Opening address of editor-in-chief.

Idea of the Big Eurasian Partnership was formulated in December 2015 by the President of Russia V.V. Putin, who launched an initiative to begin consultations on forming an economic partnership between the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. According to the author of the article, partnership should be formed on the basis of a flexible system of legal norms, joint projects and institutions that take into account diversity of the participants’ interests and purely volunteer nature of cooperation. Options for integrating into the partnership can be of different speeds and different levels, providing each participant the freedom to choose a package of commitments.

Macroeconomic problems and political games of our Western “partners” have mainstreamed the task of diversifying the routes and simultaneously expanding the volumes of Russian and transit electricity exports abroad. Given constantly increasing energy consumption in Asian countries, it is the Asian export vector of Russian fuel and energy resources that seems most promising, updating the development of fuel and energy infrastructure for integrating the energy system of Russia and the energy systems of a group of key countries in Eastern, Southern and Western Asia. This vector from the viewpoint of considering the fuel and energy infrastructure as a metasystem is expedient to realize through forming the Global Asian Energy Ring, taking into account the unique experience of the UES of the USSR and the Mir energy system. A unified energy supply system and mechanisms for resource and financial coordination within the framework of the Global Asian Energy Ring can form the basis for ensuring political and economic competitiveness of a group of key countries in Eastern, Southern and Western Asia, based on a key energy partner, being also the main guarantor of energy supplies (collective energy security) — Russia.

In the course of its development, human civilization has repeatedly encountered a number of certain difficulties and challenges. In the XXI century problems have acquired a completely new, threatening character and are associated with depletion of natural resources for humanity livelihood. They concern absolutely all the Earth’s inhabitants, affect the interests of many countries and peoples of the world. The article presents strategic risks and possible solutions to the global problems of the civilization development.

In this article, facilitation is seen as a healthy reaction to the world globalization and as a means of increasing efficiency while managing innovative scientific and technical projects. The author considers the main features of such facilitation and the processes of introducing such form of management into newly created and already existing scientific and technical projects.

Military operations in the Syrian Arab Republic affect foreign investment in the country. Despite this, Russia continues to cooperate with Syria in the investment field. Judging by Syria’s internal potential, peculiarities of its geopolitical situation in the region, as well as international trends and strategies of Russia’s foreign policy, the Syrian Arab Republic maintains its relations with the Russian Federation within the framework of the forces center policy and against the background of the prestige policy. At the same time, towards Russia Syria pursues completely different foreign policy than in relation to other countries. Exploring investment activities in Syria and Russia’s participation in the Syrian economy through investments, the author draws up a conclusion that Russian enterprises’ entry into the Syrian market after the conflict stabilization should be based on the principles of leasing. The most interesting form of cooperation from the Russian point of view will be interaction in the mining industry (oil, phosphates) and agriculture.

Existing model of international economic integration faces a number of limitations impeding further development of globalization. Using the example of the US metallurgical industry, the article shows that globalization can cause negative consequences for the developed countries economies, including the erosion of national security. The work notes the presence of a discrepancy between the target and ideological purposes of the “Foreign Economic Strategy of the Russian Federation” and the changed external conditions for the national economy development. Normalization of the imports presence in the domestic market is a necessary step towards diversifying the economy and increasing non-commodity exports. In the new model of international trade, which is formed on the basis of China’s foreign economic relations, Russia may occupy a niche of infrastructure solutions supplier in the field of energy, technologies of natural resources extraction, as well as military equipment and weapons to ensure the sovereignty of countries that extract and export natural resources.

The article contains the author’s summary on the 2018 Chengdu Global Think Tanks Forum (China) with the active participation of the Russian delegation and a critical review of the events and a number of reports within the event framework. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role and capabilities of the think tanks created by the BRICS countries, to identify the benefits and threats of global governance, as well as to promote the results of research activities initiated and realized by scientists and experts from countries with developing, emerging and transforming markets.

“RosStroyInvest” construction holding began to work in the premium class segment, but this does not mean that the company will not build housing in other segments. The society consists not only of very wealthy people, and housing is necessary for everyone, emphasizes Fedor Turkin, board of directors chairman of GC “RosStroyInvest”, in his interview with “ES” magazine

The article analyzes the current transitional stage of development of the world community, when unipolarity under the leadership of the United States begins to weaken. Under these conditions, the resistance of the establishment of countries losing their dominance in the world community, the position of states defending the principles of multipolarity, in connection with which the conflict character of the development of the world community increases. The theory of the balance of forces inherent in the “cold war”, which considers balancing the nuclear potential of countries possessing it, now involves the inclusion of elements of information confrontation and cyber opposition, the latter can lead to radical negative consequences. The article analyzes the development of international law as a basic element of the formation of polycentrism, opposition to information attacks from the West, as well as the need to develop a single platform for the BRICS countries to digitize economies and information and communication interaction.