Once again the USA shocked the world by electing an Afro-American as a US President. Though no one now recalls that he is dark-skinned only on his father's side and is of purely Yankee descent on mother's, these are just particulars now. What is important is that the USA acknowledged that from now on the white race is not a majority dictating terms. Thus, it is not excluded that next US president might be Hispanic or Chinese. Everything is possible in a country of equal rights.

The Moscow Declaration on political settlement the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict signed by the Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan once again awakened interest in the seemingly «frozen» conflict. In fact, we witnessed assertion of what we used to repeat for years - the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict must be resolved on the basis of principles and norms of the international law.

As some American sources report, after the presidential elections George Bush might declare his intention to reestablish democratic relations with Iran 30 years after they were broken off. If this happens Bush will at least have an opportunity to leave at peace and tranquility. Moreover, he will finally acquire the desired image of a «peacemaker». Still early in summer the US Administration used to stress the possibility of bombing the Iranian nuclear bases, which, according to the European lobby, threatened the Republic of Israel.

The Supreme Court of Turkey accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoрan of undermining the country's founding principle of secularism. The Court made such an announcement voicing the decision of fining the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Erdoрan. According to the Court the Prime-Minister violated Article 68 of the Constitution, which establishes Turkey as a secular state. Erdoрan was reminded about his attempt to lift the ban on female students wearing Muslim headscarves in universities and lower the minimum age at which students attend Koranic classes.

Georgia is now on the brink of just another shock. In an open letter addressed to the President and published in the Georgian daily "Rezonansi" on October 24, ex-speaker of the Georgian Parliament and Saakashvili's ex-ally Nino Burjanadze quite clearly speaks of the forthcoming 'relieve of the guard'. It wasn't too long ago that Burjanadze returned from the USA, and this letter is apparently the result of consultations with the representatives of the US Political Establishment. The letter is rather harsh and it can be regarded as the message of a new Georgian president, to whose post, to all appearances, the ex-speaker is gradually climbing.

There are presently 44 landlocked countries in the world, most of which are in Africa - 15, then comes Europe with 14 states, followed by Asia - 12 and South America - 2. Lack of territorial access to the sea means for these countries eclipsed opportunities to communicate with the world, develop and maintain trade-economic relations and grow as a whole. Armenia now faces all these difficulties, and it should be admitted that no opening of a border can bring about changes in geographical location of the country. There might be a slight progress in political sphere but still from the purely geographical point of view Armenia is doomed to be an enclosed piece of land.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's Yerevan statement on his intention to invite the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents to Moscow for the regulation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was not an unexpected move. After the August events it became clear to everyone in the Region that Russia would not content itself with «compelling Georgia to peace»; there would also be other steps directed to the consolidation of cracked Russian positions in the South Caucasus.

In the face of the global financial crisis ex-allies are even more loudly declaring about their right to independently solve their problems, which arouse as a result of the myopic US policy in the field of mortgage lending and spread over the other spheres of banking operations. Still at the beginning of the current year the biggest US banks raised alarm declaring that granted mortgage loans were not reimbursed. However, no one listened to them and the result for it was the crisis that we now face. The EU decided to immediately hold a world summit for saving the financial and banking structure in the format of extended G-8 with participation of such emerging economies as India, China, Brazil and others.

Somewhat more than two weeks is left before the US Presidential Elections. Despite the convincing victory of Barack Obama in all the three TV debates it would be a bit optimistic to claim that Americans are ready to elect as a US president a dark-skinned democrat candidate with quite a «problematic» middle name Hussein.

Azerbaijani Presidential Elections that were quite correctly described by western media as a referendum ended successfully. Ilham Aliyev got 90% of votes; his opponents acknowledged defeat and even congratulated the re-elected president. All this happened in spite of the fact that Ilham Aliyev first came to power in 2003 following an off-standard "democratic" election, which, nevertheless, legalized the advent of the family dynasty, whose forefather was Heydar Aliyev, Soviet leader that was able to keep afloat after the USSR breakdown. In fact, the Azerbaijani people had no other choice.