Fast good giant McDonald's closes three restaurants in Crimea citing ''manufacturing reasons,'' offers employees work at locations in Ukraine. Mana Rabiee reports.

• April 4, 2014

China should not doubt the U.S. commitment to defend its Asian allies and the prospect of economic retaliation should also discourage Beijing from using force to pursue territorial claims in Asia in the way Russia has in Crimea, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.

• April 4, 2014

Ukraine is in emergency talks with European Union neighbors on the possibility of importing natural gas from the West, following a leap in the price it pays for Russian supplies, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Friday.

• April 4, 2014

The European Central Bank will use whatever unconventional measures it has available to ensure low inflation does not take hold for too long in the euro zone, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Thursday.

• April 3, 2014

International powers who support the Syrian opposition have firmly rebuffed any idea of a presidential election organized by the Syrian government in the midst of a civil war, describing the plans as a "parody of democracy" that would kill peace talks.

• April 3, 2014

Russia raised the gas price for Ukraine on Thursday for the second time this week, almost doubling it in three days and piling pressure on a neighbor on the brink of bankruptcy in the crisis over Crimea.

• April 3, 2014

A Snapshot of Key Developments in the External Relations of the Russian Gas Sector
By Jack Sharples, EGF Associate Researcher on the external dimensions of Russian gas and Lecturer in Energy Politics at the European University of St Petersburg

Key points:

• Special report on Ukraine: A tense month dominated by political relations between Russia and Ukraine, and by commercial relations between Gazprom and Naftogaz, as debts and price negotiations leave Naftogaz in a difficult situation
• EU antimonopoly investigation into Gazprom could be delayed by crisis in EU-Russia relations; Gazprom’s deals in Germany and the UK come under renewed scrutiny in context of current international tensions
• Nord Stream: EU delays resolution of OPAL exemption
• South Stream: Uncertainties remain, despite Gazprom’s optimism and the signing of a contract with Saipem for the laying of South Stream’s offshore section
• Gazprom CEO expects to sign contract with CNPC in May
• Gazprom plans for access to Crimean gas deposits and a doubling of gas production in the region
• A month of milestones, as Gazprom celebrates 50m tonnes of LNG exports from Sakhalin-II and 100 bcm of gas exports via Blue Stream

• April 3, 2014

Russia has massed all the forces it needs on Ukraine's border if it were to decide to carry out an "incursion" into the country and it could achieve its objective in three to five days, NATO's top military commander said on Wednesday.

• April 2, 2014