Georgia is facing a new challenge in its quest to reclaim the separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia: the planned introduction of hundreds of Russian border guards.

The new border guards - deployed under an agreement signed by Moscow, Sukhumi and Tskhinvali on April 30 - give Russian border guards the right to patrol the frontier dividing the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgian-controlled territory. READ MORE

Russian natural gas giant Gazprom has signed deals with companies from four European nations, paving the way for a new natural gas pipeline that sidesteps the Ukraine and worries Brussels.
  READ MORE

Fuel and Energy Complex covers the sphere of mining and production of energy resources, processing, delivery and consumption of all types of energy. FEC of Caspian region that includes all Central Asia, Caucasus and Caspian Sea adjoining regions of Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran is pretty well developed and includes oil and gas industries, power industry grounding of thermal and hydroelectric power plants, and also a great number of coal and natural uranium fields in development. READ MORE

Barely nine days after the Hungarian gas trader Emfesz KFT announced that it will begin receiving supplies of 3 billion cubic meters annually from the Zug (Switzerland) based company RosGas AG, rather than the now inactive RosUkrEnergo (RUE) the Russian press reported that Emfesz has been sold to RosGas. Thus RosGas, a little-known company, now controls 20 percent of the Hungarian domestic gas distribution market. READ MORE

To prevent infighting between neighbours, the Western Balkan countries could join the EU more easily as a bloc, Erhard Busek, special enlargement advisor to the Czech EU Presidency. READ MORE

The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis, expressed hope today that the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would make further progress towards a peaceful settlement, and urged them to implement fully the provisions of the ceasefire, including pulling back snipers from the front lines. READ MORE

The nearly year-long negotiations between Armenia and Turkey look set to prove fruitless after Ankara has revived its long-standing linkage between the normalization of bilateral ties and a resolution of the Karabakh conflict. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly made clear this month that his government will not establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan and re-open the Turkish-Armenian border without Azerbaijan's consent. In Armenia and especially amongst its worldwide diaspora, meanwhile, there are growing calls for President Serzh Sarkisian to abandon the Western-backed talks. READ MORE

Two of four summits held in Prague under the aegis of the EU attracted attention of world media the most: on the issues of Polish-Swedish initiative of Eastern Partnership and “Southern Corridor – New Silk Road”. Participants of these summits singed political declarations.

Two others concerned the cooperation of the EU with Canada and the problems of employment within the EU states. READ MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Berlin on Sunday in a mutual show of support ahead of European elections next month. READ MORE

The Eastern Partnership aims at helping partner countries to address the challenges they face, told EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner's spokesperson, Christiane Hohmann in an interview to a REGNUM . READ MORE