The foreign ministers of Iran, Turkey and Brazil agreed on a formula for a swap of low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel that could ease diplomatic tensions over Irans nuclear program, the Anatolia news agency reported.

• May 18, 2010

Hopes are high that the deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey to turn Iran's controversial enriched uranium supplies into fuel rods outside the Islamic Republic will be a major step towards solving the on-going stand-off.

• May 18, 2010

Amid stories of rebellion and a crackdown in the south, rumours of unrest and gossip about coup and counter-coup, the information coming out of this troubled Central Asian ex-Soviet Republic points towards a growing degree of control by the interim government of Roza Otunbaeva, both in legislative and military terms, as a hundred criminal cases are brought against ex-President Kurmanbek Bakiev.

• May 17, 2010

Since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization took control of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in 2003 the amount of troops serving under that command has grown from 5,000 to over 100,000.

• May 17, 2010

On the coast of China's Jiangsu province, one of the most prosperous regions in the country, there is a cluster of nuclear power plants and wind farms either in operation or soon to come online. Using technology both developed domestically and overseas, they are changing the energy landscape of the area.

• May 17, 2010

Energy Roundtable Summary Document

The EU-Russia energy roundtable discussion held at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) on February 26, 2010, brought together a significant number of well known experts and policy makers engaged in the EU-Russia energy relationship in order to assess some of the challenges which presently exist in this sphere. Some of these challenges are summarised below. The objectives of the seminar organisers were to create an environment in which experts and policy makers could openly and candidly discuss the challenges standing before the EU-Russia energy relationship. The roundtable was also attended by a large number of participants from academia, government, energy companies and the diplomatic community.

• May 17, 2010

China's "growing military muscle" has "raised the urgency for the US and Japan to resolve its standoff over where to station US troops in Japan," Japan's foreign minister said in The Wall Street Journal on May 14.

• May 15, 2010

The Club reports that the session held under the chairmanship of CEIBC president and CEO Telman Aliyev made a decision to conduct systematic sessions dedicated to ecological risks in the Caspian, consider opportunities and promote use of renewable energy sources in countries of the Caspian-Black Sea and Baltic region.

• May 15, 2010