Turkish municipal elections, on which the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned all their hopes, are now over, falling short of Islamists' expectations. The elections revealed all the problems, which the AKP has been trying to solve through force or empty slogans and promises. The elections also proved that in spite of persecution and arrests, Kemalists and the Army in particular, still preserve their positions in the Turkish society.

The impact of the world financial crisis on the Armenian economy and social state of people has already become perceptible, especially in the population employment sector. The alarm has already sounded for a number of employment agencies: employers' offers are decreasing in ratio with the increasing labor supply.

The year of 2008 was also a time of reformatting the South Caucasus Region. After the «five-day» war of Georgia against South Ossetia it became clear that new division lines were to be outlined in the region. No doubt unwilling to do it himself, President of Georgia made a «regal» present to RF that had long been waiting for an opportunity to gain revenge against the USA for the too profound an interference it had in the solution of Caucasus problems. The result was a much more chaotic bedlam in which even the most «skillful» states were unable to "catch a fish".