Just a month after a U.S. diplomat expressed to President Saakashvili concerns over his selection of Bacho Akhalaia as Defense Minister two years ago, the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi reported to Washington that although it was yet early to make a final judgment about Akhalaia’s performance, “the early signs are all positive,” according to several confidential U.S. embassy cables released by WikiLeaks. READ MORE

Ukraine, embittered by Russia's unwillingness to cut prices for its gas, said on Monday, Sept. 12 it would try to resume imports of the fuel from Turkmenistan.    READ MORE

Hopes are rising once more that the moribund six-party talks will resume and that negotiations will eventually produce an agreement whereby North Korea abandons its nuclear program. The latest cause for optimism came when North Korean leader Kim Jong-il called for a moratorium on the building or testing of nuclear weapons during his summit meeting with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Hopes increased further when Kim repeated that proposal during his state visit to China a few days later, and added that his government was prepared to return to the six-party talks “without precondition.” READ MORE

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Moscow regrets the EU's decision on Monday to open talks with Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan aimed at agreeing shipment of Turkmen natural gas across the Caspian Sea to Europe. READ MORE

20 years ago Kazakhstan voluntarily renounced the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal, closing the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. READ MORE

The Chairperson-in-Office, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audrionus Ažubalis, opened a bilateral meeting between the leaders of the sides in the Transdniestrian conflict - Prime Minister Vlad Filat of Moldova and Transdniestrian leader Igor Smirnov – in the German town of Bad Reichenhall today. READ MORE

Today military actions between Russia and China hardly seem possible, but this doesn’t mean that future events might not take the opposite direction. Several questions arise in this context: does China consider the neighboring Russian lands as own territory and is going to occupy them? What could make China take this step? And what consequences could result from this? READ MORE

2011 is a landmark year for Kazakhstan. Twenty years ago, December 16, 1991 President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed RK Constitutional Law “On State Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan”. READ MORE

Germany's constitutional court has ruled that the country's contribution to the eurozone bailout fund was legal, but said parliament must have greater say in similar decisions in the future. Markets were up on the news. READ MORE

General John Allen is six weeks into his command of ISAF and US troops in Afghanistan: “We will prevail in this campaign because the forces are well entrained and [we have] the right combination to do that.” READ MORE