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

President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė met with President of Croatia Ivo Josipović, who arrived in Vilnius on a working visit. READ MORE

The situation on the eve of the snap Presidential elections in Kazakhstan to be held on April 3rd can’t be called trivial. Voters are being attracted with various curious statements. A disgraced ex-son-in-law of the President Nursultan Nazarbayev attempts to gain the most attention. Sometime influential Rakhat Shorazov-Aliyev undertook another informational attack from Vienna, where he hides from justice. Snap elections for him became a surprise, having broken the plans to ballot for the post of the Head of the state in 2012. He expressly tries to destabilize the situation around Kazakhstan and inside of it. After the announcement of the date of the snap Presidential elections, Rakhat Aliyev extraordinarily commented on the last state visit of Nazarbayev to China. READ MORE

The European Union has been engaged with the five countries in Central Asia from the very moment they gained their independence in the early 1990s. At the beginning of the 21st century, the globalization process has required a new partnership to be established between them, and Central Asia became one of the objectives of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy. READ MORE