The Auschwitz Album

This Album memorializes the arrival of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in May of 1944.

It is the only one of its kind, and it is solely due to this album that we have a visual history of what occurred in the Auschwitz-Birchenau death camp.

The album was discovered after the war by an Auschwitz survivor, Lily Jacob, who donated it to Yad Vashem in 1980.

Is there any hope for the EU to be part of a G3 global leadership? The EU destroyers come from the inside from those that do not want to give up temporary powers – that is for all to see.

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EU presidency trio of next three rotating EU Presidents – Spain, Belgium, Hungary – lays claim to political power and raises new objections to a strong full time effective EU President as envisioned by the Lisbon treaty. A specially pathetic case in our opinion in this respect is Belgium.
HONOR MAHONY of EUobserver writes: “EU presidency trio lays claim to political power.”

November 3, 2009 http://euobserver.com/9/28917/?rk=1

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Leaders of the countries next in line to take on the day-to-day running of the European Union have made it clear that they do not wish to be sidelined by any future EU president.

Gathered in Brussels last week to present a common logo for 18 months of co-operation beginning in January, the prime ministers of Spain, Belgium and Hungary were keen to emphasize the importance of “institutional balance” – an oblique way of saying they do not wish to get elbowed out of the political picture by a powerful new president of the European Council, a post created by the almost-ratified Lisbon Treaty.

“The future of Europe does not depend on one person …the future of Europe depends on institutions,” said Belgian leader Herman Van Rompuy.

His Hungarian counterpart Gordon Bajnai said “more time” is needed to “decide the role of the president and his relation to the rotating president.” He also said that one of the three prerequisites for the future president should be that the person “is someone who is ready to live with the already existing institutions of Europe.”

With the Lisbon Treaty now likely to come into place within the coming few months, focus has turned to the uncertainties contained in the document.

One of these includes how the six-month rotating presidencies and the national leaders of the moment will rub along with the permanent president.

While the president, who can hold office for up to five years, is supposed to drive forward the political agenda of the EU through the regular meetings of EU leaders, the rotating presidency will manage the daily policy-making including chairing monthly ministerial meetings in all areas, bar foreign policy. The set-up, with its undefined hierarchy, could lead to damaging turf wars.

The problem of the proliferation of chiefs with potentially overlapping job descriptions under the Lisbon Treaty – it also introduces a beefed up foreign policy post – has practical implications too, such as who will take part in EU summits with third countries. EU attendance at these events is often a crowded affair, a problem the union’s new set of rules is supposed to fix.

Who will be the first president of the European Council is still unclear, with member states unsure about whether they want a powerful global figure, or someone with a more administrative job description. The EU parliament will discuss the role of the new president on 11 November, while the appointment itself is expected to be decided at an extraordinary summit later this month.

The type of person who gets the job is set to strongly influence how the EU will make a go of the new Lisbon Treaty system – a fact acknowledged by the Hungarian leader.

Mr Bajnai said it was the three countries’ “noble task” to “prove it is a better solution.”

Spain, which is likely to be the first country to operate a presidency under the Lisbon Treaty beginning on 1 January, will face the challenge of setting the terms for how successive countries manage the relationship between the national leader and the EU president.

A still greater challenge to the system is likely to come when one of the most powerful EU countries, Britain, France or Germany hold the rotating presidency. But this is not foreseen until 2017.

I thought you might be interested to know that George Soros is delivering a series of lectures in Budapest at Central European University starting yesterday, October 26th.

In the lectures, Soros discusses his philosophical theories in general and specifically as they pertain to the economic crisis, regulatory reform, finance, politics, open society, and a host of other subjects.

Monday, October 26 – General Theory of Reflexivity Tuesday, October 27 – Financial Markets Wednesday, October 28 – Open Society Thursday, October 29 – Capitalism versus Open Society Friday, October 30 – China and the Way Ahead.

Videos and transcripts posted at www.ft.com each evening after the event.
from:  Michael Vachon

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Further: See :

//search.ft.com/search?queryText=Soros&x=15&y=5&aje=true&dse=&dsz=

George Soros has material for the public daily this week. His intent is to make us aware of the need not to ignore the need for financial reform – and there is no person better then him to tell us so. He did benefit from the Wall Street self serving rules and now wants the world to extricate itself from the situation that the rules are so that the actual result is a planned distribution of gifts to the Wall Street office holders – the State is to be blamed for having allowed this to happen.

Soros to invest $50m in institute to re-think economics
George Soros, the fund manager, has pledged $50m to back a new think-tank…Anatole Kaletsky and John Kay, a Financial Times columnist. Mr Soros is pledging $5m a year for 10 years.Mr Soros, who has long been a critic of economic “fundamentalism…
Oct 27 2009, By Alan Rappeport in New York, FT.com site

Transcript: Soros on the Institute of New Economic Thinking
…Freeland, US managing editor, interviewed George Soros, the fund manager, about the new Institute…George SorosCF Thank you for joining us, MrSoros.GS It’s a pleasureCFDo you think that this…listening to them. CF Thank you very much, Mr Soros.
Oct 27 2009, FT.com site

Soros: General Theory of Reflexivity
In the course of my life, I have developed a conceptual framework which has helped me both to make money as a hedge fund
Oct 26 2009, FT.com site

Do not ignore the need for financial reform
…second phase, when the money supply needs to be brought under control and carefully phased in so as not to disrupt recovery. But we cannot afford to forget about it.The writer is chairman of Soros Fund Management and author of The Crash of 2008
Oct 25 2009, By George Soros, FT.com site

Soros says Wall St’s ‘hidden gifts’ should not be used for bonuses
…of such companies is “justified”, George Soros, the fund manager, said in an interview…not the achievement of risk-takers,” Mr Soros said. “These are gifts, hidden gifts, from…resentment which I think is justified.”Mr Soros, who joins a transatlantic chorus calling…
Oct 24 2009, By Chrystia Freeland in New York, Financial Times

Soros calls Wall St profits ‘gifts’ from state…of such companies is “justified”, George Soros, the fund manager, said in an interview…not the achievement of risk-takers,” Mr Soros said. “These are gifts, hidden gifts, from…resentment which I think is justified.”Mr Soros, who joins a transatlantic chorus calling… Oct 23 2009, By Chrystia Freeland in New York, FT.com site

Transcript: George Soros interview…US managing editor, interviewed George Soros, the fund manager, about the state of the…interview.FT: Thank you for joining us, Mr Soros.GS: It’s a pleasure.FT: How do you judge…in this conversation, he might argue, MrSoros, that you’re talking your own book and…  Oct 23 2009, FT.com site

Soros to invest in clean energy
George Soros, the billionaire investor, philanthropist…on his expertise in all three arenas.Mr Soros plans to invest as much as $1bn in clean-energy…will necessary to solve the problem.”Mr Soros said he would provide the organisation…
Oct 12 2009, By Justin Baer, Financial Time.

Soros to invest $1bn in green technology
George Soros, the billionaire investor, philanthropist…on his expertise in all three arenas.Mr Soros announced on Saturday plans to invest as…Syndicate, a newspaper editors’ group, Mr Soros said he would “apply stringent conditions…
Oct 11 2009, By Justin Baer in New York, FT.com site

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With the US Dollar now Hovering around $1.50 t0 the Euro, and since the beginning of 2009, the Brazilian Real having appreciated by 25.1%, the Australian Dollar by 22.2%, the New Zealand Dollar by 21.6%, the South African Rand by 19.3%, the Norway Krone by 19.0%,the Chilean Peso by 16.3%, the Uruguayan Peso by 16.0%, the Colombian Peso by 13.2%, the Indonesian Rupian by 13.0%, the Canada Dollar, the Sweden Krona, the UK pound all well above 10%, even the Czech Koruna at 8.8% and the Peruvian New Sol is at 7.9%, with the Euro and the remaining European currencies, including Russia, are in between 4-5%, what future is there for the US economy? Will it have to attempt to continue running to the bottom in order to compete at least against China and Japan, or will there be an era of listening to George?

Turkey Gets Boost from Pipeline Politics.

by Helena Cobban

WASHINGTON, Jul 19 (IPS) – The political geography of the modern Middle East has been affected for one hundred years by the appetite of westerners and other outsiders for the region’s hydrocarbons. Last week, the region’s “pipeline politics” took another step forward with the signing in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, of an agreement to build a new, 3,300-kilometre gas pipeline called Nabucco, running between eastern Turkey and Vienna, Austria.

The project underlines the new influential role that Turkey, a majority Muslim nation of 72 million people, is playing in the Middle East, and far beyond. The new project’s name was chosen, Austrian officials said, after the Verdi opera that representatives of the five participating countries – who include Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, along with the two terminus states – saw together during an earlier round of negotiations in Vienna.

