Amid the lush abundance of Java's landscape, two boys spend their days exploring the vast lakes and teeming forests. But as time passes the boys come to realize that their shared sense of adventure cannot bridge the gulf between their backgrounds, for one is the son of a Dutch plantation owner, and the other the son of a servant. Inevitably, as they grow up, they grow estranged and it is not until years later that they meet again. It will be an explosive and emblematic meeting that marks them even more deeply than their childhood friendship did.
The Black Sea region is a dynamic and complex area in which many national and international actors have key interests, including Russia and the US. The European Union stretches to the sea’s western coast where it meets former Soviet territory as well as EU candidate Turkey. Regional tensions include those over NATO enlargement, a US anti-ballistic missile system, access to the Black Sea, democratization, spheres of interest and the conflict zones of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria. In addition, the region’s close proximity to the Caspian basin offers the prospect of alternative energy resources and routes to western states. The Politics of the Black Sea Region: EU Neighbourhood, Conflict Zone or Future Security Community? explores and examines the many diverse political, security and economic interests that affect the region and the possible outcomes for it. By reviewing the wider history and examining the political systems and policies of the Black Sea nations and organizations as well as analyzing current tensions and future trends, it provides an invaluable, comprehensive and unique political guide to this fascinating area.
The Black Sea region rarely hit the media headlines until the outbreak of war in Georgia in 2008, yet its importance as a focus of European Union (EU) external policy making had already been growing for several years. The area is fascinating and diverse, comprising both large and small states, with a mixture of democracies and more authoritarian regimes. Traditionally a central foreign policy concern for Russia and Turkey, since the end of the Cold War, the EU and the US have become increasingly involved in the many dimensions of Black Sea politics. This book brings together a broad range of specialists on the region to analyze the challenge of divergent agendas both within and outside the EU. More specifically it looks at how the EU's enlargement to include states on the Black Sea shore has brought about new external policies including the European Neighbourhood Policy, Black Sea Synergy and the Eastern Partnership, all representing subtly different aims and interests. The various sections in the book also examine regionalization, conflict resolution, security, relationships between the Black Sea's states and last but not least, the vital issue of energy which has begun to dominate the discussion of the region. Designed to further the debate on the future of EU policies for the Black Sea region, this book is an essential resource for researchers, students and others in search of a coherent picture of the inter-relationship of EU initiatives and policies in the region.
Basing their research on geophysics, oral legends, and archaeology, the authors offer evidence that the flood in the book of Genesis actually occurred.
