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Archive - Oct 2013

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October 28th

Exports from Poland to Uzbekistan exceeds $83 million for 7 months

Trade turnover between Poland and Uzbekistan in January-July this year reached $98.5 million, which is by 18% more than last year, reported Mezon.uz referring to first counselor of Polish Embassy in Tashkent Slavomir Strzalkowski. READ MORE

October 25th

Sweden to join NATO Response Force and exercise Steadfast Jazz

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 Sweden has offered to send staff officers to exercise Steadfast Jazz 2013. With the approval by NATO Allies, the Nordic nation becomes the third partner country to join Steadfast Jazz, alongside Finland and Ukraine. READ MORE

Angela Merkel’s Pyrrhic Victory

By George Soros

As far as Germany is concerned, the drama of the euro crisis is over. The subject was barely discussed in the country’s recent election campaign. Chancellor Angela Merkel did what was necessary to ensure the euro’s survival, and she did so at the least possible cost to Germany – a feat that earned her the support of pro-European Germans as well as those who trust her to protect German interests. Not surprisingly, she won re-election resoundingly. READ MORE

Kazakhstan and Belarus Host High-Level Ukrainian Officials

By Oleg Varfolomeyev

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara has visited Kazakhstan and Prime Minister Mykola Azarov went to Belarus earlier this month to assure Russia’s Customs Union partners that Ukraine’s plans to sign an association and free trade agreement with the European Union in November will do them no harm. Judging by statements made during and after the visits, attitudes to Ukraine’s plans in Astana and Minsk are more pragmatic than in Moscow, which keeps threatening Kyiv with sanctions for preferring the EU to its own regional bloc (see EDM, October 10).  READ MORE

AMBITIOUS KINGDOM IN NATO

By Arthur Dunn

Norway's military budget in the coming year once again increase. The Ministry of Defense announced the ambitious project of the kingdom. READ MORE

October 23rd

Don’t forget China in the EU-Russia-Ukraine triangle

By Borys Kushniruk

In the context of Ukraine’s political and economic options, Beijing can be the ideal supplemental partner for Kyiv. READ MORE

Prime Minister: Lithuania will need new referendum on nuclear power plant

"The referendum was held (a year ago) on the construction of a nuclear power plant and a specific project, with estimates provided as to how much that facility should cost to Lithuania. You've probably heard that its cost is already markedly lower than that estimated by the previous government. But I think that another referendum will be needed and we'll have to ask people for their opinion," he said on Žinių Radijas. READ MORE

Transnistria: Time to Make a Choice

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By Pavel Kandel, Ph.D., Head of Department, RAS Institute of Europe

Everyone knows how it feels to deal with a suitcase without a handle: you can’t carry it and you can’t drop it. In a way, this conveys the attitude toward Transnistria of most actors interested in settling this long-standing conflict, including the two sides (Chisinau and Tiraspol), mediators (Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE) and observers (the U.S. and the EU). Contemporary international politics presumes that “frozen” and similar ethno-territorial conflicts can be settled without delay. Everyone involved is supposed to pretend that this is a priority. But this abstraction has little to do with reality. The first and overriding concern of the leaders of the dominant political forces and parties to the conflict is to maintain the stability of their own positions of power and their current governments. External actors are pursuing their own geo-political and geo-economic interests, both genuine and fake. Since both Transnistria and Moldova, due to their small size and socio-economic underdevelopment, are of little value to these actors, only rivalry between the outsider players incentivizes conflict resolution.  READ MORE

DOD to shift air transit from Manas to Romania

By Chris Carroll

For the last six months of the Afghanistan war, U.S. military personnel and cargo headed into and out of Afghanistan by air will transit through Romania rather than Kyrgyzstan, the Pentagon announced late Friday. READ MORE

FIGHT FOR BTA BANK

By Alina Kantor

Detection and suppression of clandestine billionaires gray eminences of the criminal world , offers hope that the EU will no longer serve as a safe haven for dubious capital. One recent example of a successful response to criminal oligarchy - the capture of the fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov to rob his own bank in Kazakhstan and its subsidiaries in Russia and Ukraine. And appropriated by various estimates from 5 to 6 billion. READ MORE