IOM Press Briefing Notes
Friday 5 September 2008

INDONESIA – Religious Teachers Carry Ramadan Message of Community Policing to Aceh - IOM is working with the Ar-Raniry State Islamic Institute and the Aceh Provincial Police (Polda NAD) through the Holy month of Ramadhan to promote community policing in the Indonesia’s northernmost province through the use of Islamic cultural values unique to the area.

The 15-day Safari Kemitraan Ramadhan (Ramadhan Partnership Road show), which kicks off today, is funded by the European Commission and the Royal Netherlands Embassy, and aims to inform villagers about the value of community policing using religious messages.

IOM is providing logistical support, transport and printed materials for the team of religious teachers from the Institute and police officers implementing the scheme.

“Communities in Aceh will benefit from all the positive values embodied in community policing. The roadshow will help to endorse the program and will be an effective tool to build partnerships with Acehnese across the province,” says Dr. Abdul Rani, Msi, a professor of Ar-Raniry.

Located at the northernmost tip of the island of Sumatra, Aceh is also known colloquially as Mecca’s Veranda. For hundreds of years it served as the final port of call for pilgrims making the long sea voyage from Indonesia, the most populous Moslem nation on earth, to Mecca. It is the most devout area in Indonesia, and proud of its Islamic heritage.

Aceh Senior Police Commissioner Setyanto says he supports the use of a culturally sensitive approach to informing a public that is deeply suspicious of the police. Aceh was the scene of a violent, decades-long separatist conflict that drew to a close in 2005, with the signing of a peace agreement between rebels and the central government.

{As it happens, Aceh is also home of large oil fields with international oil companies having had involvement here. Aceh once was sponsored from the outside in its attempt of becoming independent from Indonesia - thus the announcement and the backing are quite interesting.}

IOM is in the midst of a two year programme to training more than 7,200 of the roughly 9,200 police officers in Aceh in community policing and human rights. The trainings aim to reduce conflict and underpin a return to peace and security in the province.

For further information, please contact Jihan Labetubun at IOM Jakarta. Tel. +62 8111907028. Email:  jlabetubun at iom.int

Op-Ed Columnist Thomas Friedman, The New York Times, September 3, 2008 (written September 2, 2008)

.
AND THEN THERE WAS ONE.
As we emerge from Labor Day, college students are gathering back on campuses not only to start the fall semester, but also, in some cases, to vote for the first time in a presidential election.

There is no bigger issue on campuses these days than environment/energy. Going into this election, I thought that — for the first time — we would have a choice between two “green” candidates.

That view is no longer operative — and college students (and everyone else) need to understand that.

With his choice of Sarah Palin — the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change — for vice president, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil.

***

Given the fact that Senator McCain deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries, and given his support for lowering the gasoline tax in a reckless giveaway that would only promote more gasoline consumption and intensify our addiction to oil, and given his desire to make more oil-drilling, not innovation around renewable energy, the centerpiece of his energy policy — in an effort to mislead voters that support for drilling today would translate into lower prices at the pump today — McCain has forfeited any claim to be a green candidate.

So please, students, when McCain comes to your campus and flashes a few posters of wind turbines and solar panels, ask him why he has been AWOL when it came to Congress supporting these new technologies.

***

“Back in June, the Republican Party had a round-up,” said Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club. “One of the unbranded cattle — a wizened old maverick name John McCain — finally got roped. Then they branded him with a big ‘Lazy O’ — George Bush’s brand, where the O stands for oil. No more maverick.

“One of McCain’s last independent policies putting him at odds with Bush was his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” added Pope, “yet he has now picked a running mate who has opposed holding big oil accountable and been dismissive of alternative energy while focusing her work on more oil drilling in a wildlife refuge and off of our coasts. While the northern edge of her state literally falls into the rising Arctic Ocean, Sarah Palin says, ‘The jury is still out on global warming.’ She’s the one hanging the jury — and John McCain is going to let her.”

Indeed, Palin’s much ballyhooed confrontations with the oil industry have all been about who should get more of the windfall profits, not how to end our addiction.

***

Barack Obama should be doing more to promote his green agenda, but at least he had the courage, in the heat of a Democratic primary, not to pander to voters by calling for a lifting of the gasoline tax. And while he has come out for a limited expansion of offshore drilling, he has refrained from misleading voters that this is in any way a solution to our energy problems.

