Central & Eastern Europe

RUSSIA       Putin: Backing his friend Dmitry Medvedev's election bid. As widely anticipated, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won the country’s parliamentary elections on December 2, with 63% of the vote. In the weeks running up ...

RUSSIA Russia’s greatest strength could also turn out to be its biggest weakness.   Skyscrapers go up as some of Russia’s surplus is invested in infrastructure projects Oil has been kind to Russia. In the past few years, as world ...

RUSSIA     Strife on the borders: Georgia’s president called for early elections and accused Russia of stirring up unrest. Afew weeks after Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that he would lead the ticket for the country’s dominant political party, ...

RUSSIA     Putin’s deft maneuvering will almost certainly see him retaining power In the second political bombshell in three weeks—following the surprise mid-September appointment of the obscure Victor Zubkov to replace prime minister Mikhail Fradkov—Russian president Vladimir Putin in ...

EUROPE     Europe's payments landscape is set to change dramatically with market reforms. Banks and companies in other parts of the world are watching with interest as the deadline for radical transformation of the UK and Europe’s cross-border payments ...

RUSSIA     Zubkov: Putin's surprise favorite to take over as prime minister. In a long-overdue cabinet shuffle, Russian prime minister Mikhail Fradkov submitted his resignation on September 12. Hours later president Vladimir Putin nominated the relatively unknown head of ...

DR NEWS Russia’s national power utility OAO Unified Energy System has completed the spin-off of two power-generation units, OGK-5 and TGK-5, completing the first part of the government’s plan to break up the company. UES, the former power monopoly, also ...

EUROPE       Desmares: Corporates cool on SEPA. Businesses and public sector organizations operating in Europe have until 2010 to abandon existing national payment instruments and adopt new pan-European credit transfer and direct debits. At least that is the ...

EUROPE     Trichet: Questions investors' reliance on credit ratings. The subprime mortgage crisis in the US has forced the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) to speak out about the new sources of risk being created by the ...

Russia     Friends in high places: Deripaska (right) and Putin. French oil firm Total unexpectedly signed a deal in mid-July with Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom to help develop the massive Shtokman natural gas field. The Russian government had earlier ...

EU ACCESSION HOPEFULS Preparing their economies for entry to the European Union is yielding dramatic results for accession candidates and providing inspiration for those that aspire to follow them.   Kiev: Banking market set for sharp growth. While EU accession ...

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE   The EU’s newest members struggle to balance growth with stability.   Prague's stock exchange is one of many in the region that are attracting foreign investors. Despite recent political maneuverings by Russian president Vladimir Putin, ...

Russia     Russia's Vladimir Putin at the recent G-8 summit Relations between Russia and the West plunged to fresh post-Cold War lows, as the planned US missile shield in the Czech Republic, the investigation of the death of Alexander ...

Dr news     Russia’s state-controlled Vneshtorgbank (VTB) raised nearly $8 billion in its sale of a 22.5% stake in the company, making it Russia’s seventh-largest company by market capitalization. VTB selected The Bank of New York as the depositary ...

RUSSIA     Boris Yeltsin: Russias first freely elected president The death of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin in April marked the end of an era for Russia. Retrospectives in the Russian press of the country’s first freely elected president ...

TURKEY     Gul: Nomination triggered a political crisis Turmoil sparked by the nomination of a suspected Islamist candidate for president in Turkey might have been expected to derail the long-anticipated l2.5 billion Turkish Lira ($1.86 billion) privatisation of the ...