More than one third of Germany's 21,500 wind turbines are located in the nation's east. This concentration of generating capacity regularly overloads the region's electricity grid, threatening blackouts. READ MORE

Russia signed a deal with EU member Slovenia , paving the way for the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline through the Adriatic country. READ MORE

Moscow, whose policy towards Tbilisi is “not imaginative”, has lost great part of its influence over Georgia and is “at a loss how to re-establish” it, while Tbilisi’s policy towards Moscow lacks multi-dimensional approach and is “quite one-sided,” Hansjörg Haber, head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), said. READ MORE

VILNIUS - The tragedy of Japan, including the nuclear accident in Fukushima, got an immediate response from Lithuanian hearts. Over 200,000 litas (58,000 euros) in donations, mostly via calls to charity phone numbers, were collected by ordinary Lithuanians during the first five days after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, and the charity action continues. That sum from the first five days is almost equal to the Lithuanian government’s help in blankets and sleeping-bags for Japan. READ MORE

Oil delivered by Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company (SOCAR) is moving through Ukraine’s Odessa-Brody pipeline at the moment, a portion of it heading for Belarus (BELTA, March 24). SOCAR expects to deliver oil to Poland also through the Odessa-Brody pipeline. The line runs from the Pivdenny terminal on the Black Sea to the Brody junction on the Druzhba pipeline, near the Ukrainian-Polish border. For the first time since its commissioning in 2004, the line is now operating as intended, south-north, for transporting Caspian oil into Central Europe.  READ MORE

Today’s creation in London of an international Contact Group on Libya is a strong expression of international community support for the Libyan people’s wish for freedom, democracy and human rights, says NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The group will give political guidance to the international community's actions in response to the Libyan crisis. READ MORE

Polish PM Pledges Support for Shale Gas Exploration. READ MORE

German front pages have been painted green after state elections seen as a "spectacular" boost for the Greens, and a "debacle" for Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats. Many papers put the result down to nuclear power. READ MORE

The negotiations between the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and the Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Erdogan took place in Moscow, the most important result of which was the abolishment of visa regime. However the main subject covered energy relations: the Kremlin specified clearly, that it is ready to refuse of the “South Stream” piping, if Turkey won’t give the permission on it in favor of the condensed natural gas production plant. It’s hardly worth to take the kind of intentions seriously: Moscow has already used the kind of pressure tactics in order to force the partner-state to choose more flexible line. READ MORE

U.S. President Barack Obama’s “reset” with Russia is looking flimsy in the wake of vitriolic rhetoric from Moscow. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has had harsh words about U.S. military action against Libya. He and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov have gone so far as to repeat Muammar Qaddafi's canards about exorbitant civilian casualties and Western “crusades.” READ MORE