After a century in the economic cold, Russia is close to coming inside, with encouragement and promises of help from an array of Americans, including President Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger and intrigued venture capitalists.

• October 21, 2010

Pushing for the maximum during US President Barack Obama’s visit next month, India is looking to corner a firm commitment from the US to help facilitate India’s entry into the elite Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG).

• October 20, 2010

China and Russia enjoy a strong partnership that precludes any need or desire for competition, a senior Moscow official said at the conclusion of a state visit in Beijing on Tuesday.

• October 20, 2010

President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia announced Tuesday that he would attend next month’s summit meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Lisbon and left the door open to the possibility of Moscow cooperating with the alliance on a European missile defense shield.

• October 20, 2010

October 2010

Key Positions

• The 12 September referendum was seen as a vote of confidence for the ruling AKP, with several constitutional changes ratified by majority. However, a large opposition-voting bloc has emerged and appears to highlight the presence of a vibrant democratic atmosphere in the Republic.


• Kurdish-Turkish reconciliation has faltered in recent weeks, with large portions of the country’s Kurdish areas boycotting the 12 September vote.


• Rumours of a Gulenist-AKP split did not deter cooperation between these two leading Turkish political forces in the run up to the vote. However, with criticism of the AKP increasingly evident within Gulenist circles, there are signs that all is not well in the Islamist camp in Turkey. 


• Turkey and Russia’s Gazprom are attempting to negotiate the sharing of burdens and profits from the Samsun-Ceyan oil pipeline with Italy’s ENI. The American ambassador to Turkey has endorsed the Southern Energy Corridor project, but with the caveat that no Iranian gas runs through the Nabucco gas pipeline.

• October 20, 2010

Russia sought to use a summit starting Monday to cement a greater role in Europe's security and foreign policy _ a shift that France and Germany embrace but that's tougher to sell to the rest of the long-divided continent.

• October 19, 2010

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's deputy Monday said that Iran would be willing to address the dispute over its nuclear programme in forthcoming talks, even though the Iranian leader has so far declined to discuss it with world powers.

• October 19, 2010

Russian troops have withdrawn from a Georgian town which they had occupied since a bitter war between the two countries in 2008.

• October 19, 2010