The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), a shipper-owned oil pipeline carrying Caspian oil to Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossyisk, remains to this day the only oil export pipeline on Russian territory that is not under the control of the state company Transneft. Completed in 2001, the CPC was, from the start, the product of a fragile balance of power between states eager to maintain control of hydrocarbon flows and private companies able to finance the necessary infrastructure. Despite its economic success, the future of the CPC currently hinges on a shareholding dispute pitting Russia against Western private shareholders. This essay places the CPC dossier in the broader context of Russia's investment climate and argues that the dispute's dynamic is an important bellwether of the Russian energy policy.

The Olympic Games are meant to embody the climax of the peaceful emergence that the People's Republic of China has undertaken for nearly thirty years.

Development aid has progressively penetrated the fields of conflicts and "fragility". It tends to become a key component of external interventions, next to military action and diplomacy. As a result, it is subjected to the final goals of those operations which, beyond the end of confrontations and the setting up of a political solution, aim at building peace.

On 28-30th May 2008, the fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) was held in Yokohama. This initiative, co-organized by UN, UNDP and the World Bank, was set up in 1993 and takes place every five years, aims to develop dialogue between African and Japanese leaders but also countries and International organizations involved in Aid. This fourth conference brought together delegations from 51 African countries including 40 Heads of States and Governments. The scale of the conference and the importance of the announcements made there illustrate the continuing Japanese interest towards Africa.