Articles

Natalya BELITSER, Kyiv, Ukraine. The ‘frozen’ situation of this conflict has essentially changed over the last couple of years. Therefore, in order to assess the new opportunities, but also risks and challenges linked to these changes, this paper addresses the background and the environment in which the conflict developed, and previous attempts of its resolution...

Elena GNEDINA, Nicu POPESCU, Center for International and European Studies (CIES) at Kadir Has University, Istanbul, specially for BSNews. In this period, the EU undoubtedly developed and intensified its relations with most of its eastern neighbors, but has hardly managed to 'change' them or significantly alter the course of their development...

On 25 June 1992,the Heads of State and Government of eleven countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine signed in Istanbul the Summit Declaration and the Bosphorus Statement giving birth to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.

It came into existence as a unique and promising model of multilateral political and economic initiative aimed at fostering interaction among the Member States, as well as to ensure peace, stability and good-neighbourly relations in the Black Sea region.

Andrei Klimenko, Tatiana GUCHAKOVA, BSNews. On December 15, 2012 Istanbul hosted the 27^th summit of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation, during which Ukraine formally accepted from Turkey the BSEC chairmanship.The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kostyantyn HRYSHCHENKO gave an exclusive interview to BSNews before the summit’s opening ...

Andrei Klimenko, Tatiana GUCHAKOVA, BlackSeaNews. The competitive situation in the Black Sea region makes the Crimea to answer the main question: in what segments of the travel industry it must "rush to catch up the run-away train", and where to look for new and ingenious ways of tourism development with due account of global trends ...

Helen Liukova, BlackSeaNews. Istanbul is saturated with construction again - the next things of its agenda are: the third airport, the new HYATT hotel and reconstruction of the central Taksim Square. Besides, the city has welcomed major international car show and NASA exhibition. Moreover, Istanbul has become the world capital of coffee, which for sure will increase the number of tourists-coffee drinking admires. You are welcome to read more in this BlackSeaNews review.

Andrei KLIMENKO, BSNews, Illya ZHYRNOV (photo). On November 11, 2012, the 5th anniversary of the catastrophic storm of 2007, Yalta had bright sunshine, gusty wind and considerable storm. Entering its harbor cruise liner PACIFIC PRINCESS crushed the Yalta port sea buoy, while in the roads 7-8 bulk carriers were waiting the rough weather out. See our latest photo report...

Andrei Klimenko, BlackSeaNews. At least 2 cruise liners will visit the Black Sea ports in November 2012. Excluding Istanbul, they will call at least 4 ports: Yalta, Odessa, Constanta, Nessebar. The cruise season in the Black Sea will continue till November 25, of course, if weather does not interfere. If we aren't mistaken, that’s unprecedentedly long season...

Andrei KLIMENKO, BSNews Chief Editor. «ScanEx» (Russian Federation) sent us results of satellite monitoring of the Black Sea in September-October, 2012, detecting large sized ship source slick pollution in the Russian and Ukrainian sectors. We added our own investigation results to our colleagues’ researchers...

Andrei Klimenko, Tatiana GUCHAKOVA, BlackSeaNews. We based the following analysis of the current situation with competition in tourism in the Black Sea area on publications of the BSN news feeds. It is the authors’ opinion that some trends call the players of this market for significant adjustment of tourism policy - both in the Crimea, and in the region. Of course, if business can defer to the opinion of the experts :) ...

Andrei KLIMENKO, Tatiana GUCHAKOVA (photo), Michael ROZENSHTEIN (photo), BSNews. This conversation took place in early October, when the Moldovan diplomat and historian, Professor Victor Tvircun has worked for the first three months as the Secretary General of BSEC. We took advantage of his profession in order to talk about the "historic risks" and historical perspectives for the Black Sea economies...

Andrei KLIMENKO, BlackSeaNews. The past cruise week has been quite unusual. The big cruise of Princess Daphne did not take place due to the ship’s arrest in Crete, but still our so to say “plan of cruise calls” was fulfilled by 2 expeditionary ships - Greek yacht Harmony G and British ship Island Sky, which both had visited larger number of ports than featured in all kinds of cruise schedules ...

Andrei KLIMENKO, BlackSeaNews. 2 years have made us convinced: nowadays the sea ferries are, perhaps, the only one link that ties together all the Black Sea countries. Despite all the nuances and relationship problems:). We have been preparing a series of publications on the Black Sea ferries for a long time. So, this one is just the very beginning. We have not found anywhere a single comprehensive schedule for the Black Sea ferries, thus, decided to start compiling it ourselves. And with our readers’ help...

Andrei KLIMENKO, BlackSeaNews. As we reported on October 7, 2012 the British mega cruise liner QUEEN ELIZABETH moored to the Yalta sea port’s berth.From the very sunrise and the whole day long the lenses of our friends - marine photographers Nickolai N, Mikhail Leontiev, Alex Kostin and iIlya Zhyrnov were focused on the liner. Just have a look at the results!

Andrei KLIMENKO, BlackSeaNews. No less than 14 cruise ships will visit Black Sea ports in October 2012, compared to 5 in June, 11 in July, 7 in August, and 16 in September. They will visit at least 14 ports, besides Istanbul (in July they visited 12 ports, 11 in August, 13 in September and October).

1 mega-liner - QUEEN ELIZABETH – will visit the Black Sea for the first time.