Bulgaria has confirmed its interest in buying natural gas from Turkmenistan, as well as its commitment to facilitate gas exports, the Economy Ministry said in a statement

• March 21, 2011

(New York: Free Press, 2011) 523 pp.

A Book Review by Andrej Kreutz, Ph.D.

Treisman’s book is a lengthy and relatively well-researched description and analysis of the last 25 years of Russia’s history and its relations with the West. The work is not chronological, but presents discussions of a number of topics chosen by the author, such as: the role of Mikhail Gorbachev (the Captain) in Russian history, the collapse of the USSR, the social and economic transformations, the Mountains (the Caucasus’ problems), falling apart of Russian-American relations, and “the Russia that has returned”. In the special and rather short chapter which is placed in the middle of the book, “The Logic of Politics”, Treisman presents his theory about the mechanisms of changes of Russian politics, which he, perhaps one-sidedly, explains mainly by the variations of the natural gas and oil prices.

• March 20, 2011

Poland said it would push ahead with its plans for a nuclear future despite the calamity engulfing the Japanese atomic energy sector.

• March 19, 2011

NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai’s first visits to Tbilisi and Yerevan that were scheduled for next week were postponed due to developments in the North Africa.

• March 19, 2011

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed prospects for further cooperation within the EurAsEC framework, the pace of formation of the Customs Union, as well as a range of regional problems, including the situation in Central Asia, aide of the Russian president Sergei Prikhodko said speaking about a meeting of the two countries’ leaders held on Friday.

• March 19, 2011

The possibility of sending Turkmen gas supplies to Bulgaria was discussed at a Turkmen-Bulgarian intergovernmental economic cooperation commission meeting that is underway in Sofia on March 16-19, Bulgarian media outlets reported on Friday.

• March 18, 2011

Since 2009, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, together with the relevant authorities responsible for nuclear and radiation safety and environmental issues has strived to ensure security of nuclear power project planned in Belarus and its safe distance from the capital of Lithuania, Foreign Ministry said in a released statement.

• March 18, 2011

Shocked into action by Japan's atomic crisis, European energy officials agreed to apply stress tests on nuclear power plants and Germany moved to switch off seven aging reactors -- one of them permanently.

• March 18, 2011