Merkel

Energy Companies Bet On Nuclear Power To Recoup Investments

By Michael Braun

With Berlin scheduled to unveil a new energy concept, power companies have been lobbying for the extended use of their nuclear plants, if only for 10 to 15 more years. They could recoup their investments and then some. READ MORE

Why Moldova Matters

By Matthew Rojansky, Lyndon Allin

Although the air outside is hot and dry—part of a heat wave scorching Russia and neighboring Ukraine—it is cool, dark, and slightly damp in the sandstone caverns beneath Milestii Mici, Moldova’s largest winery. Along seemingly endless underground boulevards, Soviet-era lighting and updated signs point the way to underground galleries housing millions of liters of meticulously produced and preserved wine in bottles and oak barrels—just part of the winery’s two-million-bottle collection, acknowledged by Guinness as the world’s largest. READ MORE

Customs Union Project Shows Moscow's Power Deficit

By Andrea Bonzanni

At the beginning of July, Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus signed a number of protocols establishing a customs union between the three countries. The union, scheduled to be fully operational in January 2012, will create a single common market of about 170 million people and represents the latest of several attempts by Moscow to create an effective trade bloc with its newly independent neighbors since the break-up of the Soviet Union. In addition to the economic ties maintained through the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Russia first committed to a union with Belarus in 1994. READ MORE