Russia will on Wednesday warn US Vice President Joe Biden that it will beef up its own missile defences against the West if it is not made a full partner in a US-backed missile defence shield for Europe soon.

• March 9, 2011

George Perkovich, director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, confessed to his audience, "Those who really know what's going on in Pakistan's nuclear complex aren't talking about it, and those who are talking, including myself, don't really know what's going on in Pakistan's nuclear complex."

• March 8, 2011

Armenia and Azerbaijan held talks Saturday on the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region, signalling their wish to resolve the conflict peacefully after tensions heightened in recent months.

• March 7, 2011

Lebanese protesters have called for an end to the country’s sectarian political system.

• March 7, 2011

A police officer stopped at a traffic light in Dagestan's capital is gunned down from an adjacent car. A driver blows himself up at a checkpoint. The mayor has survived 15 assassination attempts.

• March 5, 2011

Two Philippine military planes chased Chinese patrol boats from disputed waters in the South China Sea on March 2. The Philippine military claims that the patrol boats were harassing a Philippine vessel belonging to a private oil firm conducting seismic explorations of the natural gas and oil reservoirs in the Reed Bank, located 240 kilometers off the west coast of Palawan.

• March 5, 2011

Amid the talk in Washington and London of military intervention in Libya, Tim Coles considers how the Anglo-American portrayal of Mu’ammar Gaddafi changed from bogeyman to friend when it became apparent that he would grant oil contracts to various Western companies.

• March 5, 2011

China has announced a double-digit increase in its secretive military budget but insisted the annual outlay of more than 90 billion US dollars posed no external threat, despite concern worldwide.

• March 4, 2011