On September 15 in Moscow, the Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov signed agreements on military cooperation with the "defense ministers" (Russian citizens Kishmaria and Tanayev) of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On the same occasion Russia's Border Guard Service command, subordinated to the Federal Security Service... 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

On September 9 the United Nations General Assembly condemned the "forced displacement" of the population from Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia territories, strongly upheld the displaced populations' right to return there, and defined these territories as parts of Georgia.Georgia had initiated the General Assembly's resolution... 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

A German-ordered, U.S.-executed air strike, which killed scores of Afghan villagers on September 4, has caused a political uproar in Germany in the run-up to the September 27 parliamentary elections. The two governing parties are engaged in competitive damage-control. The event underscores the limitations and... MORE

Hungarian MOL's oil-producing joint venture in Russia, ZMB, has gained a respite from the Russian authorities' threat to revoke its production license. ZMB (Zapadno-Malobalyk), a parity joint venture of MOL with Russneft in western Siberia's Khanty-Mansi district, had recently been warned by Russia's mineral resources... MORE

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wooed Turkey's AKP government with grandiose vistas of a bilateral partnership on energy during his visit to Ankara (EDM, August 7, 10). Along with his proposal to build Gazprom's South Stream pipeline to Europe via Turkey's Black Sea economic zone,... MORE

Putin's visit and gas offer to Ankara is first and foremost intended as a counter-strike to the Nabucco project. The Nabucco inter-governmental agreement was signed, also in Ankara, on July 13 ("they barely had time to clean the red carpet" - Die Presse, August 7).... MORE

On August 6 in Ankara the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, with a delegation of government ministers and state corporations' executives, announced vast plans for energy cooperation with Turkey (EDM, August 7). The Russian offers seem designed primarily for political effect in Europe, and secondarily... MORE