The troubled peace talks have resumed in Cyprus after Greek Cypriot officials boycotted them in the first week of September. As the second part of the negotiations began, the Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat and his Greek Cypriot counterpart Dimitris Christofias met for their... MORE

Coal mining, and especially coking coal, has been a very problematic industry in Ukraine -it is highly inefficient due to outdated machinery and the depth of its mines. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), "The average mine depth is more than 700 meters; in... MORE

On September 10 General Motors, partly owned by the U.S. government, changed its position and allowed its ailing German subsidiary, Opel, to be "rescued" by a Kremlin-controlled consortium. The German government strongly pressed for the Russian solution in preference to an American one. The issue... MORE

In an interview that appeared in Izvestiya in Moscow on August 27, the Belarusian President, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, maintained that the results of the 2006 presidential elections were falsified. However, rather than raising his total, Lukashenka had allegedly demanded that it be lowered to appear more... MORE

Two electoral cycles behind most of Eastern Europe, Moldova stands on the brink of the post-post-Communist era. Uniquely in Moldova, moreover, the post-communist transition and the post-post-communist era will be telescoped into a single stage, the start of which is now. Other East European countries... MORE

Moldova's parliamentary elections on April 5, subsequent confrontations, and repeat elections on July 28, along with ambiguities and loopholes in the fundamental law, dragged the country's political system into a constitutional crisis. The system is now working its way out of that situation in a... MORE

The Russian factor might well determine the outcome of the January 2010 presidential election in Ukraine. The two leaders in the presidential race, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, both seek Moscow's support. Yanukovych has played the Russian language card in... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's August 14 meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Sochi illustrated how this business-centered "strategic partnership" can distort or weaken German foreign policy. In that meeting the Chancellor failed to mention (or perhaps to deem worth mentioning) three major Russian actions... MORE

While the European Union frets over Russian efforts to impose its energy diktat by building gas and oil pipelines on the bottom of the Black Sea, new conflicts are emerging - not over transit routes, but over rich hydrocarbon resources beneath its ancient waters.The ongoing... MORE

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev received German Chancellor Angela Merkel on August 14 at his Sochi residence. This meeting accelerated the implementation of qualitatively new economic projects in key industrial sectors, agreed barely one month earlier in Munich by the two leaders in the framework of... MORE