The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is a key geo-political figure in the Middle East, which plays an important role in stabilizing the world order, and in the military and political settlement in the region. Iran’s geographical location allows it to be in the epicenter of overlapping strategic geopolitical objectives and ambitions of global and regional forces. The situation in the Middle East can be best described as the widening gap between Shiite Iran and Sunni Persian Gulf, and the relations with the West are undergoing a long-term persistent antagonism and confrontation.

Young generation has an important place in the life of Kazakhstani society.  As an independent and actual group of population, youth performs certain social functions.  Youth inherits up-to- date practical experience of developing the society and state, determines the vision of country’s future, and takes responsibility for her stability under the conditions of globalization and market transformations.  Youth is one of the main participators of socio-political processes; it has its own innovative potential, its goals and interests. State youth policy is intended to be one of the system resources for realization of Strategy “Kazakhstan-2050” [1].

After early parliamentary election in March, 2016, the party system of Kazakhstan began to develop under new conditions. Last election for Majilis allowed: to form multiparty parliament officially; to withdraw radical opposition from the format of legitimized public policy; to reform and rejuvenate the deputy corps of Majilis. At the same time, the election did not resolve several key issues of public policy: parliamentary representation does not have all intraelite groups and this reduces the significance of public policy sector in general; pro-government party-outsiders continue to exist in a vague format; criticism of international organizations regarding the compliance of electoral process to democratic standards is not withdrawn.

Despite the external similarities of economic models of two leading developing governments of South-East Asia and differences of their geography, resources and demography, the development of Japan and South Korea during recent years significantly diverge in their outcomes. Officially, Japan is the 3rd economy of the world on nominal amount of GDP, which, according to the data of World Bank, amounted to $4123 billion in 2015. By more objective index of GDP on purchasing-power parity, this amount is assessed much higher by this institution- $4738 billion, but according to this indicator, Japan is only the fourth biggest economy after India.

The current level of social tension in Kazakhstan can be characterized as moderate; however there are latent forms of conflicts in social sector, some of them began to develop gradually into spontaneous protest actions. So far actions of small scale, with mainly economic requirements only, are registered. Sharp devaluation of national currency in the second half of the year 2015 created a negative social and economic background for political processes in 2016. In case of further deterioration of an economic situation the number of protests of vulnerable social groups of the population can increase.

The 2016 started positively for the American-Uzbek relations. On January 19-20 another round of the Uzbek-American consultations took place in Washington. The USA delegation was headed by N. Biswal the Assistant Secretary of State for the Southern and Central Asian Affairs, the delegation of Uzbekistan was headed by A. Kamilov the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan. [1] On May 12 Foreign Minister A. Kamilov had a meeting with the US Ambassador in RU P. Spratlen, which took place in the MFA of RU. The parties discussed questions of bilateral relations in various areas: the program of boundary and regional security, economic relations, civil society, etc. Ambassador P. Spratlen stated: “Uzbekistan is an important partner of the USA in ensuring stability, prosperity and safety in the region of Central Asia” and reminded that the USA rendered significant assistance to Uzbekistan in the area of safety. [2]

The denunciation of the agreement on cooperation with the USA of 1993 (June 2015) complicated the relations between Washington and Bishkek. Nevertheless, both parties were disposed to talks [1]. On February, 9 2016 the US Ambassador in Kyrgyz Republic S. Gwaltney stated that Washington and Bishkek were going to conclude a new agreement on cooperation [2]. In April 2016, in the report on human rights situation the US State Department criticized the situation in KR. In this regard, the Ministry of External Affairs of RK stated “Such documents have no purpose of an in-depth study of human rights situation in any country including Kyrgyzstan. Typically, they are inspired by geopolitical considerations” [3].

In 2016, the American-Tajik dialogue was quite intensive in almost all sectors; therefore, we will dwell upon only the most important aspects of bilateral cooperation. On January, 25 the new US Ambassador Elisabeth Millard, who replaced Susan Elliott, arrived to Dushanbe. [1] On March, 11 2016 E. Millard presented letters of credence to the President Emomali Rahmon. [2] It is also worth noting, that on August, 3 2016 the delegation of Tajikistan took part in the foreign ministers meeting in the format of “C5 + 1” in Washington, D.C., and in November of the same year Daler Safarov, the representative of Tajikistan, was monitoring the US presidential election for the first time. [3]