Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has offered his country as an alternate supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan, circumventing routes that traverse Russian territory. The offer was discussed during a Feb. 22 visit by Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A military junta has taken control of the government in Niger, after toppling President Mamadou Tandja on Feb. 18. The coup raises questions for foreign investors with an interest in Niger’s uranium deposits — among the most extensive in the world.

The Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, met with U.S. President Barack Obama on Feb. 18 at the White House. The meeting was treated as a low-key event due to U.S. concerns about angering China.

Nigeria’s vice president, Goodluck Jonathan, has been named acting president — assuming powers until now wielded by ailing President Umaru Yaradua. The political power of Jonathan, an ethnic Ijaw, is key to maintaining stability in the oil-producing Niger Delta region.

A high-level Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, reportedly was captured recently by American and Pakistani intelligence operatives in Karachi. According to STRATFOR sources, he was apprehended in Baldia Town — a district that also was the scene of a recent attack against a NATO supply vehicle.

Ukraine’s president-elect, Viktor Yanukovich, has said that Kiev will seek an energy consortium with Russia and the European Union to upgrade Ukraine’s aging natural gas pipeline network. Ukraine is a key transit state for Russian natural gas bound for markets in Europe.

Thousands of U.S. and NATO troops launched an offensive on Feb. 12 to take Marjah, a Taliban-controlled town in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

China's National Bureau of Statistics released monthly economic figures on Feb. 11, revealing a 1.5 percent year-on-year increase in the consumer price index.

Attention was focused on Greece on Feb. 10, as public-sector strikes gripped the country and a potential debt default loomed.

Rumors that Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government is planning a major offensive against al Shabaab militants seem to be gaining credence.