News Digest
IRAN POLICE LAUNCH CRACKDOWN AGAINST VALENTINE\'S DAY SALES AND PROMOTION
By empty (2/11/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In a bid to stop the promotion of Western values, Iranian police have launched a massive crackdown on Valentine\'s Day celebrations, ordering shops to remove heart-themed decorations from their windows and confiscating Valentine\'s cards. The crackdown was launched by plainclothes police Monday after Valentines inundated shopping malls in wealthy north Tehran and young people began to show great interest in marking the day. Valentine\'s Day and its tradition of exchanging gifts with the opposite sex contradicts conservative morals in a country where contact between unrelated men and women is strongly discouraged.NATO IN CRISIS OVER PROTECTING TURKEY
By empty (2/11/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Europe\'s split with America deepened Monday after France, Germany and Belgium vetoed a U.S.-backed measure to authorize NATO (news - web sites) to make plans to protect Turkey in the event of attack by Iraq.TURKEY DENIES OFFERING SADDAM HAVEN
By empty (2/11/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul Tuesday denied a report that he had offered safe haven to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if he stepped down to prevent a U.S.-led war.RUSSIA\'S MUSLIMS CELEBRATE EID AL-ADHA
By empty (2/11/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Thousands of Russian Muslims flocked to Moscow\'s main mosque on Tuesday to celebrate Eid al-Adha or feast of sacrifice, a major Islamic holiday that falls at the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The state-run Russian television network Rossiya broadcast the morning service live, showing crowds of people packing the mosque and the compound surrounding it - similar to the treatment accorded Russian Orthodox Christmas and Easter services. President Vladimir Putin congratulated Russia\'s Muslims on the holiday, known in Russia and other former Soviet republics where most Muslims are of Turkic origin as Qurban Bairam.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.