Contributed articles presented at the National Conference on "West Asia and the Region: Defining India's Role" held at the Centre for West Asian Studies on Aug. 21-22, 2006.

The Great Game in West Asia examines the strategic competition between Iran and Turkey for power and influence in the South Caucasus. As much of the world's attention has been diverted to conflicts and flashpoints near and far, a new great game has been unravelling between Iran and Turkey in the South Caucasus.

At the turn of the century Washington launched a series of invasions and proxy wars against all the independent peoples and states of the region, in the name of creating a ‘New Middle East’. That offensive involved mass propaganda and the use of large proxy-terrorist armies, especially sectarian Islamist groups armed and financed by Washington and its regional allies, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel. Resistance to that regional war led to the formation of a loose regional bloc, led by Iran, which is now forming more substantial relations with the wider counter-hegemonic blocs led by China and Russia, in particular the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). West Asia After Washington addresses how, as Washington’s multiple wars for a subjugated ‘New Middle East’ fail, the global order is shifting against the North American giant. China is displacing the USA as the productive and economic center of the world and new global organizations are competing with those created by the Anglo-Americans. It is in this global context we must understand the future of the Arabic and Islamic countries of the Middle East, now often called West Asia in reflection of that new orientation. Among other things, this alliance is making real what North American intelligence has long feared and termed an ‘Iranian land-bridge’, extending to the Mediterranean in the west and as far as China in the east. That ‘land bridge’ between East Asia and Europe centers on Iran, the largest independent state of the region and is, from a Zionist perspective, thought to represent “the most serious long term existential threat to Israel” because it forms a united resistance front in support of the colonized Palestinian people. This book discusses the wars of hegemonic decline, the roots of Western fascism, Zionist cancel culture, the Kurdish card in Syria, the purging of Christians from the ‘New Middle East’, the betrayal of Yemen, and takes us inside Syrian Idlib. Then it looks into the near future, considering Washington’s strategic retreat, the legacy of murdered Iranian Commander Qassem Soleimani, and the possibilities of dismantling Apartheid Israel and the lifting of the siege on Syria and its recovery. The Iranian land bridge to China, Iran’s Resistance Economy, regional integration, and the challenge of multipolarity offer insight into the West Asian region after Washington.

Report based on a Seminar on Natural Resources and Environment Management in the Dry Areas of West Africa and North Africa, Aleppo, Syria, 16-27 February 1992.

While security concerns have assumed salience across the globe, Afghanistan’s proximity to Central Asia has meant that security or perceptions of insecurity dominate the strategic discourse in the region. Issues that stand out include the challenges that the Central Asian states will face in terms of stability, ethnic tensions, radicalization of youth, destabilization of commodity flows and energy security and the impact that these could have on Central Asian society. However, security cannot just be defined in terms of security at the borders. It needs to be defined in ‘cosmopolitan’ terms through an array of issues like movements across borders, radicalism within states, the sharing of water, and various multilateral attempts at combating insecurity. This volume is an attempt to focus on some of these issues that reflect on perceptions of security principally from Indian and Uzbek positions. It examines shifts over the last two decades, from debates on the geopolitical importance of the region from a great game perspective to the salience of new engagements within the international arena.

References p. 52-59.

This book entitled "Contemporary Issues in The Balkans, Middle East, Asia & Africa" consists of various topics and intends to focus on contemporary issues in The Balkans, Middle East, Asia & Africa. The content of this book was created on a regional basis because the crises and conflicts in the international arena are mostly experienced between the states in the same region and emerge as a result of the regional balance of power and regional dynamics in the region, which is also called the geographical subsystem.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) prepared the Public–Private Partnership Operational Plan 2012–2020 to provide a consistent, analytical, and operational framework for scaling up public–private partnerships (PPPs) in support of Strategy 2020. ADB's PPP operations will be based on four pillars: (i) advocacy and capacity development, (ii) enabling environment, (iii) project development, and (iv) project financing. This study aims to (i) update the 1998–2008 PPP database for program/project, and technical assistance approvals with PPP content for 2009–2010; and (ii) classify ADB assistance for PPPs from 1998 to 2010 based on the four pillars of the plan.