But the name also gives clues to two intriguing aspects of the project’s geopolitical significance. The theme of the opera is the liberation from bondage of slaves held by the ancient Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (‘Nabucco’) – and it is a widely discussed feature of the Nabucco project that many European nations want access to a gas source that is not under the control of Russia. Last winter, several European nations suffered severe gas shortages after Russia, locked in a tariff dispute with transit-country Ukraine, closed off the spigots completely.

But the other implication of the name is more strictly Middle Eastern. The modern-day home of Nebuchadnezzar is Iraq. Washington has given strong support to the Nabucco project – and one of the reasons U.S. officials give for this support is their hope that once Nabucco is up and running in 2015, Iraq can be one of the nations that reaps large profits by feeding gas into it. However, construction of the pipeline is estimated to cost some eight billion dollars, and many officials in the participating countries are still unclear where they will get enough gas to make it economically viable.

The Nabucco participants had been hoping that a key feeder state would be one of Turkey’s eastern neighbours, Azerbaijan. But on the eve of the project’s inauguration in Ankara, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took the CEO of the vast Russian gas company Gazprom to Azerbaijan, where they signed a contract with the state gas company that will force Nabucco to compete hard against Gazprom for any purchase it wants to make from Azerbaijan. One fairly evident other source for Nabucco’s would be Iran, which is reported to have considerable amounts of new gas coming online in the next five years.

EU turns blind eye to corruption in eastern gas trade
Andrew Rettman, The EUobserver, June 6, 2006

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The EU is sending a “fact-finding” mission to Ukraine to see if its financial troubles could lead to a new gas crisis. But it is wary of tackling deeper problems of politics and corruption in the eastern gas trade, which also threaten EU energy security. The team of senior European Commission officials will travel to Kiev “in the coming days” and produce a report in time for a regular summit of EU leaders in Brussels on 18 June.


The move comes after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine is unable to pay for Russian gas and will probably start stealing EU-bound transit volumes, unless the EU loans it billions of euros.

Ukraine’s state-owned gas distributor, Naftogaz, has poor cashflow and often avoids public audits. But Ukraine sees the Putin statements as part of a propaganda war to damage its reputation and increase political support for new Russian pipelines bypassing the country. The dispute over Naftogaz’ reliability is just one aspect of a major shake-up in the Russia-Ukraine gas business.

Mr Putin and Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are at the same time trying to strong-arm Ukraine gas tycoon Dmitry Firtash, in developments which highlight the links between politics, gas and organised crime in the region.

A Putin-Tymoshenko deal in January ended the role of RosUkrEnergo (RUE), in which Mr Firtash controls a 50 percent stake, in selling Turkmenistan gas to Ukraine. Naftogaz in March also seized €3 billion of RUE gas stocks.

A little-known, Swiss-based firm called RosGas in May took ownership of Mr Firtash’s Hungarian gas supply company, Emfesz, in a transaction that Mr Firtash has called “illegal” and is fighting in the Swiss courts. It is unclear who owns RosGas. But Emfesz has said it belongs to the Putin-controlled Russian firm Gazprom.

The events have already affected European interests. RUE’s problems have seen it cut deliveries to EU states Poland and Hungary. The Emfesz takeover means 20 percent of Hungary’s gas supply is now in unknown hands.

The Putin-Tymoshenko attack on Mr Firtash could be designed to hurt Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, and reformist presidential candidate, Arsenyi Yatsenyuk. Mr Firtash is widely reported to have given financial support to Mr Yushchenko. The Firtash-linked TV station, Inter, has given Mr Yatsenyuk lots of good publicity.

The gas shake-up may have begun back in May 2008 with Moscow’s arrest on tax fraud charges of alleged mafia boss Semion Mogilevich.

Mr Mogilevich is connected to big names in the gas trade. In one example, his lawyer and ex-wife were involved in two Firtash companies. Mogilevich associates have also worked with Oleg Palchykov, a friend of Mr Firtash and a former co-director of RUE together with Konstantin Chuichenko, now a senior aide of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Analysts, such as Roman Kupchinsky from the US-based NGO Jamestown, believe that Mr Mogilevich helped Mr Firtash get started in the gas trade and used to give him protection. One way of looking at the Russia-Ukraine gas wars is not in terms of international commerce or geopolitics, but of one criminal clan muscling in on its rival.

“People can see that Firtash is a dead fish, so they are taking little bites out of him,” one Brussels-based diplomat said on the Emfesz takeover.

See no evil, hear no evil

Mr Firtash, who denies having any business relations with Mr Mogilevich or paying Mr Yushchenko, is trying to engage EU support.

One of Mr Firtash’s employees, Robert Shetler-Jones, last year donated around €57,000 to the British Conservative party.

Mr Firtash’s small, Brussels-based public affairs firm, Macmillan, compares him to “Mazeppa” – a seventeenth century Ukrainian patriot betrayed by a fellow nobleman and forced to flee the country, leading to decades of domination by Russia.

A middleman claiming to represent Mr Firtash has also approached the Brussels offices of two large international PR firms in recent weeks.

The European Commission has so far turned a deaf ear. In March, EU officials said they were “closely monitoring” Naftogaz’ seizure of RUE’s gas – “closely monitoring” is a typical commission “holding statement” when it does not have a real position.

The June fact-finding mission will not ask questions about Emfesz.

“From our point of view, the takeover of Emfesz has to be done in full respect of internal market rules. If there is any suspicion this is not the case, there should be a notification by one of the parties. At this stage we have not received any such notification,” a commission spokesman said.

———–

Concrete steps:

UK-based NGO Global Witness, which is no fan of Mr Firtash, in March wrote to commission president Jose Manuel Barroso urging him to root out corruption in the sector by forcing all energy companies active in the EU to disclose their ownership structure and any payments they make to governments.

A director from the commission’s energy department, Marjeta Jager, replied to say that the issue is being taken care of by the EU’s “political support” for the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI).

The EITI, a global project launched in 2002 by former UK leader Tony Blair, so far counts just one country, Azerbaijan, as fully compliant with its charter.

“The European Commission has failed to recognise the danger these companies [RUE, RosGas or other alleged Gazprom offshoots] present to the energy security of the EU and has not made any attempt to convince member states to investigate the role these companies play in the supply chain,” Jamestown’s Mr Kupchinsky s

 UNSG Ban Ki-moon and Diplomats accredited to the UN came Saturday January 24, 2009, to Park East Synagogue in New York City for a Holocaust Remembrance Day Service.

In November 1, 2005, 60 years since the creation of the UN in the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust, the UN decided to designate January 27 as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. This year will be thus   thus the fourth year of such a   Commemoration and it will be held at the UN next week, while some at the UN will try to connect   these memorial events by holding parallel activities targeting the State of Israel for the recent invasion of the Gaza Strip and for the essence of its existence. As one example of this cloud over the UN, we posted   – www.SustainabiliTank.info posted:   http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2009/01….

With above in mind, nevertheless, the Park East Synagogue community, in the presence of Holocaust survivors, was proud to host the UNSG, four more UN officials, and the Diplomats that showed up – including the Diplomats from six European countries on whose territory the Holocaust was committed – Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Italy. The Ambassador to the UN from Rwanda, a non-Muslim African country came as he knows the impact of genocide from his own country’s experience. Also present were diplomats from Australia, Israel and the United States, and from the Latin American countries – Argentina, Costa Rica, and Mexico. Thus,14 countries out of the 192 Representations to the UN, showed up at this memorial service, but then, thinking of the WWII differences – seeing Germany, Russia, Israel, and the US sitting side by side, in the presence of survivors, and honoring the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in the presence of the UNSG, means that change is possible. Albeit, change through the UN maybe still very far off. There a great number of members may still take the position that Jews are not entitled to sit in the same bus with them, and when the issue is the Holocaust they will try to muddle it with “The question of Palestine.” January 26-27, 2009 will be just this sort of UN days. So what?

From:          vorsatzd at ceu.hu
Subject:       Call for applications: PhD in sustainable energy and climatechange at the Central European University
Date:       November 13, 2008 1:54:07 PM EST
Reply-To:          vorsatzd at ceu.hu

Central European University is pleased to announce its Call for Applications for the academic year 2009/2010.

Central European University was founded in 1991 with the explicit aim
of helping the process of transition from dictatorship to democracy in the countries of
Central and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. While the university remains committed to its
original aims of nurturing respect for diverse cultures and opinions, human rights, and of
promoting the values of the Open Society, we now cast our web wider to include other parts of the
world in our social mission. With candidates from 125 countries, and students from 80
countries, CEU creates a uniquely international atmosphere, without any national predominance.
CEU is dedicated to providing personal attention for every student. In addition to the
highest academic standards, the university is further committed to a student-centered, in-depth
learning experience placing personal growth and intellectual development high on its agenda.
CEU*s student to faculty ratio is 7:1.

