TOPICS

Report by the Hurriyet Daily  President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has apparently taken another step in his fight against ally-turned-foe, U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, with Turkey’s top national security body finally amending its top-secret national security document, in line with the threat allegedly posed by Gülen’s followers. A …

DPA: German intelligence services spied on top French officials and the European Commission on behalf of the American spy agency NSA, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency helped the National Security Agency (NSA) carry out “political espionage” by surveilling “top officials at the French …

By Ahmad Morsey and  Casper Wuite Carnegie On April 15, the Egyptian Cabinet approved amendments to Egypt’s electoral law, articles of which had been deemed unconstitutional last month. After a year of continued unrest, the parliamentary elections, originally slated for March 21, were expected to restore Egypt’s body politic …

George Perkovich Carnegie As negotiations and debate proceed over a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran, comparisons will inevitably be made with the 1994 Agreed Framework that sought to end North Korea’s (the DPRK’s) nuclear weapons program. That earlier agreement failed due to a combination of factors. Many observers …

James L. Schoff U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prepares to visit the United States next week, attention is focused on the historic nature of the trip. Abe will be the first Japanese leader to speak before a joint session of Congress, an …

 Egor Popov, Yelizaveta Kuznetsova, Kommersant Russia’s civil aviation industry, whose main project is the regional aircraft Sukhoi Superjet-100 (SSJ-100), is to receive record state support, with the government promising anti-crisis funding of more than 127 billion rubles ($2.5 billion). According to observers, the financing will help to support …

By Zackary Keck The Buzz Russia has launched what it claims to be the “quietest submarine in the world.” This week, Admiralty Shipyards—a Russian defense company— held a ceremonial launching for its newest Varshavyanka-class diesel-electric submarines. Dubbed the Krasnodar, the vessel is the fourth of a planned six …

By Siarhei Bohdan Belarus Daily Speaking last week at a Moscow conference on global security, Belarusian Defence Minister Andrei Raukou said that Minsk views the increasing number of NATO forces on its borders as a challenge to the military security of the country. He did not explain how his …

Voice of Warsaw: The Polish government will negotiate the purchase of Raytheon’s Patriot system for its planned missile defense shield with the American government, President Bronislaw Komorowski said following a meeting with PM Ewa Kopacz and Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak. On Tuesday the government decided to choose the …