BRUSSELS — NATO and European Union officials in Brussels met the landslide election victory of former Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, with ambivalence this week. Officials of both bodies expressed little optimism that a change of leadership will bring any great change in the direction of Russia’s increasingly assertive foreign policy. Medvedev won more than 70 percent of the vote, defeating three candidates who had no chance to confront Medvedev in debates and had little realistic chance of victory after Putin named his successor. According to Russia’s Central Election Commission, 64 percent of eligible voters participated in [...]
On March 1, the conflict over the disputed outcome of last month’s presidential elections in Armenia turned deadly when riot police and Interior Ministry troops clashed with armed opposition demonstrators in the capital city. Dozens of people were killed or injured in downtown Yerevan, where tens of thousands of Armenians had engaged in round-the-clock street protests and established a makeshift tent camp. The incident apparently started with a police tracer bullet accidentally ricocheted and killed a demonstrator, enraging the protesters to attack the police. The government responded to the melee by declaring a state of emergency in the capital and [...]
TOKYO — Recent reports that Japanese lawmakers have been discussing the feasibility of constructing a 200-kilometer tunnel linking Japan with the Korean peninsula encapsulates as well as anything the current optimism over relations between the two countries. Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda visited Seoul to attend the inauguration of incoming South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, with Fukuda taking the symbolic honor of being the first foreign leader to be received by the new president. At the summit, the two leaders agreed to restart the regular top level shuttle diplomacy that was agreed under former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro [...]