The CEU’s Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy
(www.ceu.hu/envsci) invites applications in the area of, among
others, climate change and sustainable energy.   PhD students in these
areas have an opportunity to work on research projects and global
initiatives, such as the Global Energy Assessment
 www.globalenergyassessment.org), together with the Center for
Climate Change and Sustainable Energy (3CSEP, see 3csep.ceu.hu ).

Financial Aid and Tuition
CEU has a comprehensive series of financial aid packages, ranging from
the Full and Partial
Fellowship awards to tuition waivers. We offer these packages,
including assistance with
medical insurance and accommodation, to the majority of our students.

For more information, see:
 http://www.ceu.hu/admissions/financialai…

Application Deadlines

* January 26, 2009: For applicants to all degree programs wishing/required to take CEU-administered admissions
examinations and/or requesting exemption from the English language proficiency
requirement.
* March 16, 2009: For applicants to all degree programs submitting applications complete with language test scores
and other applicable test scores.

Applying to CEU
To apply, please use CEU*s on-line application form. Instructions can
be found at:
 http://www.ceu.hu/admissions/apply

Diana Urge-Vorsatz, PhD
Professor and Director
Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Policy (3CSEP)
Central European University
H-1051 Budapest Nador utca 9.
Ph:   +36-1-327-3021
Fax: +36-1-327-3031
 http://3csep.ceu.hu/

 vorsatzd at ceu.hu

New Fascism Hunts Roma.
David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Nov 13 (IPS) – A political ideology based on the desire to exterminate Roma gypsies is emerging in parts of Europe, a Brussels conference has been told. Following a number of violent attacks on Roma by skinheads and other extremists in Bulgaria, it was announced during August 2007 that the far-right National Guard party was being established. The ‘anti-gypsyism’ advocated by its leader Vladimir Rasate could be compared to the anti-Semitism that helped bring the Nazis to power in 1930s Germany, according to Michael Stewart, professor of anthropology at University College London. “With the National Guard party, the disposing of the Roma is seen as a basis for national renewal,” said Stewart, who has worked extensively with Roma communities in former communist countries. “This is a new phenomenon in Europe that has not existed before. It is a real danger.” Stewart’s comments, delivered to a hearing in the European Parliament Nov. 13, echo the findings of a recent report on hate crime against Roma by Human Rights First. The New York-based organisation stated that for Roma in some countries “the newly virulent anti-gypsyism is an eerie reminder of the Porrajmos, the Romany Holocaust during the Second World War that killed more than half of Europe’s Roma population. “When senior European political leaders publicly discuss ’solutions’ to the ‘Roma problem’, advocating the use of dynamite, electrified fences, mug shots, fingerprinting of men, women and children, and deportations, historical parallels inadvertently come to mind.” The hostility against Roma has been particularly acute in Italy, where parties in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling coalition have openly tried to portray all Roma as criminals. In May, the Italian government introduced a ’security package’ which provided for the dismantling of Roma camps and the automatic deportation of migrants who cannot prove they have regular employment.

Discrimination against Roma in Italy is “unrivalled by any other country in Europe,” said Monica Rossi, researcher at the University of Rome, explaining that Roma are denied the official status of a minority and are unable to claim Italian citizenship. Programmes ostensibly aimed at allowing Roma children go to school have failed, she said. “After 40 years of having schooling projects, we have got 20 underage Roma who are in secondary schools. That is out of a population of 15,000 people.”

Graziano Halilovic from Xoraxane Rrom, Italy’s Roma federation, described the conditions in the camps where his people live as “pretty extreme”.

“It’s a shame for the Italian nation to allow Roma to live in such conditions,” he added. “What’s even worse is that Italy is a part of the European Union. Italy’s shame can readily become the shame of the European Union.”

During September, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, hosted a Roma summit, which heard calls for the development of an EU strategy on Roma inclusion. Estimated to comprise between 12 and 15 million people, the Roma are frequently described as the largest ethnic minority in Europe, up to nine million of which live within the EU’s 27 countries.

Valeriu Nicolae, secretary-general of the European Roma Grassroots Organisation, said Roma are not properly consulted when policies affecting them are being formulated. “The main body dealing with Roma issues in the European Union — which is the European Commission — does not employ any Roma or any Roma policy expert,” he said.

Jan Jarab, a Commission official dealing with social policy, said the EU’s executive is willing to increase its efforts to ease the plight of the Roma. But it is reluctant, he added, to simply “repackage” previously introduced laws against discrimination and “put on the label ’strategy’.”

At the moment, policies in EU countries on Roma are often based on either a ‘laissez-faire’ approach or repression, he said. He cited Spain as a country where success has been registered in providing Roma with decent jobs and housing.

Marian Nedelica, a teacher in the Romanian city Craiova, said that although his country has enacted a law guaranteeing access to education, some 27 percent of Roma children do not attend school. Penalties should be introduced against school authorities that allow discrimination to occur, he argued.

Livia Jaroka, a Hungarian member of the European Parliament of Roma origin, said that her people suffer from an “extreme sub-Saharan Africa type of poverty.” Instruments to punish EU governments that fail to enforce the Union’s anti-discrimination laws are needed, she added.

Gabriela Hrabanova, an official with the Czech ministry of labour and social affairs, said that there is a “lack of coordination” between the EU’s member states on issues concerning the Roma. “In many member states, there is nothing going on at the local level, although on paper it looks like everything is great.”

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND MOVES TO BOOST UKRAINE, HUNGARY AND ICELAND.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced forthcoming loans for Hungary and Ukraine – the latter potentially receiving up to $16.5 billion – to strengthen both countries’ financial systems and ensure fiscal sustainability.

“An IMF staff mission and the Ukraine authorities have today reached agreement, subject to approval by IMF Management and the Executive Board,” said IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn yesterday.

“Ukraine has developed a comprehensive policy package designed to help the country meet the balance of payments needs created by the collapse of steel prices, and the global financial turmoil and related difficulties in Ukraine’s financial system.”

Issued under a 24-month standby arrangement, the loan will address financial sector liquidity and solvency problems.

In the case of Hungary, IMF has been working with both the country’s authorities and the European Union (EU) to outline a framework of policies that will shore up the Hungarian financial sector and ensure economic growth potential.

“A substantial financing package in support of these strong policies will be announced when the program is finalized in the next few days…the policies Hungary envisages justify an exceptional level of access to Fund resources,” said Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

The announcement follows an agreement last Friday to loan Iceland more than $2 billion over two years in support of an economic programme to help restore confidence in the Nordic country’s banking system and stabilize its currency.

Last Friday Mr. Strauss-Kahn also joined Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the meeting of the Chief Executives Board (CEB) – which brings together the heads of various UN agencies and entities, the World Bank and the IMF – where leaders discussed issues of global financial crisis, particularly their impact on the world’s poorest.

“The crisis we are seeing today will impact all countries, developed and developing, but its most serious repercussions will be felt most by those who are least responsible – the poor in developing countries,” the officials said in a joint statement after the meeting.

During the meeting, the Secretary-General told participants that “drastic measures” will be needed to resolve the financial crisis, possibly including the IMF and the world’s major central banks setting up substantial standby lines of credit so that banks in poor countries have adequate funds to draw on in an emergency.

Following the conference, Mr. Ban reiterated the UN’s position on the global financial crisis and the needs of the undeveloped world.

“All agreed that the UN has a special responsibility, the protection of the poorest and most vulnerable…We express our full commitment to the cause of economic development and will do our utmost to deal with the repercussions of this worldwide crisis,” he said.

On 15 November world leaders – including Mr. Ban – will gather in Washington for a summit to devise ways to respond to the crisis.

———

The above sounds a bit like exaggerated self-laudatory on the part of the UN – after all the IMF is beholden rather to the rich countries of the post- WWII era, and not even to the new money of the present day, newly developed or oil exporting countries.

\The simple truth is that some of the main share holders of the Bretton Woods institutions, including the IMF, are now the post global-financial crash the new poor countries that caught the poverty flue. OK, some of the perpetually poor countries, continue to be poor, but they were too poor to suffer from the recent conflagration.

Iceland did not have to be in the present hole, Hungary for sure, and the Ukraine maybe, could also have avoided the present suffering.

These are not countries cared for by UNDP, so why does the UN craw about help extended to them?

