"BRUSSELS (AFP) — The European Union commission on Tuesday called for public places throughout Europe to be smoke-free by 2012 in order to tackle the deadly effects of passive smoking...A similar ban is due to come into force in Bulgaria next June."
The pardon comes as Belarus, once Moscow’s most loyal post-Soviet ally, tacks sharply to the West. For almost a year, Mr. Lukashenko has been making moves to accommodate Western criticism, like granting amnesty to a series of political prisoners. This spring, Belarus was invited to join the European Union’s Eastern Partnership, and it received an additional International Monetary Fund loan of $1 billion, increasing its total pledge to $3.4 billion.
Thanks to rules which prevent foreign governments from influencing U.S. officials with expensive presents, the WashPost has sifted through the State Department's annual list of Gifts from Foreign Officials and found a few real gems. For example, we know that Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko really took a liking to former-Vice President Dick Cheney and his family.…Yushchenko gave to Cheney:
“Six plush stuffed animals” (for his grandkids),
"Three Ukrainian cookbooks,"
“Three girls' blouses,”
“Three boys' shirts,”
"Two bottles of 1940 Massandra Golden Collection Wine,"
And a "wooden toy cart with horses," which the family kept.
The law that started the whole process was introduced in 2006 by Mr. Putin, then the president and now the prime minister, who spoke of the perils of the blackjack tables and the one-armed bandits, of shady characters having a grip on the industry.
Gazprom held its annual meeting today, allowing CEO Alexei Miller the chance to warn Europe that its drive to use non-Gazprom gas was turning into a fetish.
"The push for Europe to diversify suppliers is understandable but it should not turn into a fetish," said Miller.
A fetish, really? You mean that energy security is now "a form of sexual desire in which gratification depends to an abnormal degree on some object or item of clothing or part of the body." How does that work?
Or maybe Miller meant to use fetish as "a charm superstitiously believed to embody magical powers." Does Nabucco really have magical powers?
In all fairness, however, Miller probably meant to use fetish in the sense of "excessive or irrational devotion to some activity."
That would make the most sense. We certinaly agree that Bulgarians spend far too much time "irrationally devoted" to staying warm every time Gazprom shuts off their gas supplies.
Russia's state capture continues. However, this time it's the Kremlin that wants to consume vast sections of the economy. Under a new plan to "recapitalize the banking system," the Russian government intends take a massive stake in the country's largest financial institutions. Sounds familiar.
Now the catch:
FT: "Unlike the US bank bail-out, the Russian scheme would see the government take board seats and have veto rights."
So how much does it cost to place hand-picked men & women on the boards of the country's largest banks? $40 billion, according to S&P. Unfortunetly, the Kremlin doesn't actualy have $40 billion to spend at the moment, so the government will finance the whole thing with debt.
Russia's currency reserves, it seems, have gone the way of democracy and a free press.
I Promise To Be Good Over The Summer Vacation...So what's the beef with cars? Environment? Safety? Public transportation in Turkmenistan can't be that great. Oh wait, I get it now. In that case, they should have included not boarding planes either.
Students at Turkmen universities are being made to write a written promise that they will be "good kids" over the summer vacation, RFE/RL's Turkmen Service reports. In a special letter, they must state that they will not drive a car, visit gambling houses, go abroad, or contact foreign organizations operating in Turkmenistan. A university lecturer in Ashgabat confirmed that students have to sign such letters before starting their summer vacation. Officials at Turkmenistan's Education Ministry have refused to comment on the issue.
Russia has so far refrained from criticizing the measure, calling it Kyrgyzstan’s 'sovereign right.' But the Russian daily Kommersant quoted an unnamed Russian official as saying this week that the deal had surprised Moscow, and that an 'adequate response' would be made.
Apparently, the Kremlin has ordered Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov (allegedly the brains behind Politkovskaya’s assassination) to transform Ingushetia into a peaceful Zen garden.
Speaking to the Reuters, Mr Kadyrov said the Russian leadership had told him to intensify operations in both Chechnya and Ingushetia. "[Medvedev] told me to intensify actions... including in Ingushetia. I will personally control the operations... and I am sure in the near future there will be good results."
