Diversification of the gas market in Lithuania will eliminate the need for ties to the Russian energy sector by 2020, the Lithuanian energy minister said.

• August 30, 2010

When Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada was in Delhi a few days back for the fourth round of strategic dialogue between Japan and India, he made it clear that negotiations on a civilian nuclear cooperation pact are going to be rather difficult.

• August 30, 2010

Israeli and Palestinian leaders were looking forward to direct talks this week in Washington with both hope and apprehension. The two sides have agreed to hold direct peace talks beginning Thursday, the first such talks since 2008.

• August 30, 2010

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Sunday opened the Russian section of a long-awaited oil pipeline that will carry Russian crude to China in a bid to diversify its oil exports away from Europe.

• August 29, 2010

On June 11-12 2010 the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held their annual Summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, under the auspices of the (rotational) Uzbek presidency. The previous SCO Summit was held in 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia, where the agenda of the member states was dominated by the search for the right exit strategies out of the global economic-financial crisis, particularly those that would serve to minimise its nefarious consequences upon SCO members. In Tashkent, the agenda of SCO member country leaders was dominated by the following issues:

• Enhancement of regional stability and security
• Coordination of the intergovernmental struggle with international terrorism, extremism and separatism
• Contemporary problems relating to the above, including ongoing crisis in Afghanistan (a regional thorn for all of the SCO members) and the fallout of the political-security crisis in Kyrgyzstan
• Coordination of national and intergovernmental efforts to counter organised crime and narco-trafficking. READ MORE

• August 29, 2010

Over the last decade, two energy rings have been forming in the Balkan/Caspian oil and gas pipeline/energy supply route context, first in Turkey and then in Greece. As a result, both countries have been elevated to the role of strategic energy corridor territories, linking the energy-rich Caspian region with Europe. Both Turkey and Greece exhibit vast potential in connecting Caspian supply sources with Western markets, both independently of one another as well as in unison. Taking this into account, the EU and the US in particular have endorsed policies which have privileged Turkey as the main interconnector between Europe and the Caspian in the scramble for European energy security. However, Ankara’s current geopolitical reorientation towards Russia (with whom it has developed a pragmatic, yet strong energy partnership) and the Middle East, along with the several security-political shortcomings that undermine the stability of the Turkish energy grid, might lead toward a rethinking of Western energy policy toward the alternative, emergent Greek (energy) ring. READ MORE

• August 29, 2010

• August 29, 2010

Hollywood executives and Washington policymakers are suckers for Russophobia. Considering the appalling level of political discourse in both these capitals of mass entertainment, certainly one cannot expect their "opinion leaders" to have read Professor Paul Kennedy's recent expose of European history packaged as a crash course to Americans about the inevitable downsizing of the US in the emerging, multipolar new world order.

• August 28, 2010