The author questions the indisputability of the Arctic’s existing climate change assessments and insists on the need to adjust the Arctic strategies of states to different scenarios of such changes. While not denying the impact of human society on the Earth’s climate, the author believes to be important not to limit research on its changes by exclusively natural-scientific aspects, but to include considerations concerning the influence of peculiarities of human society’s development on the climate. He thinks it is important to take into account the combine impact of the changing nature of contemporary industrial activity, of sources for energy supply, the on-going processes of building of “smart” economy and its innovative development, demographic changes, improvement of human capital as well as the impact of increased environmental consciousness of human beings on the global and Arctic climate. Despite the observed climatic changes in the Arctic, it remains ice-covered the major part of the year. Any commercially justified human activities in the Arctic must be based on the need to maintain a year-round exploitation of its resources and possibilities and to create the appropriate infrastructure, machinery and equipment. The author comes to the conclusion that the need to resolve these problems requires considerable financial resources and time.

The article contains prognosis of development of local human civilizations in the regions of world neighboring to Russia (Europe, Islamic world, Asia-Pacific region). This issue is analyzed from the point of view of proliferation of norms within the system of international relations, which is the process playing a key role from the point of view of guaranteeing robustness of this system. The main conclusion of the paper is that the speed of norm proliferation within the system of international relations in the 21 century will be checked by a set of factors. First, the dynamic of development of Europe and the USA indicates a clear tendency towards decrease of unifying potential that has appeared originally as a result of influence of the Western world towards other local human civilizations. Second, the study of development of Islamic civilization indicates that there is a significant potential of rejection of unification of norms within the system of international relations. Third, analysis of the group of local human civilizations existing in the Asia-Pacific region demonstrates that economic development of this region is accompanied by formation of ideas about cultural norms alternative to Europe-centric world.

Socio-economic conditions of human society are considered in the paper together with prospects for integrated way of development of communities through the interaction economy suggested by the author. A short synopsis is given of the theory of compatibility as a basis of such economy and prerequisite of its functioning. A variant of application of the mechanism of interaction economy is proposed that embraces all social planes including seven hierarchical subsystems of the society.

Recent trends in international situation around Korean peninsula and the policy of main stateactors are being considered. The USA is trying to reinforce its military presence in South Korea. Seoul is seeking to revise its previous agreements with USA in the sphere of nuclear energy. Trilateral interaction (US-Japan-South Corea) on the problem of North Korean nuclear potential is strengthening. US policy towards North Korea is aimed at counteraction to reinforcement of Russian and Chinese influence in the region. At the same time the USA provides support to North-South dialogue while pressurizing North Korea on the issues of human rights and denuclearization.

Pyongyang is concerned with military rapprochement between South Korea and USA and is trying to make North Korean nuclear program an object of bargaining for peaceful settlement on Korean peninsula. North-to-South relations should be regarded as military opposition in spite of constant appeals to peaceful reunification, development of economic and cultural ties etc. Current analysis reveals that both North and South Korea are still far from real progress in this respect.

Chinese factor is essential though Beijing behavior is cautious. After Kim Rong Un rise to power political and economic relations between North and South weakened. Pyongyang is concerned with regular contacts between China and US on North Korea problems. Aggravation of international situation did not lead to decline in China-South Korea relations, though China is against deployment of missile-defence THAAD complexes. Chinese policy in Korea is aimed at sustaining of status-quo in the peninsula and barring collapse of the North Corea regime.

Policy of Russia is invariably based on the principles formulated in 2001. Recently North Korea has revealed intentions to resume political dialogue with Russia, while South Korea is seemingly not interested in broader co-operation with Russia. Up to the author’s opinion it is necessary to promote six-sided negotiations process, avoid extremes in approaches to both Korean states, and oppose to US domination in the region.

The paper examines the current socio-economic status of Abkhazia, given his assessment and prerequisites. An attempt is made to identify potential directions of development of economy of the Republic, and also gives an outlook in the near-term.

A crisis of EU eastern policy was shown by Vilnius summit. However, the EU remains consistent in its efforts to giving the EU institutions the nature of the framework for all multilateral agreements within the framework of the initiative «Eastern Partnership». It should not be understand as the weakening of the program, but its further focusing and concentration. This article make predictions about the allocation of a number of countries (Moldova, Georgia) in a separate sub-block for which the integration will be accelerated, while others experience a slowdown in program participants. Relations between EU and Ukraine and between EU and Belarus are purely political and will be less dependent on the implementation of the «Eastern Partnership».

