Georgian PM intends to visit Baku before his U.S. visit
Prime Minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili may pay his next visit to Azerbaijan. READ MORE
Ahmadinejad defends Iran's nuclear programme
In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with FRANCE 24 in Tehran Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country has "a right" to the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent. But he insisted that it was not a step toward producing a bomb. READ MORE
Fuss over nuclear issues in the region and possible threats
„We are fighting. You know that today nobody uses weapons or tanks in these latitudes. The struggle is for energy, through energy and via propaganda. Remember, when Lithuania started developing Visaginas nuclear power plant (NPP) project, immediately the two new nuclear power plant projects emerged in the neighborhood of Lithuania“, said Rokas Žilinskas, Chairman of the Parliamentary Nuclear Energy Commission during the conference „Lithuania-Belarus: Nuclear Neighborhood“. READ MORE
Gazprom Promotes the “South Stream” Intensively
The visit of the Russian President in Bulgaria, which was planned on the first decade this month, has been postponed. Nevertheless, it is expected that Vladimir Putin shall visit Sofia right after Turkey. Yet instead of the Head of Russian State Bulgaria shall be visited by “Gazprom” Chairman Alexey Miller who shall proceed with signing of the series of final investment treaties with East European partners of Russia on the “South Stream”. READ MORE
'Have to come up with convincing foreign policy'
Horst Teltschik, the former national security advisor to Chancellor Helmut Kohl and former chair of the Munich Security Council, sees a need for action in Germany following Obama's re-election. READ MORE
Integrating Russia’s Post-Imperium
With Russia’s 2012 presidential elections effectively over since Vladimir Putin’s decision to reclaim his old Kremlin office, it is time to turn from personalities to policies. Putin plans to stay in the Kremlin for two more presidential terms, another 12 years, as he is enabled to do by the recently-amended constitution. So who will be Russia’s next president is now a certainty; less obvious is what he hopes to achieve. READ MORE
Estonia wary of Nord Stream expansion
Estonian Defense Minister Urmas Reinsalu sent a letter to Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet on Oct. 23 urging the government to refuse to allow the third and fourth lines of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline project to run through Estonia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Reinsalu’s letter comes just a month after the Russo-German project requested permission to perform studies on Estonia’s seabed. Estonia rejected a similar request in 2007 for environmental and safety reasons and on the grounds that hosting a strategic Russian asset could create a security threat for the Baltic country. READ MORE
Oil and Gas Factor in Karabakh Conflict: New Trends
It’s not a secret that today the main financial-economic and partially geographic resource of Azerbaijan within its policy in Karabakh conflict – are particularly significant incomes from Caspian energy sources production (oil and gas). They give hope to military-political leaders of Azerbaijan to achieve cardinal advantage in military-technical sphere and activation of armament race, to finance big regional projects around Armenia, to invest or even open corruption financial aid in third countries, and undertake other steps with the target to achieve favorable change of processes within Karabakh conflict, to force Armenia to make one-side concessions. Simultaneously oil factor also increases geopolitical significance of Azerbaijan per estimations of regional and even world actors. READ MORE
Gazprom gets a boost from Asia as EU sales decline
Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom reported sales declines in Europe and its home market, showing the importance of its strategy to expand into Asia. READ MORE
