Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
CHINA EYES RUSSIA, CENTRAL ASIAN STATES AS SOURCE OF CHEAP ELECTRICITY
To feed its growing energy demands, Beijing views Russia and Central Asia as potential sources of low-cost electricity, prompting Russian officials to boost electricity exports to China. Central Asian states, notably Kyrgyzstan, are also attracted to China's massive energy market. China seeks to import electricity... MORE
WITH FEW OUTLETS TO VOICE OPPOSITION, AZERBAIJANI STUDENTS STAGE HUNGER STRIKE
In an otherwise calm post-election period, Azerbaijan’s students are emerging as the only loud critic of the government. For the second time this year, students have staged a hunger strike against the Ministry of Education. This time, the protest action was organized by students from... MORE
TURKMEN GAS PRICE HIKE: IMPLICATIONS FOR RUSSIA AND EUROPE
On June 21, the government of Turkmenistan announced that it proposes to steeply raise the price of gas it sells to Gazprom: from $65 per 1,000 cubic meters at present to $100 in the second half of 2006. The volume of deliveries would remain constant... MORE
TURKMEN GAS PRICE HIKE: IMPLICATIONS FOR UKRAINE
Turkmenistan's proposal to raise the price of gas it sells to Gazprom, from $65 per 1,000 cubic meters at present to $100 in the second half of 2006, holds potentially momentous implications for Ukraine. It can help emancipate Ukraine from the RosUkrEnergo gas deal that... MORE
MOSCOW SURPRISINGLY COMPLACENT OVER NORTH KOREAN MISSILE THREATS
The growing furor over North Korea's preparations for a missile test has evoked only a tepid response in Moscow. Beijing only weighed in publicly on June 21, with a typically restrained statement of its being very concerned about a possible test (Xinhua, Chinadaily.com, June 22).... MORE
UKRAINE’S GAS PREDICAMENT WORSENING
One year ago today (see EDM, June 22, 2005), Moscow’s preparations for a late-autumn gas attack on Ukraine could already be detected. The early alert hardly registered in official Kyiv (except with then-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was soon forced out), let alone internationally; and... MORE
UKRAINE’S STATE GAS COMPANY FALLING RAPIDLY INTO DEBT
The gas deals, signed by Kyiv’s envoys with Gazprom and its offshoot RosUkrEnergo in January and February, are showing their damaging impact even faster than anticipated. The state oil and gas company Naftohaz Ukrainy is rapidly falling into arrears for gas delivered by Gazprom through... MORE
SADULAEV DEATH RESULT OF GOOD LUCK, NOT GOOD PLANNING
Russian authorities have scored a great victory over the Chechen rebels by killing their top leader, Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev. On June 17, Nikolai Patrushev, the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), announced that Sadulaev had been killed in the Chechen town of Argun (Sadulaev’s birthplace)... MORE
OIL TANKER SHIPMENTS — THE SHORT-TERM DEFAULT FOR TRANS-CASPIAN OIL
The agreement to connect Kazakhstan with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil transport system, signed by the Kazakh and Azeri presidents on June 19, brings the Caspian basin's eastern shore into the East-West energy corridor. This move took eight years of American political and energy diplomacy to accomplish,... MORE
RUSSIAN ECONOMIC PARADOXES AND THE POWER OF “STUPID MONEY”
Macroeconomic dynamics have dominated the political debates in Moscow in mid-June, while the frenzy of speculation about Vladimir Putin's third presidential term or identifying a possible successor has taken a short respite. The government reviewed a colossal four-volume report on the main directions of its... MORE