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Ready for war at any time in southern Armenia

After last year's war, Armenia’s southernmost province of Syunik is now bordered by Azerbaijan on two sides. Local people fear they are next.

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Montenegro’s dysfunctional ruling coalition limps on

Keeping President Djukanovic’s DPS out of power has proved a strong glue holding the coalition together, but rifts among its members have stalled Montenegro’s progress towards EU accession.

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Gazprom says it will use windfall gas crisis cash to up boost capex

Capital spending levels at Russia’s Gazprom are once again creeping upwards, as the company prepares to ramp up gas supplies to China and expand development in the Russian Arctic.

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Concern mounts over new southern Africa coronavirus variant

The EU is planning a ban on travel from southern African countries after a new and highly infectious variant of the coronavirus virus was confirmed in Botswana and South Africa.

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Moscow loudly protests against war talk as US continues to accuse Russia of a military build-up

Moscow has loudly protested against western talk of a possible invasion of Ukraine, but at the same time continues preparing for a possible military clash with Nato.

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COMMENT: The Romanian political crisis during the pandemic

On November 25 one of Romania’s most controversial and unnecessarily prolonged political crises, with profound economic and social implications, came to an end.

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ISTANBUL BLOG: Turkey on the edge

As Erdogan subjects nation to his mad economic experiments, there are the first signs of people taking to the streets and of the country’s export channels seizing up.

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Poland’s opposition mulls best strategy to beat PiS

So far the opposition is resisting the kind of broad formal deal that parties have agreed in Czechia and Hungary to oust populist incumbents.

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LONG READ: Russia looks poised to invade Ukraine, but what would an invasion actually look like?

Tensions are high and there is talk of a possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia. But what would that actually look like? How much destruction would it cause and how many people would die?

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BUCHAREST BLOG: The life expectancy of Romania’s grand coalition mark 2

Kazakhstan looks to nuclear amid crypto-driven energy shortage

Romanian parliament backs new government after long political crisis

BUCHAREST BLOG: The life expectancy of Romania’s grand coalition mark 2

Political rivals the PSD and PNL have united to end the political deadlock in Romania. But their previous short-lived grand coalition doesn’t bode well.

Latest Updates

News

Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has been re-elected to a fourth term as the President of the International Fencing Federation (FIE) during the body’s congress in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Russian gas major had threatened to switch off gas supplies to Moldova over unpaid gas bill.

Over 63 miners died during a methane gas explosion in a Siberian mine on November 25. "According to preliminary information, no one is left alive in the mine," state news agency TASS

Nato member Croatia signs deal to bolster its air defences after tender process was delayed by the pandemic.

With Iran’s rial typically suffering only bad news given US sanctions, day-trippers didn’t need telling twice to make journey to bag some bargains.

Tech

In the past few months, Russian Internet major VK (previously Mail.ru Group) demonstrated a strong appetite for online education — both in Russia and abroad.

Ilya Sachkov, the top cybersecurity businessman who was arrested under charges of “state treason” in late September, has claimed he is innocent and asked President Putin to be transferred from jail to house arrest during the investigation.

US open source software platform Grafana Labs has acquired a Russian-founded startup called Amixr. Launched in 2019, this company has developed an incident management platform that allows DevOps and SRE engineers to “optimize channels, recipients"

A smartphone with the function of mechanically disabling the camera and microphone running on a Russian operating system will be supplied to security forces and the state sector. A version of the device with Android 11 is already available in Russia.

Moscow ranks second among Europe’s largest cities in the ‘Future City ESG Innovation Index,’ put together by Munich-based think tank DEEP Ecosystems.

Opinion

Yearly retail sales in Poland have recovered after a soft third quarter. It's no surprise, given that this time last year the country was hit by COVID lockdowns.

As huge swathes of the global population went into lockdown, many retailers faced heavy losses. The trends developing before the pandemic picked up pace, with online shopping and sustainable manufacturing gaining traction.

Watching with dismay the expert coverage of the Belarus-Polish migrant crisis, it occurred to me that we need to retire the hybrid war concept, at least from news coverage. It’s become unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst.

The geopolitical conflict over energy, particularly gas with the impending (though temporarily suspended) certification of Nord Stream 2, is spilling over into the coal and electricity sector, putting Ukraine on the verge of a potential energy crisis

Compared to 2020, Poland’s current account balance is set to deteriorate by an equivalent of about 4.5% of GDP in 2021.

Data

Croatia's economy is rebounding strongly from the deep recession in 2020 when GDP contracted by more than 8%.

Russia’s industrial production growth accelerated to 7.1% y/y in October from 6.9% y/y in September, which meant output was up 5.0% y/y in 10m21, Rostat reports.

After a 0.7% decline in September in October 2021, industrial production in Ukraine returned to growth and grew by 1.4% compared to October 2020, the State Statistics Service reported on November 23.

Release of part of provisions made last year contribute to the robust profits in 2021.

The Romanian banking system posted RON6.4bn (€1.3bn) aggregated net profit in January-September, 37% up y/y and 24% more compared to the same period of 2019.

Features

Uzbekistan has a very long history of making luxury textiles and today the country is trying to revive them.

Calls for early elections mount as panicked workers start converting salaries into hard currency as soon as they are paid.

Tirade from Erdogan in which he declared “economic war of independence” appears to have accelerated sinking of the ship.

The region’s underfunded health systems are struggling to cope with the impact of the fourth wave of the coronavirus on the large numbers of their citizens who are still unvaccinated.

Greece is building new defence relationships with Israel, Egypt, France and the US.

Blogs

Market, meanwhile, still puzzled by five-minute delay in announcing rates decision.

Mongolia, which once hoped it might avoid a major coronavirus outbreak altogether, has endured prolonged phases of the pandemic. But the data show light at the end of the tunnel.

The World Health Organization continues to indulge Turkmenistan’s lies about the coronavirus. Eurasianet's weekly briefing.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson caused a stir on November 15, saying that Europe has to choose between buying Russian hydrocarbons or backing Ukraine. But as Ukraine reports there are no troops, these comments are more about hype than threat.

Moldovan officials stressed their commitment to reform and EU integration as the country’s largest bank MAIB eyes a London IPO.

bneGREEN

Metals demand is booming as increased use in transport products and energy transition projects to curb climate change begin to roll out in larger scale. And that is unlikely to stop anytime soon.

Belgrade wants to increase energy security and is also exploring its options for reducing emissions.

A panel of leaders from Russian and British companies have called for greater international collaboration during in a discussion which took place during the COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow.

Satellites are detecting previously unknown emissions of methane from gas pipelines, oil wells, fossil fuel processing plants and landfills all over the world, with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan being particular culprits.

Emissions from coal power plants in Serbia and other Western Balkan countries have been found to cause widespread damage to health both within the region and in nearby countries.

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