Events of 2014 in Ukraine and around it confirmed that Russian languages, as well as the Russianspeaking population, have been involved into a cruel political game in which the ruling circles of that country are ready to go as far as physical extermination of national minorities. The article analyzes the legal status of the Russian-speaking population in Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine, and the possibility of obtaining basic and higher education in Russian. Taking into consideration the priority of such areas as the protection of rights of Russian-speaking compatriots, the article proposes possible ways of improving the efficiency of using funds allocated to support the Russian-speaking education in these states.

The proposed article is devoted to issues related to the position of the Circassians in the Soviet Union and their relations with compatriots abroad. Special attention is paid to the activities of the Association for Relations with Compatriots Abroad “Homeland”, by which the first contacts were established and which provided communication between people living in Northwest Caucasus and Circassian Diaspora in Turkey and Arab countries. After the collapse of the USSR Association’s activities significantly decreased, but it certainly managed to make an important contribution to the maintenance of ethno-cultural identity of foreign Circassians and development of good relations between the USSR and the Middle East.

The article deals with the cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia in the framework of the Eurasian integration. It is noted that Kazakhstan stands firmly behind its recess, but this process is accompanied by development of other «vectors» of foreign policy (particularly in China and the Asia-Pacific region, the West and the Islamic states). This policy allows Kazakhstan constantly «balancing» between the interests of the various parties in order to strengthen its independence. It is stated that the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev was the first one who in 1994 in his famous speech at Moscow State University proposed the idea of creating a new integration association - the Eurasian Economic Union. It is said that after the formation of the Customs Union Kazakhstan began to take an active part in the activities of the organization and its structures. In this regard, the article describes the strengthening of inter-regional and cross-border cooperation between our countries. Thus, according to the president of Kazakhstan now more than 50 large Kazakh-Russian projects totaling about $ 6 billion are realized and planned to implement on its territory. Also, it is indicated how the collaboration between the South Kazakhstan and Moscow region is carried. However, it is indicated that there is no increasing convergence in the ideological sphere. So Russia’s proposal to create a single history textbook for the countries of the Eurasian Union encounters from Kazakhstan on a number of issues, as the task of the authorities of the country is to strengthen the independence of Kazakhstan, what the history books should help. At the end the conclusions and recommendations are given.

The SCO’s geopolitical expansion was foreseen right after its foundation, and in that way a task to transform it in the future into an influential Eurasian international organization, has been set. During first decade principal efforts have been focused primary on organizational and political dimensions and favorable conditions for SCO’s expansion matured only by its second decade, having been finally formed and shaped at 2014 Dushanbe Summit. Admission of new members, first of all Pakistan and India, enables to strengthen significantly CSO’s geopolitical weight but can cause new challenges and probably require revision of some of its basic terms.

Despite economy is one of the pillars of the SCO’s activity ,that aspect has also for the long time has fallen behind more dynamic cooperation in security sphere. Today, a tendency to overcome the disproportion is becoming more salient. SCO expansion amid activizaton of its economic aspects, will predetermine increase in that Organization’s international credibility but create new challenges as well.

The appearance in world politics of a dangerous phenomenon of the terrorist «Islamic state» was caused by a number of factors on global, regional and country levels. The worsening regional situation as a result of the overdue fundamental changes in turbulent development of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa is aggravated by an unlawful interference, dictated by the desire of some influential actors in the world politics to realize their geostrategic and geopolitical interests. As a result the international community has to confront a sharp rise of religious extremism that threatens to deepen a civilizational schism. Following steadfastenly a course on non-interference in the internal affairs of the countries in the region, Russia consistently appeals for the unification of the forces of the world community to address the new challenge to international stability and security.

The article analyzes the current supranational regulation of the energy market in the EU in the light of the interrelations between Russia and the EU. It is focused on the description The article treats a phenomenon of Islamic state of Iraq and Levant (ISIL): its underground, ideological conception and ways for its combating as it is seen and handled by scientific-and-expert community of the Middle East. A nature of arguments and rhetoric propagated by local Islamists is closely examinated. The author esteems that within the concurrence on vision space in the region political Islam will be henceforth present. Consequently, differentiation of trends inside this phenomenon, alignment between its moderate and extreme fractions will be going on. The importance of so called Wassatiya –reasonable, Middle Way Islam combatting ISIL and other extreme streams takes more and more root in media and scientific-and-expert community in the Middle East. Secular-liberal thinking has not yet became an competitive power in arab countries due to arhaic social relations and excessive religion traditions which are very strong.

