During the second half of 2012 Russia and the United States have been “biting” each other via various political measures, but the political decisions made by the countries in December had major resonance. In response to the so called Magnitsky Act signed by the U.S.

Nobel Peace Prize 2012 was awarded to the European Union. According to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, this community „over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace, reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe“.  

A "Plan B" for Brussels's Policies towards Kyiv

ABSTRACT: After the manipulated elections to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada in October 2012, Brussels' relations with Kyiv are in deadlock. Ukraine is not fulfilling the conditions for signing the already initialed Association Agreement with the EU. Against this background, we outline an eight-point plan of further and alternative actions.

During the parliamentary polls in October the opposition coalition block Georgian Dream with its leader billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili defeated the United National Movement of Mikhail Saakashvili. After the elections public space of the country was full of various forecasts, including the fears on possible Georgia‘s return to Russia‘s influence.

Obama's and Romney's ratings in polls are close enough to keep the intrigue until the voting day. But it is already clear that whoever heads the U.S. for the next four years, it will be extremely difficult for him to achieve the outlined foreign policy priorities.

When one turns his mind to tales and dreamlands of his young years, and also to romantic literature about great geographical discoveries, the high southern seas and ships of brave sailors come back like moving calls and pictures of once for ever excited imagination.

Why has the economic and political modernization in the former Soviet republics more often than not gone wrong? Political scientists, sociologists, and economists, from around the world, have given a variety of more or less complicated answers to this question.

Since 1707 Scotland is part of the Kingdom of Great Britain, but Scottish Parliament has the power over a majority of domestic affairs from Great Britain’s Westminster Parliament. At the 2011 Parliamentary election, the Scottish National Party – the nationalists advocating secession from the United Kingdom - won a landslide victory and formed a majority government in the Parliament.

In October 2010 the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel announced that multiculturalism in Germany has “utterly failed”. This announcement reflected general moods in the crisis-driven EU, but the most important thing was that these words were said by the leader of Germany– she always tried to avoid sharp statements toward foreign-born people.

On 9 July 2011 South Sudan separated from Sudan and soon was recognized by the international community. However, today the country has more problems than the majority of other African countries.

The London Olympic Games provide a good opportunity to talk about the relationship between sports and politics. There are several aspects behind this subject.

A light plane secretly crosses the border of Lithuania and Belarus, approaches Minsk, drops scores of teddy bears over Belarusian territory protesting the country’s poor human rights and restriction of freedom of speech, and returns secretly to Lithuania. Executors of the campaign were the Swedish who later presented the evidence of the flight.

Professor J. Alamgiras of Massachusetts University, analysing Chinese-Indian trade relations, made a simple, but a valuable conclusion: conflicts between states, societies or economic relations are rarely ruled by merely pragmatic calculations, and their actions are often determined by national identity and ideology. This approach proves remarkably accurate when it comes to U.S. foreign policy.

Political situation in Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak is still politically unstable. The presidential election with politicians representing two different powers in the second round should have become a step toward stability. Ahmed Shafiq was the last prime minister of the “Mubarak era”; he is related to the overthrown regime and has connections with the army which eventually ousted Mubarak.

Mass anti-Government protests in Tunisia have spread rapidly through North African and Middle East states. In some of them, e.g. in Morocco, the protests have soon ended; in Egypt and Libya thousands of people were killed. The world has been following the events in Syria where protests have been lasting from January 2011.

For effective complex defence of Latvia, the establishment of a permanent division of the National Armed Forces has started in Latgale, reported the official website of the Ministry of Defence.

On 13 January a concert "Together to the victory" was held in Lithuania, where the audience decided to support Ukraine's defence and donated 110 thousand Euros.

Alexander Lukashenko on 9 January signed a decree № 8 "On the establishment of visa-free entry and exit of foreign nationals." The document establishes visa-free entry to Belarus for a period not exceeding 5 days at the entrance through the checkpoint "National Airport Minsk" for citizens of 80 countries, - reported the press service of the President of Belarus.