The global economy is experiencing the most serious test of its strength since the end of World War II. It is obvious that the old system is now gone. The bets have been placed: Russia is trying to lead the bloc of developing economies, and the goal of the U.S. is to subjugate Europe economically and politically. It is over this issue that the main struggle has now unfolded.

Russia’s and China’s gas agreement has already been called “the top three-decade deal.” Its scale is quite impressive – in the next six years, the Chinese will be investing $55 billion in Russia’s mining and gas transportation system. But much more important than the numbers is the fact that the agreement formalizes that the two superpowers have common interests, at least for the foreseeable future. We are witnessing the emergence of new global political-economic blocs.

Politics in the APR occupies an increasingly important place in U.S. foreign policy, with particular emphasis currently on the new bloc which plans to create free-trade zones across the entire region. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is without a doubt one of the Obama administration’s main priorities and offers an alternative to the Chinese project, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is also in the negotiations stage.

In 1959, Fidel Castro imposed a ban on the sale of residential property in Cuba. For more than fifty years after this decision was made, the only way that Cubans could move was to exchange properties on the basis of similarity. A new property should not be different from the old one in terms of square footage or style. And even if a family had the need to expand their living space and, more importantly, the means to do so, it would not have been legally possible. At the same time, other families could have housing that was too large for their needs. For example, childless families or older couples might prefer to live in a modestly sized apartment, but the paradox was that this exchange was impossible. In addition, according to one unofficial estimate, by 2011 there were about 200,000 units of vacant housing on the island, despite the fact that about a third of Cubans had to squeeze into a few square meters of living space each. According to the 2012 census, the Cuban population (11.2 million) lives in 3.9 million housing units, meaning that there is an average of 2.8 inhabitants per unit.

We wrote about the economically unequal position of women and the gender wage gap in the February issue, stating that this is a topical issue for all countries, both developed and developing. The issue of equal gender participation in the political decision-making process is even more acute. Historically, women have always been outsiders in the political arena, and until the 20th century they did not have the legal right to vote. Women began to gradually make inroads into politics once they won suffrage rights. At least three women always appear in rankings of outstanding political figures from the 20th century: Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, and Benazir Bhutto. But in the perception of many, female heads of state are still the exception to the rule.

On the future of EU-Russia energy relations WEJ spoke with Jack D. Sharples, expert on the EU-Russia energy relations and a lecturer at the European University at Saint-Petersburg.

Dear Mr. Sharples, how would you assess the current state of EU-Russia trade relations – who is more dependent on whom?
Currently mineral products (mainly oil and gas) account for around 71 percent of Russia’s exports. Taxation oil and gas production and export contributes around 50 percent of the Russian federal budget. The EU is the main export market for Russian oil and gas. According to Gazprom Export, in 2013, Russia exported 133 bcm of natural gas to the EU. This is 68 percent of Russia’s total pipeline gas exports. According to the latest figures from Eurostat, in 2012 Russia exported 170 million tonnes of crude oil to the EU – some 71 percent of Russia’s total crude oil exports of 240m tonnes in 2012. So clearly, oil and gas exports to the EU are important for Russia.