IMF ready to bail out swooning Hungary – 13.10.2008

Hungary may be the first member of the European Union to be bailed out by
the International Monetary Fund since Britain was forced to take out a €3
billion loan in 1976. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International
Monetary Fund, is ready to “rapidly” step in with loans to the beleaguered
east European nation.

 http://euobserver.com/9/26923/?rk=1

******

Even as EU-Iceland relations strain, Reykjavik looks to membership – 13.10.2008

Iceland’s fisheries minister and foreign minister have said that the
country’s severe financial crisis could force them to join the European
Union. Meanwhile, analysts worry that the West’s snub of Iceland when it
turned to them cap in hand has inadvertently benefited Russian designs in
the north Atlantic

 http://euobserver.com/9/26920/?rk=1

******

This weekend, as expected, the TV was plastered with the Russians in Georgia and the Beijing Olympics.

President Bush and Secretary Condaleezza Rice said that Russia will not get away with this like it happened in Hungary.

On CNN, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the man with the Kosovo and Bosnia experience, said this was not Kosovo. The Russians were ready to stage this action already two years ago. It happened now because there was a Russian provocation and there has been indeed a real ethnic cleansing going on in Ossetia and in Abkhazia that caused many thousands of refugees pouring continuously into Georgia. The US says the number is 150,000 displaced people.

Holbrooke looks back into history and thinks of Budapest of 19956, Prag of 1966, Afghanistan of 1968 – so this is the invasion of Georgia that was executed in similar methodology.

Dmitry Simes, President of the Washington DC Nixon Center, and Rose Gottemoeller, Director of Carnegie, Moscow, agree to the above and say that the fact that this happened again at the time of the Olympics, just shows the Putin self confidence and that Putin does not worry that this will harm Russia’s Sochi Winter Olympics of 2014. That area is in fact just across the border from were fighting was going on now.

Governor Bill Richardson stressed that this is not time for high US talk, simply, “we have no leverage on Russia,” so we have to engage them and not isolate them. He knows the area, problems, has been there – all as part of his UN Ambassadorship.

Georgia was incorporated into Russia in 1801 and stayed under Russian rule for 190 years. They re-emerged as an independent state only in 1991. The Ossentians always considered themselves different from the Georgians – and also not similar to the Russians. The same goes for Abkhazia and Azaria as per Rick Stengel, editor of Time Magazine, who was this Sunday’s coordinator of the GPS program that is usually brought out by Fareed Zakaria.

So, can one ostracize Russia from world business? Will this bring about a renewal of the Cold War?

He does not think that Russia has become a revisionist State and that it is fighting for a larger Russia. His idea is that the area is specially complicated – something like the Balkans, and that there were many reasons to what went on.

———

***

Cold Friends, Wrapped in Mink and Medals.

By BILL KELLER
Published in The New York Times August 16, 2008

Writing in The Financial Times last week, Chrystia Freeland recalled Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay “The End of History?,” which trumpeted the definitive triumph of liberal democracy. The great nightmare tyrannies of last century — the Evil Empire, Red China — had been left behind by those inseparable twins, freedom and prosperity. Civilization had chosen, and it chose us.

Related
Map
Russia Marches, Neighbors Check Their Cards (The New York Times, August 17, 2008)
Specter of Arrest Deters Demonstrators in China (The New York Tines, August 14, 2008)

Chrystia Freeland’s Article: The New Age of Authoritarianism  www.ft.com August 12, 2008)

So much for that thesis. Surveying the Russian military rout of neighboring Georgia and the spectacle of China’s Olympics, Ms. Freeland, editor of The Financial Times’s American edition and a journalist who started her career covering Russia and Ukraine, proclaimed that a new Age of Authoritarianism was upon us.

If it is not yet an age, it is at least a season: Springtime for autocrats, and not just the minor-league monsters of Zimbabwe and the like, but the giant regimes that seemed so surely bound for the ash heap in 1989.

The Chinese have made their Olympics an exultant display of athletic prowess and global prestige without having to temper their impulse to suppress and control. From the dazzling locksteps of that opening ceremony, to the kowtowing international V.I.P.’s, to the carefully policed absence of protest, this was an Olympics largely free of democratic mess.

Individualism has been confined between lane markers. The pre-Olympics promises that attention would be paid to international norms of behavior went unredeemed. The New York Times’s Andrew Jacobs followed one citizen who decided to take up the government’s Olympic offer of designated protest zones for aggrieved parties who had filed the proper paperwork. Zhang Wei applied for the requisite license and was promptly arrested for “disturbing social order.” Take that, International Olympic Committee.

The striking thing about Russia’s subjugation of uppity Georgia was not the ease or audacity but the swagger of it. This was not just about a couple of obscure border enclaves, nor even, really, about Georgia. This was existential payback.

It turns out that if 1989 was an end — the end of the Wall, the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire, if not in fact the end of history — it was also a beginning.

It gave birth to a bitter resentment in the humiliated soul of Russia, and no one nursed the grudge so fiercely as Vladimir V. Putin. He watched the empire he had spied for disbanded. He endured the belittling lectures of a rich and self-righteous West. He watched the United States charm away his neighbors, invade his allies in Iraq, and, in his view, play God with the political map of Europe.

Mr. Putin is, in this sense of grievance, a man of his people, as visitors to the New York Times Web site can see in the sampling of breast-beating commentary from Russian bloggers. It is safe to assume that Mr. Putin’s already stratospheric popularity at home has grown to Phelpsian proportions, not least among the long-suffering military.

In China, 1989 was the year that a spark of liberal aspiration flickered on Tiananmen Square, and was decisively extinguished. That was another beginning, or at least a renewal: of Chinese resolve. In May of that year, in the midst of the Tiananmen euphoria, Mikhail S. Gorbachev visited Beijing, and two visions of a new communism stared each other in the face.

The protesters on the Chinese pavilion held banners welcoming Mr. Gorbachev as a champion of the greater freedom they sought. Meanwhile, the visiting Russian delegation marveled at the abundance in Chinese stores, the bounty of a policy that chose economic liberalization without political dissent.

The Chinese and Russians scorned each other’s neo-Communist models, but in some ways they have evolved toward one another. Both countries now tolerate a measure of entrepreneurship and social license, as long as neither threatens the dominion of the state. Both countries have calculated that you can buy a measure of domestic stability if you combine a little opportunity with an appeal to national pride. (The Chinese “street” felt no more sympathy for restive Tibetans than the Russian blogosphere felt for Georgia.) And both have discovered that if you are rich the world is less likely to get in your way.

President Bush was mocked from both sides for his seeming impotence. Neoconservatives were appalled by photos of President Bush sharing a laugh with Mr. Putin in Beijing while Russian armor gathered at the Georgian border. For a president who has made the export of democracy his signature doctrine, that looked to the stand-tough crowd like a “Pet Goat” moment.

Others argued that this was a crisis Mr. Bush tacitly encouraged by talking up Georgia’s rambunctious president as a friend and NATO candidate. By midweek, possibly goaded by the wailing of neoconservatives and the aggressively anti-Putin rhetoric of Senator John McCain, Mr. Bush had abruptly amped up his opprobrium and dispatched an American airlift of humanitarian aid. And by the weekend there was a cold war chill in the air.

But Mr. Bush’s predicament is not just his. The question of how to deal with these reinvigorated autocracies bedevils the Europeans and will surely rank high among the legacy issues that confound Mr. Bush’s successor.

This time it is not — or not yet — the threat of nuclear apocalypse that limits the West’s options toward our emboldened Eastern rivals. The Chinese, in fact, are acting as if they have gotten past the saber-rattling stage of emerging-power status; they lavish diplomacy on Taiwan and Japan, and deploy the might of capital instead. The Russians may be in a more adolescent, table-pounding stage of development, but Mr. Putin, too, prefers to work the economic levers, bullying with petroleum.

The United States, meanwhile, is mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, estranged from much of the world, and bled by serial economic crises.

History, it seems, is back, and not so obviously on our side.

Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, covered the last years of the Soviet Union for the newspaper.

***

——————

The New Age of Authoritarianism.
By Chrystia Freeland
Published: August 12 2008 in The Financial Times.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, democracy was on the march and we declared the End of History. Nearly two decades later, a neo-imperialist Russia is at war with Georgia, Communist China is proudly hosting the Olympics, and we find that, instead, we have entered the Age of Authoritarianism.

It is worth recalling how different we thought the future would be in the immediate, happy aftermath of the end of the cold war. Remember Francis Fukuyama’s ringing assertion: “The triumph of the west, of the western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to western liberalism.”

