On 23 April of this year the foreign ministers of Turkey and Armenia announced in Switzerland that the countries approved the plan of „road guidelines“ aimed at normalization of relations between Ankara and Yerevan. It is also possible that border between Turkey and Armenia could be opened by 14 October, when teams of both countries would meet in the World Cup-qualifying football match in the Turkish city Bursa.

The first half of this year could be referred to as a period of Belarus‘s attempts to reduce its dependence on Russia.

In January the press was overloaded with statements on disagreements between the two countries in the sphere of economy/energy, including political claims.

This year should have been the year of festivities for Eastern and Central Europe: the Berlin Wall crumbled two decades ago, expansion of NATO commenced ten years ago and five years ago the first countries of the region became members of the EU. Is this situation really festal?

The Kremlin has several times declared that it was for M.Saakashivili‘s resignation. Actually, Russia can easily remove him from the post of president: the Russian tanks are located about 40 km from Tbilisi and can take the Georgian capital any time. Part of the country‘s territory – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – have declared independence and it is difficult to imagine that Georgia could take these territories back in the near future.

Azerbaijan was not among the soviet republics which could be referred to as active searchers for independence. The country decided to withdraw from the USSR on 30 August 1991, straight after the failure of the Moscow putsch. A.Mutalibov, the last communist leader of the republic, was elected the first president of the independent Azerbaijan. Then the opposition created an alternative structure of power, the National Council.

While searching for the data on the possibility of Eastern European countries to overcome economic crisis, I‘ve come across very interesting evaluations. The German „Die Zeit“ writes: „When soviet empire collapsed 20 years ago, Europe became an incarnation of freedom, openness and bright future for Poland, Hungary, Baltic States and Bulgaria, but today the old Europe is frowning at the post-communist states“.

Two years have passed after the Bronze Night events in Estonia, when a group of young people in Tallinn provoked mass disorders. Everything started from the protest against relocation of the monument to soviet soldiers (the so called Bronze Soldier) and the remains buried under the monument from the centre of the city to the Military Cemetery.

From 9 April Georgia has again been facing mass protests. Their participants require president M.Saakashvili’s resignation. Whereas he is not going to resign, but acknowledges that he might become a victim of the international collusion: according to him, Russia and the United States could come to an agreement regarding Georgia’s future.

The G-20 Economic Summit, which took place on 2 April in London, demonstrated that  the international community has finally started joining the effort for struggle against the global economic crisis.

„Jos comuniştii!“ („Communists Away!“) – this phrase reminds the revolution in Romania in 1989, which ended in the overthrow and execution of N.Ceausescu. The current protests in Moldova are also accompanied by the same slogans and a similar goal – to overthrow communists who came into power eight years ago and, according to protesters, falsified the election results.

Situation in the Korean Peninsula differs from the situation in other conflict-affected parts of the world. Actually the two Koreas embrace one nation. The Korea Republic in the south of peninsula is a free country with the market economy. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north of peninsula is a perfect example of a military communist ideological system.

Relations between Ukraine and Russia are again deteriorating. Usually the increase of tension between the states is related to energy problems or Ukraine‘s ambitions to join NATO or the EU.

On 4 February 2009, representatives of countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) signed an agreement in Moscow on the formation of the Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CRRF). Some experts evaluated this as a new Moscow‘s step towards the formation of a counterbalance to NATO.

On 25 February, during the first address to the United States Congress, president B.Obama promised that the country would emerge from the recession stronger than before. President assured that the price of recovery would be new economy when people spend money depending on their resources, pursuing short-term gains over long-term prosperity, and promised to lead America towards clean, renewable energy and new generation cars.

Today there are no doubts that the global financial crisis was provoked by systematic mistakes of the American market economy. It is interesting to know how this country is fighting against the crisis and its after-effects or eliminating the reasons which predetermined the beginning of the economic recession.

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.