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The regional powerhouse, South Africa, has since the introduction of the nonracial democratic dispensation in 1994, played a central and important role in the formation of both the regional and continental security architecture. With the establishment of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 1992, one of the central areas of collaboration for the community was envisioned to be security, understood within a broadened human security framework. Security was therefore from the outset one of the cornerstones of integration in the SADC. It was believed that the formation of a security community would help dismantle the enmities that had plagued regional relations during the apartheid era. For some parties, institutionalisation of relations pointed to a means of stabilising and disseminating a particular order. Such institutions depict the power relations prevailing at the time of their establishment, which, however, can change over time (Cox 1981:136). The integration ambition surrounding security correlated with the ambitions of South Africa, the new democratic government in the regional powerhouse. South Africa and its overall foreign policy ambitions desired the pursuit of peace, democracy and stability for economic growth and development in the region and within South Africa itself. Since South Africa's acceptance into the SADC in 1994, the organisation has attempted to set up the required institutional framework to enable co-operation on security, both in terms of narrow military co-operation and regarding designated 2 softer security issues, such as migration and cross-border crime. The military cooperation moved forward in the early years after 1994 with the 1996 decision of creating an Organ for Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation (OPDSC)1 and later the signing of the Mutual Defence Pact (MDP) in 2003, and eventually the creation of the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ (SIPO) in 2004, which operationalised the OPDSC (SADC 2004). However, the actual military cooperation, e.g. military exercises, came close to a standstill. Several developments obstructed military co-operation of which the evolving crisis in Zimbabwe and the subsequent withdrawal of donor support to, for instance, the Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre (RPTC) in Harare are but two examples. The RPTC constituted the backbone of the co-operation, but political differences between member states illustrated during the Zimbabwean crisis and following the mandate of the interventions in especially the DR Congo and partly Lesotho in 1998 all contributed to regional tensions.2 Despite the crisis, SADC members, and in particular South Africa, declared that the organisation would be able to form a regional stand-by brigade for the use of the African Union (AU) as part of its wider security architecture. On 17 August 2007, the SADC declared its stand-by-force operational at a large parade in Lusaka, Zambia and at the same occasion signed a memorandum of understanding on the SADCBRIG (SADC 2007). According to the timeline provided by the AU, the brigade should be fully operational by June 2010. Former South African deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad stated after the launch that this was an important step, but that now there was much to be done securing joint levels and types of training, interoperability, etc. (Pahad 2007). The question that continues to linger is to what extent this brigade is operational and for what purpose. Is this new regional military formation in its present form just a paper tiger, or is it "real progress" and an example of "successful" regional cooperation and integration? This article scrutinises the security co-operation and integration in SADC and asks whether an apparent lack of common values between SADC member states are blocking the security integration process, the creation of a security community, and thereby the establishment of an effective stand-by brigade, the so-called SADCBRIG. The article furthermore attempts to scrutinise the role played by South Africa in establishing the SADCBRIG.