Even in the heady days of 1989, that declaration of universal – and possibly eternal – ideological victory seemed a little hubristic to Professor Fukuyama’s many critics. Yet his essay made such an impact because it captured the scale, and the enormous benefits, of the change sweeping through the world. Not only was the stifling Soviet – which was really the Russian – suzerainty over central and eastern Europe and central Asia coming to an end but, even more importantly, the very idea of a one-party state, ruthlessly presiding over a centrally planned economy, seemed to be discredited, if not forever, then surely for our lifetimes.

That collapse brought freedom and prosperity to millions of people who had lived under Soviet rule. Moreover, the implosion of Soviet communism inspired hundreds of millions of others around the world to embrace freer markets and demand more responsive governments. The great global economic boom of the past 20 years, which has brought more people out of poverty more quickly than at any other time in human history, would not have been possible had the Soviet way of ordering the world not been discredited first.

Yet today, in much of the world, the spread of freedom is being checked by an authoritarian revanche. That shift has been most obvious in the petro-states, where oil is casting its usual curse. From Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, the black-gold bonanza has given authoritarian regimes the currency to buy off or to repress their subjects. In Russia, oil has fuelled an economic boom that prime minister Vladimir Putin, and some of his foreign admirers, mistakenly attribute to his careful demolition of the chaotic democracy of the 1990s.

For Russians, that argument is strengthened by the fact that the rising economic power of the moment – China – is unashamedly sticking to its faith in one-party rule. The end of the cold war made it tempting to believe that as countries opened up their markets, and became richer in the process, they would inevitably open up their societies, too. George W. Bush, US president, reiterated that hopeful thesis on his Asia tour last week, insisting: “Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas.”

But the Chinese mandarins and the Russian siloviki are taking a different view – and acting on it. As China scholar David Shambaugh recounts in his new book, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation , the CCP studied the collapse of Soviet communism with great care. And rather than seeing it as proof of the inevitable, global triumph of western liberalism, the Chinese comrades treated the Russian example as a textbook case of what a ruling Communist party ought not to do.

In this version of history, sinologist Andrew Nathan tells me, 1989 is also a turning point, but not because that was when communism’s most notorious wall came down. Instead, the key event of that year was the bloody suppression of protesters in Tiananmen Square: “As a propaganda position they have put it out that we had a crackdown in 1989 and we saved the party and we saved the country,” he says. “We didn’t have a failure of will like the Russians. Without that, we wouldn’t have been a great, modern power.” That’s a point of view Mr Putin has embraced, too, describing the collapse of the Soviet Union as a tragedy and his own reconstruction of a neo-authoritarian state as the only way to restore Russian “greatness”.

The west has been remarkably sanguine about this resurgence of authoritarianism, and one reason is that, this time, the comrades have money. Even as the Kremlin repeatedly confiscates the assets not just of its own businesspeople but of foreign ones, too, investment bankers, and plain old investors, are flocking to a Moscow flush with petro-roubles. The same is true of the Gulf states. China, on a path to become the world’s largest economy, is the most attractive of all.

But the Age of Authoritarianism is bad news for all of us, not just the human rights campaigners that businesspeople and practitioners of realpolitik love to dismiss. Like all overly rigid objects, authoritarian regimes conceal a tremendous fragility in their apparent strength – and their leaders know it. It is this realisation that has driven Mr Putin’s systematic destruction of all forms of civil society – an eminently pragmatic measure, although it has mystified some outside observers, who wonder why so popular a leader needs to be so heavy-handed. China’s chiefs have figured this out, too, hence their anxiety about everything from the Muslim Uighurs to the internet to the former Soviet Union’s “colour revolutions”.

Of course, another way to ensure popular support for your authoritarian regime is by playing up nationalist sentiment. We are more tolerant of our home-grown bullies if we think we need them to fight our enemies abroad – as even democratic America has demonstrated in recent years. Mr Putin has understood this all along, launching a brutal attack on Chechnya even before his coronation as president in 2000.

Russia’s expert taunting of the hotheads in Georgia, followed by immediate and massive retaliation the moment Tbilisi took the bait, is the latest evidence that, for the Kremlin, neo-imperialism is an essential bulwark of neo-authoritarianism. Bringing down the walls really did make the world safer. Now that so many leaders are building them back up again, figuring out how to contain the 21st century’s monied authoritarians is our most pressing foreign policy dilemma.

 chrystia.freeland at ft.com

An Austro-Hungarian firm with licence to print Mugabe’s money.

The Mugabe regime’s final lifeline is a small Vienna-based software company that helps it to keep printing the money it relies on for its survival, was revealed July 24, 2008, by   The Independent of London, as per information from Zurich.

Jura JSP, an Austro-Hungarian firm with just 50 employees, has been dealing with the pariah government in Harare, enabling it to keep ahead of its hyperinflation crisis. Officials at the company confirmed yesterday that it supplied the licences and software used to design and print the Zimbabwe dollar, but would review this position if required to do so by the EU.
Fresh EU sanctions announced yesterday do not cover all companies dealing with the Mugabe regime, but other firms named and shamed for profiting from the Zimbabwe crisis have cut all links. The software company enables the regime to print the money it uses to pay the army, police and security agents which keep Zanu PF in power. Without access to paper money, Mr Mugabe would face an immediate crisis.

Inflation is running at nearly three million per cent and the country issued a 100 billion dollar banknote this week, worth only about 7p. The economist say John Robertson said inflation was the greatest threat to the ruling party and the rate was likely to climb to 100 million per cent within the next month. “If the software is withdrawn there is no language to describe what would follow,” he said.

Paper is running out at the state-run mint Fidelity Printers and Refiners after the Bavarian company Giesecke and Devrient stopped deliveries last week following pressure from the German government. Now Austria and Hungary are expected to come under diplomatic pressure to follow Berlin’s lead.

After withstanding years of intense international criticism, targeted sanctions and domestic pressure, a move against the software supplier could be a decisive blow against Mr Mugabe, analysts said. And with crucial negotiations getting under way in South Africa today between the government and the opposition, the timing could be critical. David Coltart, an opposition senator, said: “If the company does stop supplying then that will show the regime that there is no place to hide and that the game is up… That may then even assist the negotiations.”

In Harare, supplies of paper money are already running out. The embattled Central Reserve Bank has capped daily withdrawals to 100 billion dollars per person, but this is barely enough to buy a bus ticket or a loaf of bread. Long queues appear from first light at banks throughout the country in a daily battle to survive.

The regime’s answer to economic meltdown – driven by its own looting of state and private assets – has been to print more and more worthless money, creating unprecedented hyperinflation and the prospect of trillion or quadrillion dollar notes in the coming months.

While Mr Mugabe and his circle of cronies have proven deaf to international calls to hold free and fair elections, his government continues to rely on its control of the central bank and the Fidelity money presses which until recently ran 24 hours a day to keep up with the crisis. Trades union leaders appealed to the government yesterday to lift the cap on withdrawals of Z$100bn, describing it as a “joke”. As recently as 2006 the central bank was still issuing a Z$50 note.

A new list of Zimbabwean targets for sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, by the European Union includes the central bank governor, Gideon Gono, the attorney general Bharat Patel and the cricket chairman Peter Chingoka.

Most of the 37 targets posted on the EU website are security officers, “directly involved in the terror campaign” waged around the disputed elections.

We received an e-mail showing how little costs to buy gasoline (in German called Benzin) and diesel fuel if you live in a so called developing oil-exporting country or in the USA

Date: July 4, 2008

1 Liter = 0.264174 gal (US Liq)
US$ 1 = Euro 1.5682 as of 7/4/2008

The Austrian e-mail evokes the following list. We went then and looked up other countries and found that Austria is actually a bargain when compared to other developed economies.

The Austrian 1.32 Euro/liter is 2.16 times what the complaining American sissies are paying, but only 78.7% of what Norwegians are paying or 80.7% of what the Dutch are paying.

On the other hand Japan at 0.99 Euro/liter is another chaeap-shot so is Canada at 0.88 Euro/liter.

And you know already what we think? Those that pay more for their gasoline have also decreased their dependence on oil by efficiency methods and conservation – they also developed alternatives to oil and have started building the economy of the future. So, it is actually the US that is falling behind while it transfers its funds to the Gulf States hoping that the increased National Debt will devalue the US$ to the point that it remains valueless paper in their hand.The problem is that they do not sit on the money anymore. They actually buy assets with that money – among that buying spree they also buy up chunks of America. So what then? Will they agree to American taxation without representation – or the US will eventually find out that Bush made a Faustian Deal with the US oil companies and with his Arab friends.

Our advice to our Austrian readers is thus – DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE TAX ON FUEL – BUT MAKE SURE THE MONEY IS USED SO THAT EVENTUALLY YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY LESS OF IT.

