At an international conference on Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai said his government is ready to take on greater security responsibilities, but cautioned against an overly hasty withdrawal of foreign troops.
Iraq is embroiled in a crisis over the banning of more than 500 candidates from the March elections over their alleged ties to the banned Ba'ath Party. What's behind the crisis and where does it go from here?
The international community has been examining the role of NATO's Provincial Reconstruction Teams in delivering aid to Afghanistan. Focusing on lessons to be learned from mistakes of the past, a conference in Prague this week featured frank and open talks between NATO officials, donor countries, aid workers and the Afghan government.
The first meeting of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission’s Civil Society Working Group was held in Washington on January 27. The group is part of a larger effort begun last summer by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to reset relations between the two countries and explore new opportunities for partnership.
Georgian media with ties to President Mikheil Saakashvili have launched a mudslinging campaign against opposition figure Irakli Alasania. The apparent reason: Alasania promises to be a strong candidate in Tbilisi’s mayoral elections this May, and is expected to use that post as a staging pad for a presidential bid.
Johan Verbeke is the former head of the now-defunct UN observer mission in Georgia and was the UN’s special representative at the Geneva talks initiated after the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war. Verbeke has since been named Belgium’s ambassador to the U.K. On the eve of a fresh round of talks in Geneva on January 28, Verbeke spoke to RFE/RL correspondent Olesya Vartanyan about the possibility of restoring observer missions in Georgia and the continued challenges regarding Russia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.
The unexpected election of moderate Bishop Irinej Gavrilovic of Nis as the new patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church does not mean the influence of more radical priests, like Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro, will subside. That's according to Milorad Tomanic, a Belgrade-based expert on the Orthodox Church and author of a recently published book, "The Serbian Church In the War, and The Wars Within It." RFE/RL's Podgorica correspondent, Dimitrije Jovicevic, spoke to Tomanic about the future role of the church in Serbia.
A little over a decade ago, Afghanistan's northern neighbor succeeded in ending its bloody civil war, which pitted Islamists against the central government. While the country remains poor and faces numerous problems, it has forged lasting peace. Could it offer some useful lessons for Afghanistan?
As he prepares for a major conference in London, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his entourage have crafted a detailed plan for reconciliation with the Taliban. But they also want assurances of long-term support to prevent their country from sliding into the chaos of the 1990s.
Demolition crews working for the Moscow city government today returned to the prosperous dacha community of Rechnik to tear down two more of the neighborhood's houses, after destroying four others last week. The city says the houses were built illegally. But residents argue Moscow officials are looking to seize prime real estate for lucrative development projects.
The global economic crisis has stopped or slowed construction projects around the world, but there are exceptions and Turkmenistan is one. The president has unveiled plans for a construction boom over the next two years at a cost of $23.6 billion.
In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that he expected concrete results from this week's London conference on Afghanistan. Rasmussen also said that the NATO mission in Afghanistan was not an "occupation force."
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