By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies

On March 31, 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections were held in unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Five parties entered the Parliament, while President was elected during the second round, on April 14. The winner of the Presidential campaign was Arayik Harutyunyan, who received 49 percent of votes during the first round and 88 percent during the second round. However, his main contender Masis Mayilyan de facto boycotted second round asking his supporters not to participate in the elections due to the COVID19 outbreak. READ MORE

• April 22, 2020

By Ahmed Mousa Jiyad, Development Consultancy & Research, Norway

The collapse of the global oil market is undoubtedly unprecedented in its timing, magnitude, spread and devastating impacts across the globe. A strange and unpredicted association of a few, but major, factors had contributed to the current threat, causing much uncertainty and vulnerability on national and global levels. The revised "OPEC+" production cut agreed on 12 April prompted initial minor improvement in oil price, but there remains very many serious concerns that such reduction is much below what is needed to bring stability to and balances a saturated global oil market. READ MORE

• April 15, 2020

By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies

The COVID-19 pandemic has confronted governments with two massive simultaneous challenges. They have to contain the virus through large scale social distancing to prevent the uncontrolled growth of infected people and collapse of the health system. Meanwhile, each day that passes with economic activity virtually suspended puts an enormous pressure on businesses, and contributes to a possible social and financial collapse. Armenia faces the same dilemma. READ MORE

• April 15, 2020

By Ahmad Alili, Head of Research, Caucasus Policy Analysis Center, Baku

The COVID-19 pandemic has created interesting qualitative and quantitative changes at the top of Azerbaijan's public agenda. Following the snap parliamentary elections in February, the newly elected Parliament, which includes a number of new faces, is tasked to address the challenges the country is facing. In a speech at the opening of the Parliament, President Aliyev sent clear messages to the public servants, political parties and youth. READ MORE

• April 15, 2020

By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Chairman, Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies

Elections were held in Nagorno-Karabakh on 31 March but since no candidate secured the necessary amount of votes a run-off is now expected between the two leading candidates in two weeks-time.
On March 31, 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections were held in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Elections are not something new for Karabakh. Since the mid-1990s regular general as well as local elections have been held there. However, this time almost everything was different, such as the record number of candidates (14 running for the office of President and 10 parties and 2 blocks for Parliament) and the fully proportional electoral system. However, the key difference was the ambiguity of the position of Republic of Armenia's leadership. READ MORE

• April 6, 2020

By Ong Tee Keat, Chairman, Center for New Inclusive Asia, Kuala Lumpur

On March 11th , 2020, Robert Redfield, the director of US Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), dropped a proverbial bombshell when he testified to the US Congress admitting that numerous Corona virus deaths might have been miscategorized as flu. This belated admission of misdiagnosis has further lent credence to the earlier speculation that many pulmonary fibrosis cases which resulted in deaths due to patients' inability to breathe might in fact have been caused by the Corona virus. These cases, where symptoms might have been masked by attributions to e-cigarette or vaping, happened well before the virus outbreak in Wuhan, China. READ MORE.

• April 1, 2020

The first oil refinery shutdowns in India and Europe were announced on Friday while global refinery runs drop like a stone in response to plunging demand as countries worldwide implement lockdowns.

• March 30, 2020

Saudi Arabia said on Friday it was not in talks with Russia to balance oil markets despite rising pressure from Washington to stop a price rout amid the coronavirus pandemic and an attempt by Moscow to fix a rift with the de facto OPEC leader.

• March 30, 2020