Four Central European countries that make up the Visegrad alliance on Tuesday made supporting democracy and human rights in Belarus one of its leading joint concerns.

• February 16, 2011

Ukraine aims to attract private investment in government-run coal mines to increase production, Deputy Coal and Energy Minister Ihor Popovych said. The government has drawn up investment plans for state mines in 2011 envisaging 5.5 billion hryvnia ($691 million) of spending, Popovych said in an interview published today by official government newspaper Uryadovyi Kurier.

• February 16, 2011

Russia and Britain engaged in a war of words over the people power protests across the Middle East as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blasted Western support for demonstrations as counterproductive.

• February 16, 2011

Japan and India signed a free trade pact Wednesday under which the high-tech nation and the South Asian giant pledged to scrap tariffs on 94 percent of goods within a decade

• February 16, 2011

Poland will probably import electric energy from the Russian nuclear power plant in the Kaliningrad Oblast which is currently under construction

• February 16, 2011

Russia is perplexed as to whether to keep its efforts for the construction of the second Bulgarian nuclear power plant "Belene" or to renounce the deal and seek penalty payments from Bulgaria

• February 15, 2011

A top Chinese official has backed ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's plans to hand power to his son, the North's state media said on Tuesday, hailing the "successful solution" to allow continued socialist rule.

• February 15, 2011

Iran’s hostile regime has been one of the chief beneficiaries of the political turmoil that has convulsed Egypt and Tunisia, which distracted the United States and other countries from the ongoing standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.

• February 15, 2011