Eurasia / Features
Where does Uzbekistan get its hard currency from?
Uzbekistan's hard currency comes from four places. Two of them are cyclical. The Central Bank of Uzbekistan buys around nine tenths of the gold mined in the country, sells it abroad and uses the foreign currency it earns to mop up printed soum.
Has Kazakhstan's Tokayev settled on a successor?
Leader of seven years has brought back the position of vice-president and appointed longtime aide Yerlan Karin to it.
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Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit comes up short on achievements
Iran left in lurch.
Leaders of Russia, China, India and middle powers holding face-to-face meetings at Bishkek SCO summit
Event is a “must watch” for followers of the international geopolitical agenda. Iranian and Turkish presidents among those present.
Azerbaijan's banks grow credit 15 times faster than the economy
Azerbaijan's banks are expanding credit more than 15 times faster than the economy they lend into, with profits up a quarter and a bad-loan surge abruptly stalling.
Pashinyan puts Armenia on road to EU membership
Armenia will formally apply for European Union membership before holding a referendum on whether to join the bloc, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told parliament.
Should Kazakhs bother voting in the upcoming parliamentary election?
A sense of fatigue is hanging over August 23 election, with analysts pointing to voter disengagement, the absence of a genuine opposition and growing self-censorship as evidence of a widening gap between society and the political system.
Mongolia pushes to complete rail bypass around Ulaanbaatar
Dangerous cargo will bypass the capital once $0.3bn project is operational.
Iran and the Philippines offer Russia two very different farm-export bets
Russia's meat and feed exporters face a choice between two very different markets: Iran, slow and bureaucratic but predictable, and the Philippines, fast-growing but brutal on price.
Ukraine rapidly running out of grain storage space
Ukraine could run out of room to store 8mn-11mn tonnes of its own grain by November, with the ports shut and the new crop still coming in.
Kazakh billionaire Turlov bids for presidency of World Chess Federation
Kazakh billionaire Timur Turlov did not set out to run world chess. But after the current president of FIDE Arkady Dvorkovich was sanctioned last month, he is now the leading contender to take over. He wants to make chess a digital Olympic sport.
Russia swings 93% of its rail trade to friendly states as it maps corridors to the Indian Ocean
Russia is stitching together a web of new railway corridors from the South Caucasus to the Indian Ocean, redirecting freight away from Europe towards Asia and the Global South.
Six years after Belarus's stolen election, Lukashenko is more entrenched than ever
Six years on, the protests have been crushed, the opposition scattered into exile, and Lukashenko is not only still in power but trading political prisoners for sanctions relief from Donald Trump's Washington while Belarus...
Mongolia’s next president? Race to succeed Khurelsukh reshapes political landscape
Politicians jockeying for position. Observers see ruling party MPP as in factional turmoil.
Is Kazakhstan’s Tokayev planning to rule 'forever'?
Or is he bluffing, seeking to keep would-be rivals off-balance?
Russia adapting hybrid tactics to slow EU enlargement, European Parliament report warns
Russia is refining its use of hybrid interference to undermine European Union enlargement countries by combining disinformation, covert political financing, cyberattacks, economic pressure and proxy actors, says European Parliament report.
Kyrgyzstan gained UN Security Council seat; now comes hard part
Bishkek’s priorities to include climate, Afghan reintegration into world order.
Taliban's homegrown drone programme outpaces Pakistan's defences
The Afghan Taliban's growing investment in drone technology is a direct response to their lack of a conventional air force, and Pakistan's defence establishment.
Ivan Aivazovsky and the cultural front of the Russia-Ukraine War
Aivazovsky was not ethnically Russian. His birth name was Hovhannes Aivazian and his parents were displaced Armenians. He was baptised in the local Armenian Apostolic church and later in his life signed paintings in Armenian.
Geopolitical shocks, climate risks leave millions unable to afford healthy diets in Europe, Central Asia
Climate change, water scarcity, geopolitical tensions and volatile markets are creating new vulnerabilities that threaten both agricultural production and consumer access to nutritious food, says new FAO report.