I am not against a limited expansion of off-shore drilling now. But it is a complete sideshow. By constantly pounding into voters that his energy focus is to “drill, drill, drill,” McCain is diverting attention from what should be one of the central issues in this election: who has the better plan to promote massive innovation around clean power technologies and energy efficiency.

Why? Because renewable energy technologies — what I call “E.T.” — are going to constitute the next great global industry. They will rival and probably surpass “I.T.” — information technology. The country that spawns the most E.T. companies will enjoy more economic power, strategic advantage and rising standards of living. We need to make sure that is America. Big oil and OPEC want to make sure it is not.

***

Palin’s nomination for vice president and her desire to allow drilling in the Alaskan wilderness “reminded me of a lunch I had three and half years ago with one of the Russian trade attachés,” global trade consultant Edward Goldberg said to me. “After much wine, this gentleman told me that his country was very pleased that the Bush administration wanted to drill in the Alaskan wilderness. In his opinion, the amount of product one could actually derive from there was negligible in terms of needs. However, it signified that the Bush administration was not planning to do anything to create alternative energy, which of course would threaten the economic growth of Russia.”

So, college students, don’t let anyone tell you that on the issue of green, this election is not important. It is vitally important, and the alternatives could not be more black and white.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament Declared September 1, 2008, that:
Georgia-Russia: Dialogue must remain open.

{Above makes sense - but is not in the EU hands -BUT IN THE PROCESS FURTHER INFORMATION (was also) RELEASED - SOME FURTHER ASTONISHING INFORMATION THAT INVOLVES THE EU DIRECTLY - THE EU FAVORED THOSE GEORGIANS THAT GOT RUSSIAN PASSPORTS!}

The European Parliament is debating the crisis in Georgia this evening in Brussels in parallel to an emergency summit of the European Council on the same topic.

Liberals and Democrats have welcomed the quick initial response of the French Presidency and urged the European Union to speak with one distinctive voice.

Graham Watson MEP, Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, said:
“Dialogue and engagement will defuse tensions more effectively than isolation. That is the lesson of the cold war.

“The EU should now take three firm measures moving forward:

there should be a crisis management and Reconstruction Fund and the rapid deployment of international humanitarian assistance,

the Council should designate an EU representative to Georgia who will make both sides listen,

and the EU should explore the possibility of sending an ESDP mission with a pro-active role in mediating between the two sides.

***

“One problem the Union must fix immediately is the glaring anomaly whereby Georgian citizens who take up the offer of Russian passports are given freer access to Europe than those who do not.”

***

Marco Cappato (IT, Radicale), who is negotiating the text of the resolution on behalf of ALDE added:
“For many years Georgia has been expressing its dream of being part of the European family, but the EU has been incapable of offering a European federal strategy. In so doing, the EU has reinforced nationalism in the Caucasus and played into the hands of the Russian regime.”

Lydie Polfer MEP (DP, Luxembourg) was responsible for drafting the European Parliament’s report on the South Caucasus earlier this year in which she warned of the potential for conflict due to the unresolved border disputes in the region:

“It is unacceptable and in breach of international commitments for two Member countries of the OSCE and Council of Europe to resort to military means against each other. Both Russia and Georgia bear responsibility for the escalation of the recent violence in the South Caucasus.”

“I am however encouraged by the speed and willingness of the European Union to engage in brokering a peaceful end to the dispute which augurs well for the future development of the common foreign and security policy. But more needs to be done to build lasting stability in the region and preventing further outbreaks of violence”.

Link to Polfer report adopted 17 January 2008:
 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file….

Press Release 31.8.2008 From The Israeli Peace Movement.

Gush Shalom congratulates the Barkan Wineries for moving away from the West Bank Barkan settlement.

The Gush Shalom Movement congratulates the Barkan Wineries for moving away from the industrial zone of Barkan settlement  in the northern West Bank, to Kibbutz Hulda within the internationally-recognized territory of Israel. This is an important act, removing one of the major economic mainstays of the settlements.  We hope and expect that additional companies will follow the Barkan Wineries out of the Occupied Territories”.

The Barkan Wineries had figured prominently on the Gush Shalom Settlement Boycott List since this list was first published some ten years ago. Gush Shalom activists had distributed leaflets, calling upon the public not to purchase the Barkan wines, at the entrances to supermarkets as well as at public gatherings such as the annual memorials to Yitchak Rabin held in Tel Aviv every November.

