The two rival parties in the United States are bracing themselves for a tooth and nail electoral campaign. On the Democratic ticket are an African American who became a Christian as an adult and a progressive Catholic who defends a woman’s right to choose, whereas a non-fervent Episcopalian and a staunch Evangelist can be found on the Republican ticket. Read on to find out who is who in the complex American political-religious scene.

A giant like Russia cannot be threatened with retaliation by its Western neighbors, above all because the energy that makes the European countries run comes in a large part from Gazprom, the most important oil company in the world. The author says that by merely understanding Moscow’s historic need to have a safety line, a stable relationship between the Russian bear and its Western neighbors can be achieved.

Russia attempts to come back to life by playing with the strength of its two geo-strategical instruments: oil and natural gas.

Find out why the crisis in South Ossetia has constituted a tough international setback for Russia and the Slavophile and pro-Oriental positions that the new president Medvedev and his prime minister Putin defend. However, should Europe expect some type retaliation by Moscow in terms of energy?

The annual purchasing power of the Hispanic community in the United States exceeds 830 billion dollars, but only 21 out of the 535 congressmen in both houses of Congress are Latino. The economic crisis, education and the failed immigration reform are among the complaints that Hispanics have for the next president. Their vote counts, and the principal candidates cannot avoid this fact: Latinos could define the elections.

• A breath of fresh air for relations between the U.S. and Latin America?
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Al Qaeda is losing the support of prominent members of the Islamic clergy and former jihadists due to the acts that it has been carrying recently which, in their wake, have left destruction, misery, and an appalling number of people dead (especially in the Islamic world). This has wound up affecting the coherence of the organization’s ideological discourse. Does this mean that Al Qaeda is going to disappear as a result of the criticism that it has received from its former members? In the short and medium term the answer is, of course: no.

As its neighboring giants India and China continue to make significant inroads into the global economy, the still charter-less ASEAN is mired in integration problems and struggling to forge a single market. The author points to a disparity in the amount of foreign direct investments received by the member states, as well as the weak trade within the association, as possible reasons for the association’s heretofore failure to integrate.

• Southeast Asia reduces poverty, but increases inequality
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From Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Cambodia, Afghanistan and Colombia, a large number of countries have been –and continue to be– afflicted with serious conflicts over the control of natural resources (oil, diamonds, hardwood, cocoa beans, cocaine and opium). Although some conflicts have come to an end, others are still ongoing and it is possible that many more will arise in the future if the matter is not addressed, from both within and outside of the borders of the war-afflicted countries, in an efficient manner.

• Climate Change: A New Source of Armed Conflict
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• The dispute for African Oil
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Now that Pervez Musharraf has finally resigned as Pakistan’s president, the author analyzes his legacy, and attempts to pick apart the unstable coalition currently ruling Pakistan. Read on to discover why the Pakistani people gradually turned against a man they initially trusted, and why a poor civilian government is always better than a poor military one.

• Islamabad’s Next Steps
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• Assessing the creation of the new civilian government in Pakistan
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