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The North Caucasus with its seven Russian Federation republics has witnessed an alarming increase in the number of acts of terrorism in the region as well as military conflicts between state security bodies and armed resistance groups. This development extends beyond the borders of the former war zone in Chechnya, which has long dominated reporting on the North Caucasus. The neighbouring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia surpassed Chechnya in the last two years in terms of the number of »acts of violence«. Republics in the region's central and western reaches, however, have also seen increases in these figures. In his address before the Federal Assembly in 2009, President Medvedev pointed to the North Caucasus as constituting Russia's preeminent domestic problem. In 2010, he introduced administrative reform by creating a separate federal district for the region. Russian politicians emphasise socio-economic and political causes for the violence and have increasingly stressed the importance of reforms rather than solely relying on »clampdowns«. Will such new approaches in Russia's Caucasus strategy stand up against the security policy challenges coming from the region? For the time being, new incidents of violence are being recorded every week. A European »Partnership for Modernisation« with Russia cannot ignore the disastrous security situation in Russia's »internal abroad« in the North Caucasus. The region represents an exposed emergency zone on the edge of Europe

The policy of the EU and its member states vis-à-vis Central Asia's authoritarian states is focused first and foremost on stability. At the same time, it is hoped that the region's political elites will allow themselves to be swayed by "constructive engagement" and "dialogue" to abide by human rights standards and to pursue democratic reforms. In accordance with this policy, the Central Asian states are incorporated into international cooperation projects, which focus on shared interests and blur the variance in different values. Just how unsuccessful this approach is has been demonstrated by Kazakhstan's OSCE chairmanship. Kazakhstan's leadership has primarily used the office to consolidate its domestic power rather than promoting acceptance of the "human dimension" of security in the post-Soviet space and leading by good example. If it wishes to avoid such outcomes in the future, the West must develop a more acute awareness of the behavioural logic driving its partners

Corporations are perceived as increasingly powerful and critically important to ensuring that irreversible climatological or ecological tipping points on Earth are not crossed. Environmental impacts of corporate activities include pollution of soils, freshwater and the ocean, depletion of ecosystems and species, unsustainable use of resources, changes to air quality, and alteration of the global climate. Negative social impacts include unacceptable working conditions, erosion of traditional practices, and increased inequalities. Multiple formal and informal mechanisms have been developed, and innovative examples of corporate biosphere stewardship have resulted in progress. However, the biosphere crisis underscores that such efforts have been insufficient and that transformative change is urgently needed. We provide suggestions for aligning corporate activities with the biosphere and argue that such corporate biosphere stewardship requires more ambitious approaches taken by corporations, combined with new and formalized public governance approaches by governments.