The prospect of an Islamist president has launched heated national debate between Turkey’s traditionalist secular leaders and its moderate Islamists.

Tensions mount between Turkey and Iraq’s Kurds over the status of Kirkuk and the presence of Kurdish rebels in Iraq.

Special economic zones boost India’s export potential, but a recent outbreak of violent protests shows local patience for land confiscations is wearing thin.

This report on developments in Iraq early this year from the Center for Strategic & International Studies says that the insurgency has created complex patterns of conflict that have become a broad struggle for sectarian and ethnic control of political and economic space.

Christopher de Bellaigue writes in the New York Review of Books about the prospects for an independent Kurdistan.

A top U.S. State Department official on Balkan policy says Serbia must begin participating in final talks over the conditional independence of Kosovo or face increased isolation from Europe.

Experts warn the disputes involving Lebanon’s political factions could escalate into civil war. Stabilization efforts are hampered by competing interests among external powers.

A vote by Sinn Féin to endorse the police force in Northern Ireland has the potential to revive the power-sharing arrangements called for in the 1998 Good Friday accord.

Congressional Research Service report on the obstacles to creating effective Iraqi security forces. The report outlines concerns that security forces are involved in sectarian killings, terrorism, and insurgency. 

Amnesty International reports on the conditions of daily life in Myanmar (Burma). It says that forced labour, forced relocation, denial of citizenship and imprisonment for political offences are common.

Iran is a predominantly Shiite Muslim state but contains sizeable ethnic and religious minorities that influence Iran’s foreign and regional policy.

With Saddam sentenced to death, experts say Sunni insurgents will fight on in an effort to rid Iraq of U.S. forces and avoid Shiite political dominance.