About four years ago the Barkan Wineries started a process of moving their operations over to Kibbutz Hulda, a process monitored by Gush Shalom. The soft  drinks company “Tempo” which holds ownership of the Barkan Wineries entered into a close partnership with the large Dutch beer company “Heineken” , became part of the worldwide Heineken Group and created a new company called “Tempo Drinks” of which the Dutch Heineken holds 40%  ownership.

As is well-known, the Dutch government is firmly opposed to Israeli settlement in the Occupied Territories and therefore was far from happy about a close partnership between a Dutch company and one based at a settlement. Moreover, continued links with a settlement company might have exposed the Heineken Company to considerable criticism in the Dutch public opinion and to a boycott campaign, in the Netherlands themselves as well as in other countries.

The Gush Shalom monitoring indicated that the Barkan Wineries were systematically reducing their activity at the Barkan settlement – moving the wine production to Kibbutz Hulda, within The Green Line (Israel’s pre-’67 border)  and leaving only warehouses at Barkan. By the end of 2007, the warehouses were moved away, too, and the winery’s lease on the Barkan premises terminated.

The company directors’ report to their stockholders stated: “In the past, the location of the company’s winery  at the Barkan area caused a negative image and made difficult the exporting of the Barkan brands. The company is acting to change this image, especially in light of moving production activity to Kibutz Hulda. (…) Due to severe limitation caused by the size of the Barkan location, as well as due to problems connected with operating a winery beyond the Green Line, the company decided to remove the winery from the Barkan Industrial Zone and relocate it to the Hulda site”.

Nevertheless, while the Barkan Wineries have completely cut off any association with West Bank settlement ativity, the company - which owns many vineyards in various locations -  still owns a vineyard at  Avney Ethan on the occupied Golan Heights. Therefore, the Gush Shalom Boycott Committee decided, for the time being, to retain the company on its boycott list. “Since this is one vineyard out of many owned by this company, and since its general trend of dissociation from  settlement activity is very clear, we hope that this last connection would be presently severed. We could then wholeheartedly remove the company from our boycott list.

We have no problem with their retaining ‘Barkan’ as a brand name, as long as they have completely disconnected themselves from the Occupied Territories themselves – which has not yet taken place completely” says the Gush Shalom Movement.

Contact: Adam Keller 03-5565804 or 0506-709603

Gush Shalom settlement products boycott list
 http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/camp…

Miliband rallies ‘coalition against Russian aggression’ {starts with talks in the Ukraine.}
PA, Wednesday, 27 August 2008, The Independent.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/…
Related Articles:
Ukraine condemns Russian move on Georgian regions.
Russian relations with West reach new low.
EU condemns Russia move on Georgia regions.
***

David Miliband will make a keynote speech in Ukraine today strongly condemning Russia’s decision to formally recognise two breakaway regions of Georgia.

He said the West would have to “understand the reason behind” the decision to recognise the regions if it wanted to preserve good relations with Russia.

***

Mr Miliband said Russia’s recognition of the two regions was “unjustifiable and unacceptable” and further inflamed an already tense situation in the region.

“It will also not work,” he said in a statement yesterday. “It is contrary to the principles of the peace agreement, which Russia recently agreed, and to recent Russian statements.

“It takes no account of the views of the hundreds of thousands of Georgians and others who have been forced to abandon their homes in the two territories.”

France, which currently holds the EU presidency, has called an emergency meeting of EU leaders on Monday to review the relationship between Russia and Europe.

***

Mr Medvedev has warned that he was considering halting co-operation with Nato altogether, amid the fallout from the one-sided military confrontation between Russia and Georgia earlier this month.

He said: “We will have to react somehow, to react, of course, in a military way.”

EU - save Ukraine from Russia, The European Foreign Policy Council (ECFR) NGO says.

Philippa Runner, from Brussels for the EUobserver, August 25, 2008.

The European Union should formally recognise Ukraine’s right to join the EU and offer it a “solidarity clause” to help prevent Russia from undermining Kiev’s pro-democratic government in the wake of the Georgia conflict, a European foreign affairs think-tank has said.