The development of regional integration in Southern Africa leads to the need to harmonize the financial system and financial policy of the States-members of SADC. In this context the analysis of the Southern African States financial systems becomes relevant to identify their similarities and differences. On the basis of this analysis the following conclusions were made.The indicators of financial markets development remain relatively low. Markets are shallow, lack of liquidity, fragmentation, and exposure to high volatility due to macroeconomic or political instability in the international markets. However, it is worth noting that States are attempting to market expansion and filling their liquidity, including through the issuance of sovereign Eurobonds.The levels of financial markets development in the region vary because of different financial systems in these countries and different financial instruments.The banking sector dominates in all financial systems.Large proportion of the population has no access to the financial market in the region, resulting in parallel withexisting formal informal financial market not only in economically weak States, but in relatively stable. Moreover, SADC has turned into a jurisdiction with a low level of risk for organized crime and money laundering. The development of microfinance, designed inter alia to derive the finance in the formal sector of the economy, however, masks the structural and qualitative changes.Thus, member States of SADC are not yet ready to harmonize and unify the financial system and to conduct a unified fiscal policy. ; Тенденции развития региональной интеграции на Юге Африки диктуют необходимость гармонизировать финансовые системы и финансовые политики государств - участников Сообщества развития Юга Африки (САДК). В этой связи актуальным становится анализ самих финансовых систем южноафриканских государств на предмет их схожести и различия. На основе проведенного анализа были сделаны следующие выводы.Показатели развития финансовых рынков остаются на довольно низком уровне. Рынки отличаются небольшой глубиной, нехваткой ликвидности, фрагментированностью, а также подверженностью высокой волатильности вследствие макроэкономической или политической нестабильности на международных рынках. Вместе с тем нельзя не отметить, что государства предпринимают попытки для расширения рынков и наполнения их ликвидностью, в том числе за счет выпуска государственных еврооблигаций. Однако и этого недостаточно.Финансовые рынки стран Юга Африки различаются по уровню развития, что обусловлено наличием разных финансовых систем в этих государствах и финансовых инструментов, используемых на финансовом рынке.В секторальном разрезе в финансовых системах доминирует сфера банковских услуг. Сама же банковская система построена как двухуровневая: центральный банк и коммерческие банки. При этом центральный банк в большинстве стран региона работает в тесном взаимодействии с правительством.Большая доля населения не имеет допуска к финансовому рынку региона, что приводит к созданию неформального финансового рынка, параллельно существующего с формальным не только в экономически слабых, но и в относительно стабильных государствах. Более того, САДК превратилось в юрисдикцию с низким уровнем риска для организованной преступности и отмывания денег. Развитие микрофинансирования, призванного inter alia вывести финансы в формальную сферу экономики, только маскирует структурные и качественные изменения.Таким образом, государства - члены САДК еще не готовы гармонизировать, а тем более унифицировать финансовые системы и проводить единую финансовую политику.

The article discusses the peculiarities of relations and views of the young generation as a social group of the population on the formation of national development projects of the Republic of South Ossetia. The social situation of young people and existing problems in this field in the context of post-conflict society, their perceptions of the development of economic and political processes and statehood in the "unrecognized republic" are analysed. The attitude and, thus, the influence of young people on the construction of the identification and value bases of South Ossetian society after the 2008 armed conflict and recognition of the independence of the Republic by Russia and a number of other States of the world are shown. The work analyses the possible projects of national development of South Ossetia and the perception of youth of the process of their formation: the construction of an independent state, the development of integration processes, associated relations with Russia and reintegration policy with Georgia, as well as the implementation of the European Union program "Involvement without recognition" in the territory of South Ossetia. The author of the article explores the possibilities and problems of implementing these directions of development of South Ossetia at the present stage.

This brief synthesises the IECEU project's most essential findings on the effectiveness of European Union (EU) missions in four Africa countries: Libya, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR). It describes the main elements and impact of the EU missions in these countries, identifies key strategic and operational shortfalls and offers recommendations on how the EU can improve its effectiveness in future conflict prevention and crisis management missions. The EU missions investigated differ in scale, length, objective, budget, priority and context. However, the EU missions presented in this brief share the main characteristic that they have all been deployed under the union's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)2 with the explicit intent of improving the overall security situation and addressing conflicts in Africa. This brief will start by providing a short overview of each case, describing the conflict(s), security situation, mission objectives and obstacles. In this way, it compares the overall effectiveness of EU operational conflict prevention across the four African countries and discusses what lessons can be learned from them. The brief does not include all factors needed to answer thisquestion, but highlights the IECEU project's most significant findings in these cases.

В первые годы нового тысячелетия в Африке возродилисьростки надежды: некоторые страны при относительностабильных макроэкономических условиях смогли достичьустойчивого роста народного хозяйства. В среднем годо-вой рост показателей континента за 2000–2007 гг. соста-вил 5% – почти на 2% выше мирового уровня. Сравниваяс «азиатскими тиграми», оптимисты ведут речь об «афри-канских львах» – Кении или Камеруне, – которые, как ка-залось, уже завоевали необходимые высоты, чтобы достиг-нуть уровня развития пороговых стран континента.

В данной статье исследуется метафорическая картина политической действительности в Республике Южная Осетия на примере выступлений А. И. Бибилова.

