The timing of this conference could not have been more appropriate, and backdrop relevant. The Arab Spring that has spread across the Middle East and North Africa highlights Turkey’s growing importance in the region and the role it can play in facilitating transition to democratic governance throughout these regions. Turkey is a secular and democratic state, and yet there has been much discussion about Turkey’s renewed ties with its neighbours. It has been viewed, by some, as evidence of Turkey turning away from its traditional alliances with the West. READ MORE

• July 21, 2011

Turkey's 17th general election was never an election about who would win; it was a foregone conclusion that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) would do that and that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his final term as the prime minister, would be given not only the mandate to govern but also the moral authority to forge Turkey’s future in the next four years and, arguably, beyond. READ MORE

• July 21, 2011

The annual rate of growth has often surpassed double digits and the natural consequence is that its fuel consumption has also risen dramatically. Energy intensive heavy industry and the massive infrastructure construction have not only produced huge demand for steel, cement and aluminum but also for oil equivalents

• July 20, 2011

Belarus faces a desperate financial situation that is only likely to get worse. President Alexander Lukashenko thinks he knows why: his people don't work hard enough. He's using some old-fashioned ways of fixing that.

• July 20, 2011

Ukraine began updating its Soviet-era gas transportation system, with the first stage being the reconstruction of the Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhgorod main pipeline from Russia. At the ceremony, which took place near Bohuslav in the Kiev region, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said that most parts of the natural gas delivered from Russia to Europe goes through Ukraine and that there was a chance for the transit country to offer gas-pipeline advantages to its Russian and European partners.

• July 20, 2011

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged India to open up markets and resolve the questions surrounding a civilian nuclear accord that could be worth billions to US companies.

• July 19, 2011

The nuclear power plant project in Lithuania is a regional, not merely a national project (“Lithuania Chooses Hitachi-General Electric to Build Nuclear Power Plant,” EDM, July 19).

• July 19, 2011

Hannover, July 19 (Interfax) - Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power means that the country will consume more gas, but it will not rely on Gazprom to supply the entire increase, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a session of the Russian-German St. Petersburg dialog in Hanover.

• July 19, 2011