Weekly Eurasia Review – Week 41
The most important developments from across Eurasia this week – selected news, analyses and broader trends.
Weekly Eurasia Review – Week 39
The most important developments from across Eurasia this week – selected news, analyses and broader trends.
The most important developments from across Eurasia this week – selected news, analyses and broader trends.
Apparent Stability? – What the UN Report Reveals About the Taliban Regime
In December 2025, the latest report of the Afghanistan Monitoring Team was published. Operating under the mandate of the United Nations Security Council, the expert group assesses the country’s political and security situation, the functioning of the Taliban administration, and the risks emanating from Afghanistan that affect regional stability.
Although the persecution of the Hazaras stretches back centuries, the decades-long armed conflict in Afghanistan and its aftermath has meant that the plight of minorities is often overlooked by mainstream media. Millions of Hazaras still live in uncertainty, poverty, and fear in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But what lies behind that fear – and beyond it?
Why Lakes Shrink: The Decisions behind Water Crises
Shrinking lakes have become one of the most visible symbols of climate change. Yet their decline tells a more complex story. Alongside a changing climate, decisions about water management, agriculture and development play a decisive role in water crises—and can shape the fate of a country’s or region’s water resources for decades.
Aurel Stein: The Hungarian Scholar Who Rediscovered the Geography of Eurasia
“I have had a wonderful life and it could not be concluded more happily than in Afghanistan which I have wanted to visit for sixty years.” Few sentences could capture Aurel Stein’s life more precisely. When Sir Aurel Stein died in Kabul in October 1943, at the age of eighty, he had finally reached a country he had been trying to enter for decades and much of his scholarly life. Afghanistan was not only an extraordinary journey for him, but the country also lay near the geographical centre of the territory that had occupied Stein for more than half a century.