Part 1 of a series about the Caspian Sea Basin

Held on 11th September, 2009, the Akatu summit was attended by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. According to Robert Cutler, writing in the Asian Times, it has proved difficult to determine what was actually on the agenda - there was a notable lack of official communiqués. However, it was anticipated that the summit would be an informal event to discuss sub-regional cooperation on a wide range of issues. These included the construction of a railway to Iran and the development of gas pipelines to China. The summit was not going to focus on the status of the Caspian Sea and the division of the seabed. These issues can only be discussed with the participation of all five Caspian littoral states. Yet despite the summit considering issues related to Iran, this country was not invited.

By Leila Ouardani

No, most of our political elite have not realized that the world is flat - Thomas Friedman

As Thomas Friedman's "flatness" metaphor observes, the compression of time and space and the easy movement of people, weapons, toxins, drugs, knowledge and ideas have transformed the way in which threats emerge and challenged the traditional modes of obtaining security used by policymakers. The complexities underlying these transnational movements contest established International Relations theories of agency and scope and have made it increasingly difficult to