The following is what we got in the mail – then look at what we added for the sake of analysis. if our other readers want to get the actual numbers in US dollars, please use the above conversion factors.

BENZINPREISE INTERNATIONAL

Benzin that is Gasoline – but much of the posting is about Diesel – this because in Europe the motor-fuel of choice is high quality Diesel.

Afghanistan Normalbenzin € 0,43

Algerien Diesel € 0,11

Aserbaidschan Diesel € 0,31

Ägypten Diesel € 0,14

Ãthiopien Super € 0,24

Bahamas Diesel € 0,25

Bolivien Super € 0,25

Brasilien Diesel € 0,54

China Normal € 0,45

Ecuador Normal € 0,24

Ghana Normal € 0,09 !!!!!!!

Grönland Super € 0,50

Guyana Normal € 0,67

Hong Kong Diesel € 0,84

Indien Diesel € 0,62

Indonesien Diesel € 0,32

Irak Super € 0,60

Kasachstan Diesel € 0,44

Katar Super € 0,15

Kuwait Super € 0,18

Kuba Normal € 0,62

Libyen Diesel € 0,08 !!!!!!!

Malaysia Super â‚ ¬ 0,55

Mexico Diesel € 0,41

Moldau Normal € 0,25

Oman Super plus € 0,20

Peru Diesel € 0,22

Philippinen Diesel € 0,69

Russland Super € 0,64

Saudi Arabien Diesel € 0,07 !!!!!!

Südafrika Diesel € 0,66

Swasiland Super € 0,10 !!!!!!

Syrien Diesel € 0,10 !!!!!

Trinidad Super € 0,33

Thailand Super € 0,65

Tunesien Diesel € 0,49

USA Diesel € 0,61

Venezuela Diesel € 0,07 !!!!!

Vereinigte Arabische Emirate Diesel € 0,18

Vietnam Diesel € 0,55

Weißrussland Diesel € 0,51

EU und dem Finanzminister sei dank ist der Österreicher bzw. Europäer dumm
genug sich abzocken zu lassen (Mineralölsteuer und Mehrwertsteuer auf
Benzin).

Bitte dieses E-Mail weiter zu schicken damit wenigstens einige Leute
erkennen wie stark Österreich geneppt wird.

Benzinpreise auf der eigenen Webseite

And looking at international prices for July 4, 2008 at - http://benzinpreis.de/international.phtm…

Land Normalbenzin in € Superbenzin in € SuperPlus in € Diesel in €

Österreich 1,26 1,29 * 1,28 1,32 *

UK 1,40 1,46 1,50 1,58

Finnland 1,47 1,50 1,50 1,36

Frankreich 1,39 1,34 * 1,44 1,37 *

Irland 1,26 1,26 1,15 1,43

Island 1,35 1,40 1,47 1,50

Israel – 1,05 – -

Italien 1,36 1,46 1,34 1,45

Japan 0,99 1,08 – 0,79

Kanada 0,88 0.87 0.82 0.90

Neuseeland 1,03 0,97 – 1,46

Niederlande 1,56 1,61 1,69 1,31 **

Norwegen 1,60 1,61 1,46 1,56

Schweden 1,37 1,39 1,36 1,47

Schweiz 1,24 1,21 * 1,23 1,37 *

Ungarn 1,29 1,26 1,20 1,31

Budapest to house EU Techonology Institute – the Europe’s answer to MIT.
RENATA GOLDIROVA, June 19, 2008 EUobserver/Brusells.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Hungary’s capital, Budapest, has been selected to house the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), the union’s flagship project to boost innovation, research and higher education.

On Wednesday (18 June), ministers in charge of competitiveness met in Brussels to put an end to the wrangling over the institute’s seat. Last month, they failed to agree due to a Polish veto on the matter.

Slovene education minister Mojca Kucler – who was responsible for steering the dossier through the European Council, which represents EU states – praised “efforts invested by member states for the common good of the EU” and described the institute as “a special milestone in the European research policy”.

The European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has also welcomed the ministerial deal, saying that the EIT will add to Europe’s capacity to bridge the innovation gap with its major competitors, the US and Japan.

In 2006, the 27-nation EU invested 1.85 percent of GDP into research and development, far from its 2010 goal of three percent. By contrast, the US spends around 2.7 percent.

According to EU education commissioner Jan Figel, the work of the institute would be organised through so-called knowledge and innovation communities – partnerships of universities, research organisations and companies.

The commission believes that such networks could help transform education and research and attract bright young brains from within and beyond Europe.

“It is not going to be one dot on the map,” Mr Figel told EUobserver, referring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which inspired the EIT concept. “We offer co-operation so the EU becomes more innovative,” he said.

Budapest was the only applicant able to meet the two criteria set by ministers – that the winner should be a “new” member state and not already be home to an EU agency.

But regarding the latter point, EU diplomats feared Poland’s behaviour at the negotiation table.

The country, also bidding for seat, had previously threatened not to withdraw its own application, unless it won some level of participation. It wanted, for example, the new institute’s governing board to meet in the Polish city of Wroclaw, one diplomat told EUobserver.

Besides Budapest and Wroclaw, three other applicants were keen to host the administrative headquarters of the institute – Germany’s Jena, Spain’s Sant Cugat del Valles, while Slovak capital Bratislava joined forces with Vienna in launching a cross-border bid.

The Budapest-based institute will operate with a total budget of €2.37 billion from 2008-2013, with €308.7 million of that coming from EU coffers. The rest of the monies are supposed to come from public and private partners as well as from the new institute’s own activities.

————–

We hope that, for the sake of coherence, the Budapest headquarters of EIT will find ways to cooperate with the Bratislava-Vienna group also. The Wroclaw push seemed out of place and was rather a clear effort at grand-standing.
We realize that   the City of Wroclaw is involved in such issues as the organisation of a European Citizens’ Forum (over two days) entitled: Towards a Europe of solidarity, but we insist that an EIT will have to deal with such technical issues as the development of technologies in view of changes that will have to happen because of global warming/climate change.   The institute will need laboratories and not just talk-estivals. Poland seems to have misread this intent.

The referendum: populism vs democracy: The idea of the referendum as an instrument of the people’s will rests on pre-democratic foundations, says George Schöpflin on www.OpenDemocracy.net

16 – 06 – 2008

The result of the Republic of Ireland’s referendum on 12 June 2008, a rejection of the European Union’s “reform treaty” agreed at the Lisbon summit in October 2007, has precipitated a crisis for the union whose resolution is hard to foresee. For the victorious “no” side, and for those elsewhere who support the use of referenda to decide on constitutional or other matters, the outcome in Ireland is also on three grounds a vindication of the institution of the referendum:
â–ª it restores democracy to the people
â–ª it allows the people to tell political elites to be responsive
â–ª it restores “the people’s will” to the storehouse of democratic instruments.

These propositions – which can be summarised as the seduction of direct democracy – are misconceived. The championing of referenda they embody proceeds from a series of four untenable assumptions, which are worth itemising in some detail.

George Schőpflin is a member of the European parliament for Fidesz (Hungarian Civic Union) and was Jean Monnet professor of politics at University College London.

An unsafe vehicle:

First, in complex modern societies there is no such thing as “the people”. The concept is a leftover from the time when democracy had to be legitimated in the eyes of anti-democrats; its residue today leaves it open to political manipulation. The homogeneity it implies can hardly be reconciled with the reality of an enormously varied modern society composed of millions of members with multiple motivations and choices, used to exercising individual rationality in the marketplace. How can they be compressed into something with a single voice, namely “the people”?

In too many cases – European integration among them – referenda function as an instrument not of democracy, but of populism. They can assist democracy only in a few special circumstances: for example, to resolve an issue that is more ethical than political (legalising divorce or abortion, say); or to unblock a political system (offering autonomy or independence to the population of a particular region and thus perhaps helping to avoid civil war or ameliorate division).

An example of the latter is when the populations of the various republics of the Soviet Union voted for or against declaring their sovereignty, which led to their independence as states. Another case where the referendum was a legitimate use of the instrument was the votes in 1997 on devolution for Scotland and Wales within the United Kingdom. The referendum held on 9 March 2008 in Hungary was ostensibly about the government’s health-reform project; in reality it was about a means to articulate the deep disquiet in society about the refusal of the Hungarian government to listen to that disquiet.

Second, referenda are profoundly unsuitable ways of addressing complex issues, because they offer the illusion of a simple answer to complexity. In this sense, they pull the voters into the pre-political stance that lies at the heart of populism. Modern politics is about weighing various options, in circumstances where issues only very seldom appear in stark, good-vs-bad form. Referenda have an implicit, contextual message that says the opposite, something along the lines of “vote no” or “vote yes” and all your problems will be solved; as Tøger Seidenfaden has pointed out, referenda reduce highly complex issues to a simple yes/no answer. In a cultural sense, they “dumb down” the voters.

