An oil pipeline between the Caspian and Black seas, which avoids Russia, was declared open.

ECONOMIST: Marking time

Politicians between the Baltic and the Black seas showed grit in dealing with the economic emergency (and voters displayed remarkable tolerance of the pain involved).

ECONOMIST: Eastern Europe��s economies: Some calm amid storms | The

Dagestan is one of seven small republics within the Russian Federation that together comprise Russia's North Caucasus region, a predominantly Muslim area which itself is wedged between the Caspian and Black Seas.

CNN: Boston bombing suspects: The Dagestan connection

Overleaf, we follow the fortunes of Homo sapiens sapiens around the Black and Mediterranean Seas through 30 000 years of a tumultuous history marked by sporadic earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, as well as more insidious hazards tied to a changing climate, such as flooding from glacier melt, gradual sea-level rise or prolonged drought.

UNESCO: Open Access to Scientific Information

In the area between the Black and the Caspian Seas lie countless festering issues, including separatist disaffection in two parts of Georgia, a territorial row between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the question of a pipeline to carry oil to the Mediterranean via Turkey.

ECONOMIST: Russia’s brutal folly | The