Asia

During the presidential election campaign, Erdoğan’s main rival, the leader of the opposition People’s Alliance block Kılıçdaroğlu, stated in his anti-Russian rhetoric that in case of his victory he would remind the Russians about Turkey’s membership in NATO. However, nobody in Moscow has forgotten that Turkey, either with Erdoğan or without him still (since February 1952) remains a member to the North Atlantic Treaty. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu failed to provide a well-reasoned explanation for his reminders, and now, after his defeat, he and all other leaders of the Republican People’s Party have resigned in connection to their failure…

The general elections in Taiwan that are due in half a year (on January 13, 2024) are gradually becoming the most important of the factors accompanying the development of the Taiwanese agenda. Especially since various maneuvers around this agenda are continued by the USA and the PRC. That is, again, the importance of the factor of domestic political processes on the island, that by itself plays mostly the part of an important pretext and reason for a squabble between the currently-leading global powers, is drastically increasing (possibly, for a short period, but still increasing). First of all, it’s important to make note of the recent distinct…

The launch of a North Korean satellite at the end of April 2023 brought the entire world to a standstill, but the South is also competing in the space race, and the author is paying close attention to the progress of the “Nuri” and “Tanuri” programs. A 200-ton South Korea’s KSLV-2 space launch vehicle, also known as Nuri, was launched on June 21, 2022, from the Naro Space Center in Goheung-gun, Jeollanam-do Province. The ROK thus became the seventh country in the world, after Russia, the United States, France, China, Japan and India, to launch a satellite weighing more than one ton into space, on its own. The next launch of Nuri was scheduled for the first half of 2023, and until then Seoul announced its very ambitious plans to create a space command and build de facto dual-purpose missiles. The next step…