We’re sure the locals in Ingushetia are going to absolutely love knowing that Kadyrov is "personally [in] control" of their territory as well. Not like President Yevkurov can do much. He remains in the hospital following an assassination attempt.
And it’s only June. Insurgency season in the Caucuses is just getting started.
The decision is particularly damning for Russia because Ikea runs outlets in dozens of countries around the world and is hardly thin-skinned when it comes to dealing with bureaucracies.
An "anonymous British philanthropist" bought what we suppose is Mikhail Gorbachev's "debut album", Songs for Raisa, in London this week, bidding $164,940 (about £100,000) at an auction to benefit the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation.
Kudos to Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Lithuania for making the roads safer. I'd like to know what was up with Latvian roads in 2001, but good work on getting the numbers down so dramatically, even if it's as dangerous there as Bulgaria. Speaking of Bulgaria, what's with the increase in mortality? Poland and Romania...apparently even high profile road deaths make no difference either.
The President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was ambushed in Nazran over the weekend. He somehow managed to survive the high-speed collision and bomb attack with his life. While President Medvedev has called it "an act of terror," we can’t help but get that sinking feeling that its 1999 all over again.
Days since Putin declared victory in neighboring Chechnya: 66.
[You can see more video of the aftermath here.]
Putin will make you do better.
The Times of London has released a list of the top 100 “Greenest Tycoons” in the world. Curiously, not a single person from the former-Soviet Union or Central & Eastern Europe made the list.
Alwasy the over-achievers, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates took the top slots for investments in renewable fuels and wind power (respectively). China’s Jifan Gao, worth a measly $326 million, rounded out the bottom for investments in solar power.
Meanwhile, the likes of Mikhail Prokhorov (Russia’s richest man) apparently have more important things to do with, say, the $9 billion left over from investments in aluminum smelters. Take for example Prokhorov's latest creation: Snob -- the exclusive social-networking site for billionaires.
The Iranians can twitter all they like, Prokhorov has rich people to poke.
Last week, Russia proudly informed the WTO that, membership would be nice, but it really wanted to join the group as a customs union with Kazakhstan and Belarus; just one big happy free-trading family.
So what did our trade BFF’s do for an encore? Why Belarus chose to launch a bitter trade war, for starters.
“AP: Belarus has set up customs posts on its border with Russia for the first time in 14 years as a trade dispute between the two countries escalates...Belarus has not had customs posts on its border with Russia since 1995.”
By the way, anyone willing to take a quick read of the WTO’s rules on customs unions will notice “that the purpose of such agreements should be to facilitate trade between the constituent territories and not to raise barriers to the trade of other Members with such territories.” This is to prevent countries from using a customs agreement to raise trade taxes on other countries.
Strangly, the WTO doesn’t seem to have anticipated a scenerio whereby two countries would announce their intention to form a customs union for the purpose of actually raising barriers on each other. That would defeat the whole purpose of forming a customs union in the first place.
Not on planet Belarus.
It looks like Moscow’s plan to revive the moribund Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO ) is proving to be a lot harder that issuing a press release and holding a summit. "A June 14 summit in Moscow of the Collective Security Treaty Organization devolved into a very awkward affair for the Kremlin, as the authoritarian-minded leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenka, boycotted the gathering, and Belarus and Uzbekistan opted not to sign a key agreement to create a rapid reaction force."
Belarus is miffed because the Kremlin redefined “unanimous approval by all six member states” to mean unanimous approval by all six member states, except Belarus. Also, Minsk wants to make milk imports the subject of CSTO talks, leaving Russia’s delegation at their wit's end.
Milk, you want to talk about milk? This is a defense organization.
And to think, prior to becoming president, Medvedev's only problem was how to spend billions of dollars on popular “National Priority Projects” for health, housing, education and agriculture.
Sorry Medvedev.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia does not need to move toward greater democracy because the financial crisis requires strong leadership, a think-tank close to the ruling party United Russia has said in a report.
Ok, it's official: The Czech Republic has become the new Bulgaria as the epicenter of weird. (And I love Bulgaria, literally.)
So what happens when a Missouri mom posts the family Christmas photo on her obscure blog? Why, it ends up as a the centerpiece of an advertizing campaign for a Czech grocery store – of course.