“The next focal point for security tensions - although not for war - might be Ukraine,” the European Foreign Policy Council (ECFR) warned in a flash report on Monday (25 August), urging Brussels to make a strong show of friendship with Ukraine at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting on 5 September and the EU-Ukraine summit on 9 September.

Russian cruiser - the Black Sea fleet has been stationed in Crimea since 1783.

In the “mid-term,” the ECFR advised the EU to make a political declaration endorsing Ukraine’s EU perspective, draft a road-map for a visa-free travel deal, and help Ukraine to ready itself for NATO membership and the ejection of Russia’s Black Sea fleet from its old home in Crimea.

 www.SustainabiliTank.info thinks this is a very raw idea - not even half backed. We have seen Sevastopol and neighboring towns and waters. They are filled with old and newer Russian warships and the people in the towns are mainly Russian. Talking of the people - also in the Eastern part of Ukraine most people are Russian transplants, they speak Russian and feel they want to be part of Russia. We said this many times - to save Ukraine from Russia, the solution is an amicable divorce - so the best the EU could do is to advise the Ukraine to go for their own good to a marriage/divorce councillor and promise them the EU membership if they agree to severance from some of the heavily Russian territories. Surely, the EU can say to the Russian Prime-Minister that moving in with force will be dealt with in economic terms, but we all know that if ,and when, these statements are put to test, the EU will not go to war because of the Ukraine. Further, in the Ukraine case there is not even an argument like we had for Ossetia, where we said that if one opts for independence - this should lead to an Ossetia State that includes both - South and North Ossetia. There is no similar condition in the case of The Ukraine.}
A new bilateral EU-Ukraine treaty - currently under negotiation - should also legally oblige the EU to “consult and assist Ukraine in case of challenges to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.”

The ECFR study sees Russia’s assault on Georgia as part of a wider plan to rebuild the old Soviet sphere of influence, noting that some pro-Kremlin analysts such as Sergei Markov recently floated the idea of a Russia-led “East European Union,” which would mimic EU integration and include countries such as Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

“What matters here is Russia’s drive to become the centre (and the sheriff) of a pole of influence in a multi-polar world and a bipolar Europe,” the ECFR said.

***

Tensions flare:

Russia-Ukraine tensions flared in recent weeks after Moscow accused Kiev of supplying arms to Georgia, and Kiev tried to limit Russia’s use of its Crimea-stationed warships against Georgia.

Inside Ukraine, pro-western President Viktor Yushchenko’s senior aide, Andriy Kyslynskiy, last week accused Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of striking a secret deal with the Kremlin in return for Russia’s support when she runs in the next Ukrainian presidential elections in 2010.

Mr Kyslynskiy also said political “interference” by pro-Kremlin elements in the Ukrainian establishment has reached levels unseen since the run-up to the 2004 Orange Revolution, adding that Russian intelligence is funding and steering Crimean separatist groups.

Some 60 percent of the 2 million people who live in Crimea are ethnically Russian, hundreds of thousands of whom secretly hold Russian passports, the ECFR says.

Crimea was historically Russian and has been home to the Black Sea fleet since 1783. It became part of Ukraine when Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, with the Russian fleet set to leave by 2017 under a bilateral deal.

In the wider Ukraine, about 25 percent of the 50 million-strong population are Russophone, most of whom live in the east of the country and many of whom oppose Ukraine’s integration with NATO and the EU.

***

Warning shots already fired:

On 22 August, some 2,500 people held an anti-Georgia rally in the eastern Ukrainian town of Donetsk. The same day, 50 people in Simferopol in Crimea called for the peninsula to rejoin Russia, with the crowd nonetheless gaining coverage in Russian state media.

In late July, anti-NATO protestors in Crimea threw stones at Ukrainian police, who fired warning shots in the air. A second group used small boats to try and block NATO warships leave the port of Odessa to take part in a naval drill.

“[Russia] is likely to play on deep rifts within Ukraine on the ‘Russia question’ to try and influence the country’s future,” the ECFR said. “[The EU] must demonstrate that an escalation of tensions in the post-Soviet space will be met with more, not less, engagement in the Eastern neighbourhood.”

——————–

Georgian rebels in Abkhazia seek greater EU recognition.
LEIGH PHILLIPS, 25.08.2008, EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS.

Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea - is a once a popular holiday spot for Russian elite.

The Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia is keen to get EU recognition as an independent country, after the Russian parliament passed a resolution urging the Russian president to endorse Georgian rebels’ ambitions of statehood.

“We are not interested in only Russia recognising us,” Abkhaz deputy foreign minister, Maxim Gunjia, told EUobserver on Monday (25 August), adding that he expects Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to shortly back the pro-independence vote by Russian MPs.

“We want the European Union and all states to recognise our independence. This is a very positive moment for the EU - it could follow Russia’s example and also recognise Abkhazia. It is the only way to preserve stability and peace in the region.”

“We recognise that full recognition is a very big demand of Abkhazia for the EU at the moment,” Mr Gunja added, indicating that Abkhazia would also be interested in other ways of increasing its presence on the international stage.

“The EU could instead give a voice to Abkhazia in various European forums and institutions,” he said. “Only Georgia is invited to such forums while discussing the Caucasus, which is why the information the EU is receiving is biased, and why the conflict became possible.”

***

The lower house and the upper house of the Russian parliament on Monday both unanimously voted through a resolution urging Mr Medvedev to recognise Abkhazia and a second Georgian rebel territory, South Ossetia, as independent states.

The resolution has a largely symbolic value so far, as the legal decision resides solely with the Russian president, with some western experts doubting the Kremlin will follow through.

“The game is completely open, but it would be much more reasonable for Medvedev not to do so. If he doesn’t, he holds onto a very powerful bargaining chip with regards to the EU and US, and Georgia itself,” conflict prevention think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG), analyst, Alain Deletroz, said.

“If he wants to turn a military victory into a diplomatic victory, he will not recognise [the rebel enclaves], because it will then become extremely difficult for the EU to keep an open dialogue with Moscow,” Mr Deletroz explained. “What Russia wanted was a division within NATO. If they go too far, they will only achieve the opposite - a unification within the alliance.”

***

The China angle:

“Even for the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation [the China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan security alliance], recognition would create problems. For the same reasons that China was not happy with the West’s recognition of Kosovo, Beijing would also not be happy with Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” the ICG expert added, pointing to China’s discomfort over its own separatist problems, such as Taiwan.

The European Commission was reluctant to issue any reaction to the Russian parliamentary vote ahead of next week’s extraordinary summit on EU-Russia relations, but the EU has repeatedly said it supports Georgia’s “territorial integrity.”

“The debate is ongoing in Russia, and we will not react as long as the debate is ongoing,” European Commission spokesperson, Ton Van Lierop, told reporters in Brussels.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Tbilisi in civil wars in the 1990s, setting up de facto states with their own mini-parliaments and paramilitary forces within Georgia’s internationally-recognised borders during a tense, 15-year long ceasefire that erupted into open conflict on 7 August.

Tbilisi has accused Russia of giving the rebels financial and political backing, as well as arms, in order to keep NATO and EU-aspirant Georgia divided. It also accuses the separatist and Russian forces of “ethnic cleansing” in pushing out the last remaining ethnic Georgians from the two territories during the recent war.

———————-

UNDP Releases Information on a UN Angle:

Please see - http://www.innercitypress.com/undp1georg…

It seems that Inner City Press came up with information, acknowledged by UNDP, that together with the George Soros Open Society International, and the Swedish Government, there was a very modest supplemental funding of Georgian officials, including the President, to make it possible for them to run a rather non-corrupt government in the National interest of Georgia, and perhaps also in the interest of the oil buyers of the West.

Above link leads to an article that starts:

UN’s Engagement with Saakashvili Included $1500 a Month, Soros and Sweden Also Paid.

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, August 25 — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was paid $1500 a month by the UN Development Program earlier this decade, on top of his official presidential salary, UNDP has told Inner City Press. UNDP says the goals of these payments, in which the Swedish government and financier George Soros joined, were to allow the Georgian “government to recruit the staff it needed and also to help remove incentives for corruption.”

  While receiving these $1500 monthly payment, Saakashvili committed to increase tax collection in Georgia. Deals were signed with , among others, British Petroleum, for the Baku - Tbilisi - Ceyhan oil pipeline. UNDP, and presumably its two co-funders, applauded this development.