This article provides a detailed analysis of the new trends of development of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. Since 1967, Israel has established about 150 settlements in the West Bank in addition to some 100 «outposts» or illegal settlements without Israeli official authorization. Now the settler population has estimated at over 520,000; the annual average rate of growth during the past decade was 5.3%, compared to 1.8% for the Israeli population as whole. As is known, after the Annapolis Conference held on 27 November 2007 Israel under the pressure from the international community announced officially not to create new settlements. But the Israeli authorities are now actively expanding in the occupied Palestinian territory, «border zones» or «buffer zones» in order to confiscate Palestinian land between the separation fence and the Palestinian communities located at a sufficient distance away from the wall.

This study reveals the new forms and methods, aims and objectives of the Israeli official settlement policy and indicates a negative influence of the settlement factor on the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating process, political and socio-economic situation in the Middle East. The author do not exclude the possibility that if the political decision based on the principle of coexistence of two States not be achieved in the nearest future we may see soon on the map of the West Bank some Palestinian enclaves completely isolated like the Gaza Strip now. It is obvious that in the Jordan Valley and another parts of «zone C» Israel aims to do that it did in the area, where the block of settlements Maale Adumim is located, which Israeli politicians now consider an integral part of the territory of the State of Israel.

The article analyzes the influence of the religious aspects on the political processes in Israel. Special attention is paid to the role of religion in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The author shows the trend towards politicization of religion and characterizes the process as unconstructive, which prevents to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The article also discusses the interaction between secular and religious principles in the State of Israel, estimates the current situation, highlights the importance of the religious component in the political life of Israel.

The article investigates the problem of succession in the countries - members of the GCC. Despite the fact that the Arabian monarchies still remain outside the «Arab Spring», domestic political and social conflicts, economic problems are escalated here hiding behind the apparent tranquility. Internal political modernization is closely connected with the change of generations in the top leadership. In the prospective part the article deals with changing perspectives of different types of monarchies in this part of the Arab world.

The nuclear problem of the Korean peninsula remains unsolved, tensions continuing for the past five years. The mechanism of the Six-Party Talks in which Russia, China, the USA, Japan, North and South Korea took part, is inactive, while each party develops its own strategy to counteract the new nuclear program of North Korea. Such an approach stimulates further escalation in the region, because there is no mutual understanding of North Korea nuclear status. In addition there exist a number of contradictions between the members of Six-Party Talks, each of them trying to resolve North Korean issue pursuing their own interests. However, in the current situation a peaceful resolution of the problem is still possible. Moreover, it is the only reasonable solution.

The article deals with the pivot to Asia started in the USA in 2011, now becoming a part of US military strategy. Asian-Pacific region will be playing increasingly important role in securing of political, economic and defence interests of the USA seeking to consolidate world order based on “American leadership from the position of strength” – which is the main principle of New National Security Strategy. Pivot to Asia is understood as modernization and reinforcement of traditional “security alliances”. The old policy of “deterrence” of China as main geopolitical competitor is still being pursued.

Military presence of the USA on Japanese islands is used for rearmament of Japanese self-defence forces. New bilateral treaty is being prepared, thus creating the possibility of joint actions of armed forces of Japan and US on the territories in- and outside Pacific region. Threat for North Korea is used as a good pretext for build-up of US military forces and deployment of THAAD complexes on the territory of South Korea. China and Russia express same attitude in this respect regarding THAAD as an instrument for increase tension in the region. Defence co-operation between Australia and US has incentives for development as well as limitations: Australia is not sure US are able to fulfill its obligations in case of crisis and at the same time economic co-operation with Beijing is of crucial interest for Australia. The involvement of Philippines in the territorial dispute with China made possible for US to strengthen cooperation in the sphere of defence. After power shift in Thailand military cooperation with US stopped. Seeking new partners in the region, US is lifting embargo to supply of weapons to Vietnam and gradually unfreezing relations with Myanmar. US moves in SEA can be regarded as reaction to Chinese promotion of “Maritime silk route of the 21st century” concept. Relations with India are viewed in the USA as means of deterrence of China ambitions and competition with Russia in military co-operation.

The article contains practical recommendations how Russia should act when purpose of increasing its influence in the region is on the agenda.