Since 2009 the influence of immigrant party Israel Beiteinu on foreign and security policy in Israel has grown. The party won 15 seats in the 2009 parliamentary elections and its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, became the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Galileo is one of the most ambitious programs ever managed by the EU. As such, it illustrates the challenges and the opportunities offered by the development of a European Space Policy at the political, industrial, economic and international level.

One month after the midterm elections, it was time to step back and reflect upon the state of affairs at the time and future direction of President Obama’s Administration and deal with which campaign promises might be achieved in the remaining years and how the political parties would rally for the 2012 elections. 

The development of the electric car market, supported by public funding, needs to be monitored closely. Currently, except for Renault benefiting from its electric partnership with Nissan, batteries for electric vehicles will most likely be outsourced. A lot of joint ventures are being signed with Asian battery companies and automotive suppliers. As a consequence, some argue that there is no rational to develop further and fund the European battery industry: batteries are already made more cheaply elsewhere.

Today, Europe is taking initiatives both to prevent space weaponization and to develop space militarization. While national States remain the central players in this regard, the intergovernmental European Space Agency is increasingly involved in security-related activities and the European Union is showing growing political ambitions in this area.

The European defence sector generates €86 billion annually - and that is only taking into account the 2009 turnover of the European defence industry for the three areas - aeronautics, land forces and naval forces.

Russia's foreign policy towards Syria and the Greater Middle East is generally not aggressive. It is a defensive policy aimed mainly at developing its traditional political and economic interests in the region and protecting its Southern borders.