Moreover, voting “yes” often means accepting the word of the political elite’s saying, in effect, “trust us”. If voters wish to send a message to the elite that they are dissatisfied – for whatever reason, even one wholly distinct from the issue at stake – voting “no” is a convenient and simplistic solution. So the illusion of expressing the popular will is just that, an illusion.

Third, referenda reintroduce the tyranny of the majority, the very thing that modern democracies have sought to dilute by, for example, upgrading the role of civil society. Here again, careful analysis is needed. A great deal of politics is about making matters relatively easily intelligible, but this can readily cross the line into oversimplification, especially when sections of society will be clamouring for just that. The erosion of trust between political elites and society is also about the reluctance of the latter to come to terms with political complexity and the way in which both elites and media pander to the outdated desire for a golden age when choices were simple.

The trouble with that supposed golden age is that – whenever those who invoke it can be persuaded to identify it in terms of a definite period – majorities had no trouble in imposing their views on a minority. The evolution of various forms of lobbying, advocacy and pressure groups, and radical movements since the 1960s and 1970s is precisely about giving otherwise silent groups a voice. Referenda suppress that. It is quite plausible that a referendum on, say, recriminalising homosexuality or reintroducing the death penalty would gain a majority in several European nation-states. It is unlikely that the more vocal protagonists of “the people” expressing its view in this way would approve. Indeed, supporters of referenda as the articulation of the popular will are seldom if ever called upon to define what is a proper topic to be decided by “the people” and what is not. That too is a part of the easy ride the referendum receives in modern democracy (or, to be more precise, in a surrogate for democracy).

Fourth, referenda offer power without responsibility, in that voters can confront elites without having to face the consequences of their action. At their heart, referenda provide an opportunity for ad hoc coalitions that never have to worry about the outcome. The far left and far right coming together in France in the May 2005 referendum on the European Union’s constitutional treaty was a case in point; the two sides could never have governed together, but they could operate as a spoiler. Something similar was in evidence in Ireland in the Lisbon-treaty vote, where rightwing Catholics made common cause with leftwingers suspicious of Europe. The irony of this is that an ad hoc coalition of this kind can focus on a single issue and need never on any single occasion assume responsibility for the power that it wields.
The one-way street:

Referenda have unintended consequences in that they introduce new political actors into the system together with fresh lines of polarisation, often around issues that (regardless of the new actors’ demands) have no straightforward solution. This can also introduce and legitimate potentially destructive discourses – accusations of “sell-out” and “betrayal”, for example – that gain credibility through being voiced by these “untainted” political actors.

Besides, the task of the negative campaigners tends to be simpler than that of the supporters – they only have to argue: “if in doubt, say no”. This was much in evidence in Ireland’s referendum campaign. For all practical purposes it left the supporters of the “yes” camp having to prove their credibility, if not actually their innocence. And once a “no” campaign has won, it cannot be blamed, as it immediately evaporates, once again leaving the (elected) elite with the problem of what to do next. The organisers of “no” campaigns themselves never have to face an election.

When referenda are held on questions to do with the future of Europe, there is a further generally unidentified twist to the story. European integration operates simultaneously with three different sets of actors – the European Union, its institutions and elites; the national elites; and the supposed European demos. These three do not really connect very much. There is some connection between the EU and the national elites, but the linkage between the EU and its demos is very weak and is generally felt to be weak.

It is this political gap that provides the opportunity for negative campaigners in European matters – they believe that they can hold “their own” national political elites to account for European commitments, something not possible at the European level, largely because identification with that level does not exist.

This is the democratic deficit that must be addressed. But referenda, far from overcoming that deficit, actually intensify it. Accountability and responsibility, after all, have to be a two-way process to work at all. Referenda operate only in one direction and, for that reason, are not an appropriate or a democratically sustainable instrument in European matters.
Also by George Schőpflin in openDemocracy:

“Israel-Lebanon: a battle over modernity” (8 August 2005)

“Putin’s anti-globalisation strategy” (10 July 2006)

“Hungary: country without consequences” (22 September 2006)

“Hungary’s cold civil war (14 November 2006)

“The European Union’s troubled birthday” (23 March 2007)

Russia’s reinvented empire (3 May 2007)

Turkey’s crisis and the European Union (23 July 2007)

The new Russia: a model state (27 February 2008)

Final countdown for housing of European technology institute.

April 28, 2008, By Renata Goldirova from Brussels for the EUobserver:

The final countdown has begun on where to place the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), the EU’s flagship innovation and education project, as the official application deadline expired at the end of last week.

Four applicants are keen to host the administrative headquarters of the institute – Hungary’s capital, Budapest, the Polish city of Wroclaw, Spain’s Sant Cugat del Valles, while Slovak capital Bratislava has joined forces with Austria’s Vienna in launching a cross-border bid.

The EIT is meant to bridge the innovation gap between the 27-nation EU and its major rivals, the US and Japan.

In practice, it should result in a network of universities, research centres and companies in order to transform education and research while developing commercially successful results – as well as to attract the best young brains from within and beyond Europe.

Slovakia-tailored ‘twin city headquarters’
For the institute to be up and running from January next year, the 27-nation bloc must unanimously agree on its future seat. The Slovene EU presidency expects this could be done during a meeting of ministers in charge of competitiveness on 30 May.

But none of the EIT-hopefuls has so far gathered clear majority support around the table, shifting backstage talks into high gear.

Slovakia is setting its hopes on the idea of a twin-city headquarters, pairing Bratislava and Vienna – cities only 60 kilometres apart and well connected to other EU capitals.

By uniting the capital of a “dynamic new EU state and an experienced old one”, the project argues it is tailored to demonstrate a “Europe-without-borders way of thinking.”

According to the Slovak ministry of education, the twin-city approach is also an example of turning the institute’s very goal – stronger ties and better networking between the union’s top universities, research facilities and businesses – into practice.

While Bratislava is home to approximately 75,000 students, Vienna accommodates some 130,000 students. There are also some 25,000 researchers working in the two capitals.

Hungary, Poland and Spain
The biggest competition to the joint EIT bid comes from nearby Hungary, as its nominee, Budapest, also offers similar benefits concerning its geographic location.

Budapest is “a traditional educational, scientific and research centre … at the same time, one of the most important logistics and business centres in the Central-Eastern European region,” reads the official candidacy paper.

The country also underlines its network of several research institutions affiliated with universities and industry as well as the fact it has produced a total of 14 Nobel Prize winners over the years.

Poland has also voiced its interest in hosting the EIT headquarters and nominated the city of Wroclaw – a well-known academic centre, home to 27 higher education schools, two scientific institutions, over 150,000 students and 9,000 academic teachers.

However, some diplomats suggest that the country has a smaller chance of succeeding in its bid, as it already houses Frontex, an EU agency responsible for security of the bloc’s external borders.

Sant Cugat del Valles in the Spanish region of Catalonia closes the list of contestants. The town often described as a rich suburb of Catalonian capital Barcelona has several education centres, and is also active in the field of high technology.

It is estimated that the total cost of establishing the EIT could reach some €2.37 billion. Brussels is set to contribute €309 million of that figure for the 2008-2013 period, with the rest coming from national grants and industry investments.

A NAGORNO-KARABAKH FOREIGN MINISTRY IN DISCUSSIONS WITH THE EU?

The Nabucco pipeline – the EU hopes construction will begin in 2010
(Photo: Nagorno-Karabakh foreign ministry)

Turkmenistan to cut EU dependence on Russian gas.

April 14, 2008 – By Renata Goldirova, for the EUobserver.

Turkmenistan has agreed to supply 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas to the European Union each year – something that should cut the energy-hungry bloc’s dependence on gas from Russia.

“The president [Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov] gave us assurances that 10 bcm will be set aside for Europe in addition to possibilities in new fields to be tendered,” EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told the Financial Times on Sunday (13 April).

Ms Ferrero-Waldner described the deal as “a very important first step” in energy cooperation, although she acknowledged the amount agreed by the two sides does not represent a “vast quantity”.

The former Soviet Republic in Central Asia has the world’s fifth largest reserves of natural gas and substantial deposits of oil. It annually produces 60 billion cubic metres of natural gas, but two-thirds are exported to Russia’s state-run Gazprom.

Demand for energy is sharply rising in the European Union. By 2020, it is expected to import at least 360 bcm – out of 500 bcm consumed – from third countries.