History of separatistic movement of the Malay community in Thailand comprises following stages: rise of fight in the first half of XX century; shaping of the combat Muslim groups followed by armed clashes with the government's forces after the WWII; standstill in the 1980s; local outbreak of terrorism with the global radicalisation of Islam. The major trigger of separatism of the Thailand's Malays is nationalistic policy of official Bangkok aimed at their conversion into Buddhism and Thai cultural identity. Despite all its efforts in southern provinces the government has not yet solved the conflict and danger of military clashes in these parts still persists. ; Историю сепаратистского движения малайского населения Таиланда можно разделить на следующие этапы: начало борьбы в первой половине XX в.; образование боевых исламских группировок и столкновение их с правительственными войсками в послевоенный период; прекращение вооруженной борьбы в 1980-е гг.; взрыв террористической активности на фоне радикализации ислама в мире. Основной причиной появления сепаратизма можно считать реакцию малайского меньшинства на националистическую политику таиландских властей, имевшей целью таизацию и буддизацию населения. В настоящее время несмотря на все усилия таиландских властей конфликт не преодолен, и в южных провинциях угроза войны сохраняется.

The issue of searching for an effective regional balance of power in the South Caucasus through the prism of Russia's military and political interaction with Armenia and Azerbaian is examined. The experience of the USA carrying out similar policy in relation to these states is demonstrated. Based on the quantitative analysis of military-political relations between Moscow, Yerevan and Baku, the scale and forms of the cooperation are estimated. Positive and negative consequences of the official Moscow's "balancing" policy are reviewed. Difficulties that the Russian side has to face when implementing such a regional scenario of behavior are shown. The article says that for Russia, which represents itself as a backbone structural element in the CIS, the key to realizing its national interests is creation of a "good-neighbor belt" and counteraction to formation of the anti-Russian buffer zone in the post-Soviet space. This determines the foreign policy course of Moscow in the CIS region, where the Russian leadership strives to maintain a balance in the development of military cooperation with such regional rivals in the South Caucasus subregion as Armenia and Azerbaian. The authors come to a conclusion that Russia is balancing between two countries - Armenia and Azerbaian - in order to maintain its influence in the region and the balance of power between the sides. It is noted that Moscow tries to demonstrate the adherence to the principle of a dynamic balance of power maintenance in the South Caucasus. Unfortunately, Russia is not coherent in its political line in contrast to the USA. According to the authors, it is difficult for Russia to maintain the military and political parity between Armenia and Azerbaian only because of the fact that it is a major weapons supplier for these two countries. So, any destabilization between Yerevan and Baku is not good for Moscow, and it can lead to serious problems regarding its reputation and regional interests. However, despite the fact that Russia has a regional and global status, an alternative political line will not be reconsidered in the near future. Moscow acts according to its age-old experience in the regional policy. © 2018 Nauka Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The author studies the specifics of lace in the territory of the South Black Earth Russia in the 19th – early 20th centuries. The author has analyzed the history of lace crafts in the Yelets and Mtsensk districts of the Orlovsk province, and in the Zadonsk district of the Voronezh province. Based on archive materials the article determines such features of lace crafts development as the uniqueness of lace; the dependence of the growth of the influence of buyers on the pace of industry development; presence of the qualitative indicators of the manufacturing process inversely proportional to the quantitative; expanding the range of manufactured lace; the expansion of the sales area of lace; activation of the attention of individuals and public institutions to revive the specificity and individuality of local products lace. It was concluded that the impact of identified features on the pace of development of the lace industry in the South Black Earth Russia and on the development of Russian business in general.

Analyzing the history of lace crafts, the author describes the conditions of industrial activity lace, which showed the formation of the capitalist forms of lace makers' work. The features of the capitalist forms of labour which characterized crafts activity are pointed out. The peculiarities of lace sales organization in local and distant markets are studied. In addition to interprovince and interdistrict markets the author investigates the material on exporting goods abroad. The main reasons for the expansion of sales geography determine the change in product mix.

The author raises the issue related to the history of the preservation of unique lace made following the traditions of Russian folk art of their ancestors. The problem consisted in the fact that the buyers were not interested in the originality and identity of the goods. As a result, this led to the reduction of the original performance by increasing the amount of work on the standard models.

The specific of development of South African society was in a great deal predefined by the level of socially-historical development of the South African region to colonial encroachment, and by the features of the transformations introduced southward the African continent by the English colonialists. The colonial past of South Africa continues to be saved in memory and psychology of new generations of native population. And for the best comprehension of socio-political difficulties into that the people of this region run on the modern stage of their development, it is necessary from positions of retrospective analysis to study the process of colonization and influence of methods of her realization on a political, socio-economic and cultural situation in South Africa.

