On July 16-17, in Almaty, an informal meeting of 56 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) countries’ foreign affairs ministers decided to hold a summit of the organization this year in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana. This will be the OSCE’s first meeting at the level of heads of state since Istanbul in 1999 (“Outcome of the Almaty Informal Ministerial Meeting,” Kazakhstan OSCE Chairmanship perception paper, July 17, 2010). READ MORE

For Russian oil companies, the business climate in Europe is good, but a lot of fallacious information about the country still needs to be countered, Vagit Alekperov, founder and president of Lukoil, Russia's largest oil company, told n interview. READ MORE

Thank you, Mr President, and thank you for that very warm welcome. I can tell from your enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs that I met outside this incredible building that there is an enormous spirit of enterprise and entrepreneurialism and industry and business and trade here in Turkey, and that is one of the reasons that I want our two countries to build this incredibly strong relationship that I will be speaking about... READ MORE

This summer's Kyrgyz-Uzbek clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan presented the gravest threat to Central Asian security since the Tajik civil war of the 1990s. Reportedly, about 3,000 people died and more than 300,000 were displaced in the violence. While some stability emerged after the bloodshed and following a national referendum legitimizing the new government, the urgent needs for speedy reconstruction of the destroyed infrastructure and for reconciliation between the two ethnic groups present daunting security challenges. READ MORE