In his annual address Tuesday to both houses of parliament, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev warned that a new arms race would erupt if Moscow and the West cannot agree on a joint European missile defense program. Medvedev gave the following ultimatum: “Either we reach agreement on missile defense and create a full joint cooperation mechanism, or, if we don’t go into a constructive agreement, a new phase of the arms race will begin. And we will have to make a decision on deploying new means of attack.” READ MORE

Within the past two days the whole world followed intently the course of the OSCE high-level summit in Astana. Late at night, after the long and heavy discussions, the participants of the Summit voted foradoption of the Astana Declaration Towards a Security Community. The mass media have already started publishing the comments and views of the participants, international experts and politicians on the event. It should be noted that after the adoption of the document, the representatives of several states and international structures expressed their regret over insufficient concrete formulations of the Summit's final document, but all of them agreed that the participating states reaffirmed their full adherence to the UN charter and all fundamental principles and commitments of the OSCE. Thus, a representative of the European Union said: "The Summit document confirms our joint vision of a security community for the future". READ MORE

Declaration of the OSCE Summit, adopted during the 9-hour discussion, is called by some experts as “zero” as well as the results of the Summit. However, Latvian expert, assistant professor of the Latvian University Juris Pajders, is not agree with that. Concerning the Chairmanship of Lithuania in the OSCE, the experts think, that the Presidency of Kazakhstan in a definite sense has eased the Chairmanship of Lithuania at the Organization. READ MORE

I was surprised to learn on a visit to Brussels last week that the confusion is worse than I had thought among Europeans regarding Nabucco, the object of a long and thus-far-quixotic effort to connect Central Asian natural gas supplies with Europe. READ MORE

Deal will give Shell access to Russia's huge oil and gas reserves READ MORE