The information revolution has brought with it the digital divide, but the growth of information technology has opened the way for new approaches toward information technology at the global, regional and national levels.  Sometimes this technology is used as a tool by individuals, groups and states to promote narrow interests, and sometimes it is being employed to encourage broader integration rather than narrow self-interest.  This latter idea governs Azerbaijan’s approach to information and communication technologies (ICT), an approach intended to make these new communicati...

The participation of Arif Asgarov, the chairman of Azerbaijani Railways, in the 51st session of the CIS and Baltic Countries Railway Transport Council which took place in Tashkent at the end of October, not only calls attention to one of the most remarkable institutions to have survived the demise of the USSR but also to the growing importance of railways in Eurasia and especially in the geopolitics of the South Caucasus. While the Baltic countries in 1992 and Georgia last year have severed many of their links with the former Soviet republics, they continue to participate in the railway ...

Each nation defines itself by the heroes it identifies as important; Azerbaijan is no different.  Its long history is filled with remarkable people, but few had lives more instructive for the present than Hasan-Bek Zardabi, who died just over a century ago.  Indeed, for the author of these lines – and beyond any doubt for many others, Zardabi is a chief Azerbaijani, because he opened a window to Europe and thus began the processes of enlightenment and modernization of the nation, processes for which there is not and cannot be any reasonable alternative. More than any other Az...