by Iranian police and security forces.
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Analysis Niklas Swanström and Leah Oppenheimer, "Invisible Ink: Looking for the Lost Trade between China, Russia, and Central Asia", ISDP Policy Brief, 13 March 2013. 
New Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr with Adib Farhadi, Finish the Job: Jump-Start the Afghan Economy, December 2012.
Conference Report Cheryl Benard, Eli Sugarman, and Holly Rehm, Cultural Heritage vs. Mining on the New Silk Road? Finding Technical Solutions for Mes Aynak and Beyond (in cooperation with the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage) December 2012.
Article Svante E. Cornell, "The 'Afghanization of the North Caucasus: Causes and Implications of a Changing Conflict", in Stephen Blank, ed., Russia's Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2012.