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The article discusses a number of issues related to the achievement in March 2023 of the Agreement on the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, mediated by China. The author describes background of the Agreement, noting the fact that the idea of its achievement matured under the influence of complex and long-term circumstances. The article also concerns the role of the United States in the Middle East, which also influenced the formation of Iranian-Saudi relations. The author pays particular attention to the new developments in the political and economic spheres of China's relations with the Middle East and North African countries. The characterization of China's evolving approach in the region explains why Iran and Saudi Arabia chose China as a trusted and effective mediator. China's advantage is believed to lie in its diplomatic paradigm, which involves avoiding taking sides and striving to bring both parties closer together.

The article addresses the question of why the beginning of 2023 was chosen for the signing of the Agreement, highlighting a number of objective and subjective circumstances that influenced this choice, which are examined in a comprehensive manner. After discussing the key provisions of the Agreement, the author turns to the international significance of the document, concluding that after its conclusion, the United States will no longer be the sole global power playing a significant role in the Middle East. It is highly unlikely that China will leave the region where it has made such a diplomatic impact and where its political and economic interests are gaining a new scale.

The article describes the state and directions of Sino-Afghan relations after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021. To substantiate a number of points, it provides information about Sino-Afghan relations under the former, republican government of the country. The Chinese stance on establishing ties with the Taliban who seized power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021 is analyzed, its motivation and main provisions, including non-interference in the internal affairs, rejection of the financial sanctions against the new regime, etc., are described.

It is pointed out that China's main interests in Afghanistan are, firstly, to ensure the security of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the PRC, which for decades has been the target of Uyghur separatists from Afghanistan (the ETIM movement). And, secondarily, with the prospects for developing the country's enormous, valuable natural resources, as well as using its geographical location to create an infrastructure system in Central and South Asia. The current state of economic cooperation between China and the new Afghan authorities is described, and its goals and difficulties are revealed. The reasons for China's restrained political behavior in Afghanistan with an explicit focus on the economic aspect of bilateral dialogue are also discussed. The issue of Beijing's diplomatic recognition of the new Kabul regime is raised and it is noted that it will not be rapid due to the risk of reputational losses for China and the ambiguous perception of the Taliban in the world. It concludes with the question of what China can expect if Afghanistan's economic development is not a priority for the Taliban authorities and China's strive to cooperation is not adequately responded to? It concludes that, despite circumstances favoring the PRC's entry into Afghanistan's political and economic landscape, conditions for a close bilateral partnership with the Taliban are not yet ripe due to its riskiness and prognostic uncertainty.

The paper is devoted to the consideration of the PRC and Brazil stances on the de-dollarization of international economic relations and the expansion of the practice of international payments in national currencies. The use of currencies other than the dollar is seen a logical starting point towards liberating the economic relations of the non-Western world from the pressure of the collective West. This pressure, implemented largely due to the fact, that dollar maintains the function of a world currency (according to K. Marx — "world money"), is aimed to tie economic policies and practices of US counterparties, including China and Brazil, to the American currency as a means of manipulating the world economic interests of other countries. The issue of creating international currency units alternative to the dollar is increasingly being raised in political and academic communities. China and Brazil are members of the BRICS forum, which currency's creation is widely discussed at the international level. The author believes that the likelihood of creating such a currency is now low due to the peculiarities of the global financial and political situation, as well as the insufficient degree of integration within the BRICS itself. If the creation of a new currency (within the framework of a non-Western international structure) begins, then one of the ways of this is the formation of a currency basket in which the yuan can receive the greatest weight. However, the most achievable way of dedollarization seems a broad transition to the use of national currencies in global trade, investment and lending. The next step may be to create not a currency, but a special international unit of account, what is easier to do.

This study presents the analysis of the tax system in the Republic of Bulgaria since the country's accession to the European Union has influenced its development and further economic integration into the global community. The research goal is to analyze the tax policy of the Republic of Bulgaria as a factor in the destructive state development as its taxation needs improvement in terms of tax collection, information security, and data transfer, along with the inefficient structure of direct and indirect taxes. As the hypothesis of the research, the authors considered promising approaches to overcoming the destructive nature of Bulgaria's state system by developing an effective mechanism of tax policy and improving the tax system in line with the modern conditions. The methodological basis of the research is represented by general scientific, private and special methods of cognition. Their combination allowed the authors to analyze the studied issue and to draw appropriate conclusions.

This article comments on one detail of the artistic world of the novella Uncle's Dream. The mention of monk Misail in Svetozersky Hermitage is considered as a topographic sign, which allows one to accurately determine the local attribution of Dostoevsky's text. According to the author of the article, the prototype of the priest is Father Macarius (Mikhail Yakovlevich Glukharev), also known as "the Apostle of the Altai Land". The author introduces into scholarly circulation M. Ya. Glukharev's autograph found in Barnaul and analyses the missionary activity of the Archimandrite and the reasons for his getting closer to Tobolsk Decembrists M. A. Fonvizin and his wife N. D. Fonvizina, P. S. Bobrischev-Pushkin, and P. N. Svistunov. The paper also discusses the question of F. M. Dostoevsky's interest in the personality of the Archimandrite and the channels through which the writer could know about the old man: Fonvizin's circle, the book about father Macarius of his succеssоr S. Landyshev, Dostoevsky's Semipalatinsk fellow ethnographer N. A. Abramov, or oral legends, including raskolnik ones. The extant humorous stories about the Archimandrite might have served as an impetus for the comic transformation of his image in the novella Uncle's Dream, in which the writer easily and ironically used facts known to him encrypting Father Macarius and using the secular name Mikhail. In the writer's later works, the figure of Macarius is presented in the rough drafts of the novel The Brothers Karamazov and "the monk of Obdor" is included in the environment of Elder Zosima in the final text of the work. Long before the emergence of the conception of The Brothers Karamazov, M. Ya. Glukharev becomes not only a catalyst in the creative process and one of the prototypes for Dostoevsky, but also an example of the "romantic missionary", a popular spiritual leader and reformer of the Church.

Abstract: This paper contains a comprehensive study of the evolution of views on the legal security of theindividual, society and the state in the general social and legal aspects. As a result of the study, the main approaches to understanding security are systematized and define it in space; concerning the national interests of the population of a particular state; concerning military threats; concerning the sovereignty of the state; the legal content of this concept, the principles of ensuring personal, public and national (state) security at the international level are revealed.Keywords: safety, legal security, concept, approaches to the definition, international security.

Abstract: This paper contains a comprehensive study of the evolution of views on the legal security of theindividual, society and the state in the general social and legal aspects. As a result of the study, the main approaches to understanding security are systematized and define it in space; concerning the national interests of the population of a particular state; concerning military threats; concerning the sovereignty of the state; the legal content of this concept, the principles of ensuring personal, public and national (state) security at the international level are revealed.Keywords: safety, legal security, concept, approaches to the definition, international security.