On February 16th 2012 a roundtable organized by the IIPS in cooperation with the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland will be held in Ostrava. The event will deal with the topic of "The Future of Druzhba Oil Pipeline - Strategic Challenge for Poland and the Czech Republic". The results of the one year project elaborated within the Czech-Polish Forum in cooperation with the Centre for Eastern Studies will be presented. The aim of the event is to analyze real importance of the Druzhba pipeline, analyze Russian proclamations concerning limiting or interrupting its operation, find out which threats result from putting the pipeline out of operation and how high the risk of realization is. On the basis of the analysis the points of contact of Poland and the Czech Republic within the oil industry and outline the perspectives of cooperation will be identified.

On 24th January 2012 there was a presentation of a study about the future of unconventional gas resources in Poland and its implications on the region of central Europe held by the members of Energy section of the IIPS at the Czernin Palace in Prague. The study was realized on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. Its main goal was to describe the state of a natural gas market in Poland with regard to the potential of unconventional gas resources and introduce possible scenarios of future gas-supply of the region of central Europe. The presentation was attended by about 30 invited guests from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, environment, industry and trade, members of local municipalities, NGO´s and energy security experts and journalists. The study was presented by three members of the creative team: Mgr. Filip Černoch, Ph.D., Mgr. Petr Ocelík a Mgr. Jan Osička.

The Energy Security Section is glad to inform you that a new study is now available. The study outlines possible impact of new gas infrastructure projects on the gas flows in the Central Europe. The study is opened with SWOT analyses of the Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovakian gas sectors. Its key parts then focus on the Nord Stream, South Stream and Nabucco gas pipelines, on the system of interconnectors within the North-South Gas Corridor and on the two LNG terminals in Poland and Croatia. The text is further supplemented by the European Union dimension which profoundly influences the Member States' energy development.

The final issue of the Czech Journal of Political Science in 2011 features the text published by the Energy section members Tomáš Vlček and Břetislav Dančák entitled "Limits of effective naval blockade in international politics." The text analyzes the issue of peaceful naval blockade,which is very frequently used in international relations although has no legal basis. The text illustrates limits of peaceful naval blocade on several specific examples.

Tomáš Vlček, a member of the Energy Security Section of the IIPS, attended an international workshop on the topic "Where is the energetic future of Central and Eastern Europe?". The workshop took place on 16-17 December 2011 in Beladice in the Slovak Republic and was organized by the European Agency for Energy Security (EAFES) and with support of the Centre for European Studies.

On December 9, members of the Energy Security Section of the IIPS, Petr Ocelík and Jan Osička, attended a conference "Energy relations between the EU and Russia: partnership or rivalry?" organized by Metropolitan University Prague. In their conference contributions, they focused on the significance of the unconventional sources of the natural gas development in Europe (esp. in Poland) for the functioning of the gas markets and relations between the Central European countries and the Russian Federation.

In December 2011 the results of the Sixth year of the Czech-American Prize for Talented Students have been announced. The results are available here. The competition was organized by International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University in cooperation with Embassy of the United States in Prague and J. W. Fulbright Commission in the Czech Republic. This year the topic of the papers was related to the United States of America.

On December 6, 2011, a discussion on the topic of "Occupy Wall Street" took place at the Faculty of Social Studies. Via video call, Jana Kovačovská from Columbia University shared her first hand experience from New York, where the demonstrations took place. Afterwards the phenomenon was discussed fromm various perspectives by a lawyer Ladislav Vyhnánek, an economist Vladan Hodulák and a politologist Ondřej Císař. The event was moderated by a member of CCHRD Hubert Smekal.

Monika Mareková, a member of CCHRD, is the winner of the competition for the best human rights diploma thesis of the year 2011 in the Czech Republic. The thesis focuses on the conflict of the right to respect for private life with the protection of public safety. The competition was organized by the League of Human Rights in the cooperation with the vice-president of the Constituional Court of the Czech Republic Eliska Wagnerova which expressed her opinion on the thesis at the award ceremony: "Her paper is extraordinarily excellent and thoroughly written. That topic is very actual and we have to deal with this issues very frequently at the Constitutional Court.

Three members of the CCHRD attended the Seminar Armed Conflicts and Human Rights which took place on November 25, 2011 at the Faculty of Social Studies. Hubert Smekal gave a speech about the role of the European Union during the Arab Spring, Katarína Šipulová talked about human rights and the transitional justice and Ľubomír Majerčík presented his contribution Intrastate Prosecution of War Criminals - Universal Jurisdiction.
On the same day Katarína Šipulová and Hubert Smekal took part in the debate with the students and activists from Ukraine, Tchajwan and Barma. Together they discussed the topic of the European system of human rights and the role of the human rights in the transformations towards democracy.

On November 23, 2011, Petr Ocelík, member of the Energy Section of the IIPS MU, presented a paper at the conference "Gas sector of he Czech Republic and Slovakia: Topgas 2011" organized by Institute of International Research in Brno. His conference contribution dealt with the topic of interdependence between Russia and the EU. Petr Ocelík also presented the outcomes of the IIPS research project about the impacts of the new and planned transit infrastucture on the region of Central Europe.