This preprint examines the migration of the population of the regions of the South of Russia in the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries. Migration processes are considered in two "dimensions". On the one hand, their development is investigated in a historical perspective, in connection with which migration in the Soviet and post-Soviet times is considered separately. On the other hand, migration flows are opposed to each other in terms of "distance", for which intraregional and interregional migrations are separately characterized.

The main points of this paper were presented at the first Global Conference of the International Network of Customs Universities on May 21-23, 2014 in Baku, the Azerbaijan Republic. Customs administrations need a vibrant use of information and communication technology (ICT) to buttress their effectiveness and efficiency. The goal is to use electronic data instead of paper documents and to connect different computer systems of government agencies and business to create arobust supply chain. This paper discusses the use of ICT in East and Southern Africa (ESA) Customs which has resulted in the improvement of trade facilitation. In so doing valuable benefits are reaped by stakeholders in the international business supply chain. The stakeholders include governmentagencies, intermediaries and traders. All the stakeholders also play a key role in trade facilitation which is driven by their distinct interests and needs in the trade supply chain. The paper identifies some of the significant benefits from trade facilitation as the reduction in the burden and costsassociated with international trade transactions. There are further benefits which are related to a good trade facilitation environment such as the creation of greater opportunities to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). There are many other positive multiple linkages which are linked to goodborder clearance and trade facilitation systems which can accrue to an economy and hence contributing to economic progress as well as driving regional integration and international trade. The paper also outlines that ICT plays a significant and critical role in various border clearance functions such as one stop border posts (OSBPs), goods release or clearance times (as measured by the Time Release Study), the single window concept and coordinated border management. Whilst ICT is not short of its challenges it provides a lot of future opportunities in customs administration. The paper concludes that ICT drives a robust customs administration systemand thereafter recommends that it is important to prioritise the full automation of all customs processes chief among them being having a complete single window system in order to realize all the gains of automation. ; Таможенные администрации нуждаются в динамичном использовании информационно-коммуникационных технологий (ИКТ) для повышения эффективности своейдеятельности. Целью таких технологий является использование электронных данных вместобумажного документооборота и подключение различных компьютерных систем государственных органов и бизнеса для обеспечения надежной системы поставок. В статьеидет речь о преимуществах использования ИКТ на таможенных постах в странах Юго-восточной Африки, а именно: об упрощении торговых процедур. В результате таких инноваций все участники торговой сделки (к ним относятся правительственные учреждения, посредники и трейдеры) получают весомые преимущества в международной системе поставок. Участники торгового процесса играют ключевую роль в развитии торговли,которая зависит от их интересов и конкретных потребностей в торговой цепочке поставок. Автор статьи также говорит о некоторых существенных преимуществах, которые можно получить вследствие упрощения процедур торговли, например, сокращение рабочей нагрузки ирасходов, связанных с международными торговыми сделками. Также можно упомянуть дополнительные преимущества, которые связаны с благоприятной средой, влияющей на развитие торговли, а именно: создание более широких возможностей для привлечения прямых иностранных инвестиций. Есть много других положительных моментов, связанных с упрощением таможенных и торговых процедур, которые, накапливаясь в экономике, способствуют экономическому прогрессу, а также региональной интеграции и международной торговле. В статье также говорится о том, что ИКТ играют важную и решающую роль в осуществлении таможенных процедур, таких как: работа комплексных пограничных пунктов,выпуск товара из зоны таможенного контроля или время, потраченное на оформление товара (применяется анализ времени выпуска товаров из зоны таможенного контроля), концепция единого окна и скоординированное управление границами. Несмотря на то, что при использовании информационно-коммуникационных технологий существуют определенные проблемы, все же можно говорить и о многочисленных возможностях этих технологий в применении таможенными службами. Автор статьи делает вывод о том, что использование ИКТ обеспечивает надежность системы таможенного администрирования. Тем самым акцентируется внимание на важности расстановки приоритетов при полной автоматизации всех таможенных процессов, главным из которых является система единого окна с целью реализации всех преимуществ от автоматизации.