Merry Christmas & a happy New Year!

Strategic Analysis -The official blog of RIEAS- wishes everyone merry Christmas and a happy new Year for the readers and their families.
My best wishes for health, love and prosperity -If you can fit them all in one size!-
I ‘ll be back shortly after the hollidays with the predictions for 2007. The analytical prediction report will [...]

Angola to join OPEC

Angola has announced its ambition to join OPEC as its 12th member (Algeria, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Venezuela, . The prezident of the country Hose Eduardo Dos Santos believes that such move will upgrade the profile and the influence of its state in the international energy market and consequently in [...]

World Bank predicts a healthy 2007 for Western Balkan investments

World Bank held a conference in Thessaloniki-Greece on the 20th of December, where important reports around the future of investments on the Western Balkans was made public.
According to the World Bank the prospects are bright for the region that saw its Foreign Direct Investments increase by 50% from 2002 to 2005. Also for 2007 the [...]

IMB reports global piracy decrease

The number of reported piracy attacks worldwide in the first 9 months of 2006, decreased to 174 compared to 205 during the corresponding period in 2005; according to the ICC International Maritime Bureau.
In its “Piracy and armed robbery against ships” report, the IMB lists a total of 174 attacks on ships. Ships were boarded in [...]

New Masters in Security Sector Management

The new MSc in Security Sector Management has now been approved by the Cranfield University Senate and the first executive part-time course will begin in April 2007.  The full-time course will begin in September 2007.  The MSc is the first of its kind and aims to develop a student’s ability to understand key aspects of [...]

Gazprom, Serbia Plan Building Gas Pipeline

Serbia and Russia’s energy giant Gazprom signed a memorandum of understanding in Moscow Wednesday foreseeing construction of a gas pipeline in Serbia.
Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Minister Radomir Naumov and Alexander Medvedev, director general of Russian Gazpromexport signed the memorandum on building the 250-mile gas pipeline across Serbia, from its border with Bulgaria to [...]

Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina sign defense co-op agreemen

Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina signed on Monday an agreement on the cooperation in the area of defense, dealing primarily with collective training of soldiers, crisis management training, and cooperation in peacekeeping missions.
    “The signing presents the strengthening of friendly relations between the two countries and their armed forces,” Slovenian Defense Minister Karl Erjavec was quoted as [...]

EBRD provides €200 million for a Ukrainian motorway completion

The EBRD is providing a €200 million sovereign loan to Ukraine with the proceeds to be on-lent to Ukravtodor, the Ukrainian road administration. The project will finance the rehabilitation of the final 427 kilometre stretch of the M06 motorway connecting Ukraine’s capital Kiev with European Union countries such as Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. 
This section of [...]

Argentina to construct a 3rd nuclear factory

Argentina decided to construct its thrird nuclear industrial facility. The project is estimated at around 3.5 billion USD and it will require Canadian assistance, because it is estimated that the nuclear reactor will use the CANDU reactor, which is capable of dual usage (Civil & military one).
Argentina first entered the civilian nuclear energy states back [...]

Dependence of selected European states from Russian natural gas supply

Country           Consumption                       Russian depend.
Germany         31.44 BCM/Y5                       44%
France               13.31 ”                             26%
Italy                 22 “                                   29%
Poland              7.3 “                                     60%
Austria           5.7 “                                         63%
Hungary         10.7 ”                                      72%
Finland         7.62 ”                                         100%
Greece         2.1 “                                            92%