AP: “One of Smith's college friends was driving through Prague when he spotted their huge smiling faces in the window of a store specializing in European food…’It's a life-size picture in a grocery store window in Prague — my Christmas card photo!’ said Danielle Smith.”
Mario Bertuccio (who we suspect is not Czech) owns the store. He knew the photo was "from the Internet," but claims that he didn’t know the family was real. “We'll be happy to write an e-mail with our apology,” said Bertuccio. Since Bertuccio is dealing with Americans, he might just have to write a check to their lawyer as well.
By the way, Smith’s blog has received 180,000 hits since the story went viral. Seeing opportunity, I'm toying with the idea of posting photos from that lost weekend in Baku. I could be the face of Yves Saint Laurent in Malaysia.
Right now, everything is decided from above. The level of centralization is worse than it was in Soviet times. With respect to local people, they carry out a policy of distrust and disrespect.
The average turnout for the 10 former Communist countries was just over 31 percent, compared with an overall average of 43.1 percent for the 27-nation European Union. The turnout in Eastern Europe was uneven. More than 52 percent voted in Latvia because, analysts said, the parliamentary election coincided with local government elections; only 20 percent voted in Lithuania.
Last week, someone threw an egg at Czech Social Democratic Party leader Jiri Paroubek. Ok they threw lots of eggs. Opponents had been stalking Paroubek for quite some time, scored several misses, and finally managed to hit him with a good salvo despite -- get this -- police protection against egg attack. While this would be a mild embarrassment for anyone, it was nothing that a quick shower and a new shirt couldn’t fix.
Paroubek’s response? Why he threatened to pelt any journalist who reported the story with the same indignity (egg attack). This practically guaranteed that a passing story would jump from the back pages of the Czech press and crack into the international arena.
"After the elections, I will take a basket of eggs and come to your newsroom and throw them at you," Paroubek said.
Mission accomplished. Now the whole world is talking about it.
Turns out, the Czechs take their egg throwing seriously. So seriously, that it’s now on par with terrorism and ethnic cleansing. “An egg thrown at a politician has always been a symbol. But this is no longer a symbolic expression of disagreement. This is political violence,” said Tomas Lebeda of Palacky University.
To review…
--Political violence in Tajikistan: civil war.
--Political violence in Iraq: bomb.
--Political violence in the former Yugoslavia: ethnic cleansing.
--Political violence in the Czech Republic: throwing an egg.
At least in the Czech Republic, no-body has to die.
“...in blaming the Bush administration for trying to ‘teach’ Russia about democracy, [American] realists appear to accept the official Russian position.” [That means you, D-i-mitri Simes.]
“In our view, America has ignored the problems of democracy and civil society in Russia, but even turning a blind eye did not prevent the breakdown in the U.S.-Russian relationship -- and now Obama is essentially being asked to treat Russia as though it is incapable of democratic transformation.”
In France, Germany, Italy, and Poland—four of Europe's six largest countries—center-right governments got unexpectedly enthusiastic endorsements. In the two other large countries, Britain and Spain, left-wing ruling parties got hammered, as did socialists in Hungary, Austria, Estonia, and elsewhere.
“Everyone who without prejudice studied the history of the second world war know that it started because Poland did not want to meet German demands.”
That's the message from the Russian navy anyway, which "mistakenly" missed their targets and succeeded in attacking a small village near St. Petersburg and close to the Finnish border on Thursday, May 28. Apparently, the village surrendered quickly to this onslaught.The backstory, according to the Polish press, is that the Bulgarian court gave custody rights to the mother of the two kids. But the father won't let them out of Bulgaria, where they have been living for the last year since the court decision. The mother decided to come and get them herself. Knowing she was in for a fight, she armed herself with the Polish consul general, a translator, a representative of the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice, a judge, a psychologist, and a social worker, all of whom were escorted by the police to the father's home. Neither the reason of law nor social science could convince an angry group of bystanders at the father's residence, who attacked the whole delegation. The mother was able to escape to the car with her daughter, where the crowd continued to attack the car, according to the Polish consul. The son mysteriously disappeared.
“I do not like the picture, it makes me shiver. Putin here looks like a zombie or a wax figure or Michael Jackson after nth plastic surgery." -- Anonymous
[EDIT: A new picture of beautiful Sopot, since the old one went linkdead after being hit by a segway.]
