Eastern Europe won't pick up with Poland stuck in vacuum

Biotechnology must become plat principal

A chat over breakfast hardly matches the urgent needs of a hungry world.

Cutting out the Ukrainian middleman

To connoisseurs of financial euphemism, the RosUkrEnergo website is without peer. A company that appears to own no reserves or pipelines made a stonking $785 million (€537m) in the gas business in 2006 (the last year recorded) and more than doubled its assets, from less than $2 billion to more than $4bn.

The perils of disparate interests in Russia

It would be nice to think that the harassment of the British Council by the Russian authorities would prompt a united, imaginative European response. Perhaps in a parallel universe it will.

Man of the year, or scandal of the decade?

Choosing a ‘Man of the Year' is a risky business and writing about him even more so.

Organise, co-operate and watch out for Russia

Russia longs to join the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a club of mainly old rich countries that is anxiously trying to expand and stay relevant as the global economy's centre of gravity shifts south and east.