——-

This last article mentions also the old UNDP problem with having helped with injecting hard currency to North Korea that, as the claim goes, has helped them finance the acquisition of nuclear know-how. So, UNDP is a tool for covert actions and not just a victim of side effects in what they consider to be development work? In the tape attached to the article, Matthew Russell Lee points out at the unevenness of the way, North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe were dealt with, and surfaces the idea that the treatment is in relation to the interest of internal politics in the US. So back to our posting, how will the UN be used in the case of the Ukraine - which is rather more of an EU then a US problem?

In Ten Years, Russia Has Gone From Bankruptcy to Material Affluence.

Yves Bourdillon, Les Échos, Monday August 18, 2008.

“Today, it’s difficult to hire someone in Moscow for less than a thousand dollars a month. The advance of material affluence hits you in the face and is not limited to nouveaux riches.”

In default on its payments ten years ago, Russia has spectacularly rectified its financial situation thanks to shrewd economic and fiscal policies and the flare-up of oil prices. Six to nine percent growth, depending on the year, has allowed Russia to rank 13th globally in Gross Domestic Product.

The Russia that we see so sure of itself economically as well as militarily and politically no longer has anything to do with the humiliated and financially ruined power of exactly ten years ago to the day.

August 17, 1998, the crisis in public finances that had been brewing for months pushed the Russian government to simultaneously devalue the ruble and declare itself in payment default on its Treasury bonds (GKO). An unprecedented double decision that cost international investors 100 billion dollars and Russia’s middle class most of their savings.

The local financial system was paralyzed; households sometimes had to resort to barter to survive; shortages in essential products resurfaced while food prices increased two to three times in a few weeks. The ruble’s 80 percent drop reduced even average salaries to an absurd … 60 dollars a month.

***

Recovery:

Today, it’s difficult to hire someone in Moscow for less than a thousand dollars a month. The advance of material affluence hits you in the face and is not limited to nouveaux riches. Russians are renovating their apartments, traveling, increasing consumer loans and have made their country Europe’s premier automobile market.

Six to nine percent growth depending on the year, has allowed Russia to rank 13th globally in Gross Domestic Product.

The country now enjoys the planet’s third largest foreign exchange reserves and clears the world’s third largest trade surplus.

The ruble, which everyone once fled, is freely convertible since July 2006, and has strengthened 60 percent against the dollar in ten years.

Finally, this country which in 2000 still struggled to service its public debt - then 150 percent of GDP - is now virtually debt-free (8.5 percent of GDP).

In 2005 and 2006, Russia prepaid the totality of its loans from Club of Paris governments, as well as the private debt held by the Club of London, as well as its debt to the International Monetary Fund which had lent it 4.8 billion dollars during the crisis.

Inflation, which had reached 90 percent in 1998, fell back to 14 percent this year.

How to explain such a spectacular recovery?

Beyond the short-term boost of the ruble’s devaluation, the Russian authorities conducted a very effective macroeconomic policy.

Rejecting Keynesian recovery measures, Moscow established a free market fiscal reform of the flat tax variety that had the immense virtue of prompting the underground economy to regularize itself. In consequence, the ridiculous tax receipts which had forced the government to resort to the GKO which carried the seed of the 1998 crisis, improved spectacularly, to the point that Russia now regularly clears a budget surplus before debt service equal to five percent of GDP.

***

Prudent Management:

The central bank’s prudent management has been universally hailed and the foreign exchange receipts supplied by hydrocarbon sales, which could have revived inflation, have been skillfully sterilized in a stabilization fund or devoted to infrastructure spending.

Also, Vladimir Putin launched a series of reforms at the beginning of his first term between 2000 and 2002 (new civil, work, trade and land codes) that put Russia back on track.

The country has also been helped by a “slight” stroke of luck: In 1998, oil - which supplies half the government’s revenues and two-thirds of its exports at present - was listed at 17 dollars a barrel. One sixth of today’s price.

——–

Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

——————===============—————

Russian Jerks Meet Western Knee-Jerks, writes Steve Weissman for truthout/perspective
Monday, 25 August 25, 2008.

 http://www.truthout.org/article/russian-…

The photo shows: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and US General John Craddock, head of the US European Command, after a press conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, on August 21, 2008.

The Russians can be real jerks, but they are not the only ones dragging us into a cold war redo. Blockheads on all sides are bringing back the risk of all-out nuclear conflict, along with a new arms race and the thrusting of American power from the Russian borderlands to wherever we see a Russian proxy. Even if Barack Obama and Joe Biden manage to