Russia and Kazakhstan's leadership have reiterated pledges to boost their bilateral economic and energy partnership. However, they remain divided over some divergent interests, notably in gas processing and oil transit. Earlier this month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev met at... MORE

On September 24 the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin led government ministers and CEO's of some global energy companies on a visit to the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia. Putin announced that Russia intends to become an exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) worldwide on... MORE

On September 16, Turkey's Economy Minister Ali Babacan revealed the government's medium term economic plan for 2010-2012, prepared by the state planning agency. Babacan acknowledged that the contraction in growth by the end of the year may reach 6 percent, rather than the previous estimate... MORE

On September 11, the Russian minister for regional development, Dmitry Kozak, announced that because of the ongoing economic crisis, Moscow will have to divert some of the financial aid earmarked for the North Caucasus republics to other regions of Russia (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, September 12). The move... MORE

Kazakhstan's defense ministry is actively preparing to host the final stage of the Collective Operational Response Force (CORF) exercise in October. On September 7 Army-General Mukhtar Altynbayev, the Chairman of Kazakhstan's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that the planning phase of the exercise in the... MORE

Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov met on September 13 in the city of Turkmenbashi to discuss a possible resumption of Turkmen gas deliveries to Russia. The Russian side stopped taking deliveries through the Central Asia-Center pipeline in early April this year, exploiting its monopsony... 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mining, and especially coking coal, has been a very problematic industry in Ukraine -it is highly inefficient due to outdated machinery and the depth of its mines.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

China’s economic ascent since the early 2000s has generated more equanimity than the fear its military rise caused in the mid-1990s, which led to accelerated concerns in the international community about a “China threat.”  While the Chinese military continues to modernize and its defense budget... 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