Ukraine’s credit ratings were raised at Standard & Poor’s on improvements in the country’s policy coordination and after a Russian gas subsidy agreement helped boost the government’s debt outlook.

• 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

A drifting cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano has changed direction, allowing London's Heathrow and Amsterdam's Schiphol airports to begin operating again. Central Europe has remained unaffected for the time being.

• 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

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

Europe's current crises are bad enough to make anyone feel down. Our Vienna correspondent Kerry Skyring has been visiting his native Australia and concludes that Europe's bad news is best viewed from a sunny beach.

• May 16, 2010

As ice caps melt, opening up new shipping routes and access to billions of dollars' worth of oil and natural gas riches, the Arctic is fast becoming the new global frontier amid fears that a no-holds-barred scramble for resources might someday provoke an international crisis.

• May 14, 2010

Investments that yield energy savings will reward the banks who provide crediting

• May 14, 2010