Earlier this month (October 2014), Scandinavian, and especially Swedish, media have focused on Sweden’s apparently abortive efforts to locate what was allegedly a disabled Russian reconnaissance submarine off its shores near Stockholm (thelocal.se, October 24). But beyond the glaring evidence of the degradation of Swedish... MORE

Galina Timchenko’s new Russian-language news media project, the website Medusa (medusa.io), was launched on October 20, in Riga, Latvia. Timchenko’s project became an intriguing topic in the Russian press after she was fired this March from her position as editor-in-chief of the news agency Lenta.ru,... MORE

On October 17, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka conducted a 5.5-hour-long press conference for Russian provincial journalists. This was the 12th event of its kind. The first one occurred in 2002, when Lukashenka realized that neither he nor Belarus is a darling of the Moscow media. An... MORE

In November 2013, China, Serbia and Hungary signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the construction of the Hungaro-Serbian High-Speed Railway (HSR), connecting Belgrade and Budapest by rail to facilitate transporting Chinese exports from Greek ports to European markets. First proposed by Beijing in February... MORE

Christophe de Margerie, 63, the CEO of French oil major Total, was killed as his executive jet crashed during takeoff on the runway of Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, at about midnight, on October 20. The jet hit an airport snowplow vehicle, flipped over and burst into... MORE

As October 26, the date of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Ukraine, approaches ever closer, many current legislators are finding themselves in increasingly dire straits. In addition to the tense political campaign, an increasing number of Ukrainian parliamentary candidates and top officials have been falling... MORE

With several days remaining until the polls open in Ukraine on October 26, it is clear that President Petro Poroshenko’s party will win the early parliamentary election hands down. Opinion polls show that the Bloc of Poroshenko (BoP) is heading for a victory no less... MORE

Presidents Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin of Russia met with top European leaders in several overlapping formats on October 16–17, in Milan. The tenth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), a talk shop of more than 50 heads of state and government, provided a convenient occasion... MORE

In the world of labor union–business relations, it is commonly understood that, oftentimes, the threat of a strike, as long as it is credible, can achieve more than an actual strike itself. On the one hand, the business against which a strike may be launched... MORE

The most recent Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit attracted a sizeable crowd of world leaders to Milan last week (October 16–17), but the formal agenda was overtaken by the efforts to manage the violent conflict between Russia and Ukraine and facilitate dialogue between presidents Vladimir Putin... MORE