The 27-nation bloc has been trying to diversify its energy supplies away from Russia and is currently pushing for a new energy corridor, the Nabucco pipeline.

The pipeline – connecting Turkey with Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary – would enable the transportation of Caspian energy resources to the European market. Main gas supplies could come from countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan or Egypt.

Speaking about the fresh deal with Turkmenistan, Ms Ferrero-Waldner called on European business to invest in infrastructure in order to bring the project to life.

It is still unclear how Turkmen gas will be imported to Europe, with the commissioner suggesting three possible short-term scenarios in the interview with the Financial Times.

Under the first one, a 60-kilometre gap between Azeri and Turkmen offshore installations could be closed with a mini-pipeline.

Secondly, an onshore link to Kazakhstan could be built to connect with a route to Azerbaijan.

Under the third option, the gas could be compressed into liquid form and taken by tanker across the sea.

————————-

Russia questions value of Nabucco energy pipeline.

April 18, 2008 – By Renata Goldirova from Brussels for EUobserver:

Moscow has questioned the viability of the EU-backed Nabucco energy corridor, a pipeline designed to lessen the bloc’s dependency on Russia.

“I know few things about political geography. The only way to fill the Nabucco pipeline is to rely on Iranian gas,” Russian ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told journalists earlier this week (15 April). He added: “But then, it’s up to the West, I would not tell the EU, to make up its mind how to deal with Iran. Either bomb Iran or buy its gas.”

Mr Chizhov’s blunt comments came only hours after Turkmenistan had agreed to supply 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas to the EU each year – something that should cut the energy-hungry bloc’s dependence on gas from Russia.

“There have been some euphoric comments about Turkmenistan,” the ambassador said, stressing that the volume agreed by the two sides is “not enough”. In addition, he questioned the ability of Azerbaijan, another potential source, to fulfil the union’s sharply rising energy demand.

The European Commission considers Nabucco to be “essential” to the EU as it is designed to bring gas from non-traditional suppliers via a new transport route.

The pipeline – connecting Turkey with Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary – would enable the transportation of gas from the resource-rich Caspian region to the European market.

Its capacity amounts to 31 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year. The bulk of the supplies are expected to come from countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan or Egypt.

The EU is also hoping to secure natural gas from Iraq, with Baghdad earlier this week pledging to provide five billion cubic metres of gas each year. The two sides are set to sign a so-called energy security memorandum of understanding in coming days.

In response to Mr Chizhov’s statements, the commission said that a list of source countries was yet to be defined. It addmitted, however, that once the problems with Iran are solved, Tehran can be taken into consideration on the longer term.

Meanwhile, Moscow – the world’s largest producer of natural gas – has been pushing for its own project, the South Stream pipeline. It should connect Russia’s Black Sea coast and Italy, with Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Serbia already saying they will take part in the project.

According to the Russian ambassador to Brussels, there will be enough room for the South Stream, Nabucco and perhaps for another pipeline due to growing energy consumption in Europe – but only in the long run.

In the short run, the defining difference is that the South Stream can rely on real gas supply, whereas Nabucco does not have gas, Mr Chizov said.

The South Stream project is seen by some as a rival to Nabucco, with the European Commission saying “it is not promoting it actively” because the pipeline will bring more gas from Russia.

“The two projects are complementary, not contradictory,” reads the commission’s official line on the issue. The EU needs 80 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year on top of current consumption.

But some experts on EU-Russia energy relations have also suggested that Moscow has made a valid point.

According to Marco Giuli from the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, the Nabucco pipeline is “economically viable only with Iranian gas”.

He cited political tensions in Central Asia, the proximity of Chinese market as well as the US’ tough stance on Iran among those factors that cloud Nabucco’s prospects.

Within the 27-nation EU, France and the UK seem to have the toughest position towards the Iranian regime, wanting to stop its nuclear ambitions not only through dialogue, but also via sanctions.

On the other hand, Italy’s oil and gas producer ENI is set to undertake some investments in Iran – something, Mr Guili says has been endorsed by the country’s outgoing as well as incoming political leadership.

The Face of a Prophet. Corrected twice by the NYT)

By LOUISE STORY, Published: April 11, 2008.

George Soros will not go quietly. George Soros wants to make a lasting contribution to economic understanding.

Robert Soros, right, never shared the enthusiasm of his father George, for following the markets. Robert is one of five Soros children

At the age of 77, Mr. Soros, one the world’s most successful investors and richest men, leapt out of retirement last summer to safeguard his fortune and legacy. Alarmed by the unfolding crisis in the financial markets, he once again began trading for his giant hedge fund — and won big while so many others lost.

Mr. Soros has always been a controversial figure. But he is becoming more so with a new, dire forecast for the world economy. Last week he rushed out a book, his 10th, warning that the financial pain has only just begun. { There is no book out yet but the electronic version is available and www.SustainabiliTank.info wrote about this as reseived from George Soros see under April 4, 2008 http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2008/04…}

(this just shows that non conventional media gets the news out – sometimes – well ahead of the need-your-agreement-first old style media}
“I consider this the biggest financial crisis of my lifetime,” Mr. Soros said during an interview Monday in his office overlooking Central Park. A “superbubble” that has been swelling for a quarter of a century is finally bursting, he said.

{and above we had already from his first “coming out” this year –         http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2008/01….

Soros, whose daring, controversial trades came to symbolize global capitalism in the 1990s, is now busy promoting his book, “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets,” which goes on sale mid-May. An electronic version is already available online.

And yet this is not the first time that Mr. Soros has prophesied doom. In 1998, he published a book predicting a global economic collapse that never came.

Mr. Soros thinks that this time he is right. Now in his eighth decade, he yearns to be remembered not only as a great trader but also as a great thinker. The market theory he has promoted for two decades and espoused most of his life — something he calls “reflexivity” — is still dismissed by many economists. The idea is that people’s biases and actions can affect the direction of the underlying economy, undermining the conventional theory that markets tend toward some sort of equilibrium.

Mr. Soros said all aspects of his life — finance, philanthropy, even politics — are driven by reflexivity, which has to do with the feedback loop between people’s understanding of reality and their own actions. Society as a whole could learn from his theory, he said. “To make a contribution to our understanding of reality would be my greatest accomplishment,” he said.

Mr. Soros has been worrying about the fragile state of the markets for years. But last summer, at a luncheon at his home in Southampton with 20 prominent financiers, he struck an unusually bearish note.

“The mood of the group was generally gloomy, but George said we were going into a serious recession,” said Byron Wien, the chief investment strategist of Pequot Capital, a hedge fund.

Mr. Soros was one of only two people there who predicted the American economy was headed for a recession, he said.

Shortly after that luncheon Mr. Soros began meeting with hedge fund managers like John Paulson, who was early to predict a crisis in the housing market. He interrogated his portfolio managers and external hedge funds that manage his fund’s money, and he took on new positions to hedge where they might have gone wrong. His last-minute strategies contributed to a 32 percent return — or roughly $4 billion for the year.

The more Mr. Soros learned about the crisis, the more certain he became that he should rebroadcast his theories. In the book, Mr. Soros, a fierce critic of the Bush administration, faults regulators for allowing the buildup of the housing and mortgage bubbles. He envisions a time, not so distant, when the dollar is no longer the world’s main currency and people will have a harder time borrowing money.

Mr. Soros hopes his theories will finally win the respect he craves. But, ever the trader, he hedges his bets. “I may well be proven wrong,” he said. “I would say that I’m the boy who cried wolf three times.”

Many of the people Mr. Soros wants to influence may view him with skepticism, in part because of how he made his fortune. In 1992, his fund famously bet against the British pound and helped force the British government to devalue the currency. Five years later, he bet — correctly — that Thailand would be forced to devalue its currency, the baht. The resulting bitterness toward him among Thais was such that Mr. Soros canceled a trip to the country in 2001, fearing for his safety.

Asked if it bothers him that people accuse him of causing economic pain, his blue eyes dart around the room. “Yes, it does, actually yes,” he said.

Asked if those people are right to blame him, he says, “Well no, not entirely.”

No single investor can move a currency, he said. “Markets move currencies, so what happened with the British pound would have happened whether I was born or not, so therefore I take no responsibility.”

Mr. Soros, came of age in Nazi-occupied Hungary and has for decades longed to write a masterpiece that might put him among thinkers like Hegel or Keynes, said Michael T. Kaufman, who wrote a book about Mr. Soros. “He spent years writing papers and letters to people, but everyone ignored him,” Mr. Kaufman said.

But when Mr. Soros became rich, people began listening. He also started giving large sums to charities, and in Eastern Europe, as the Soviet Union crumbled, he distributed copy machines to encourage free speech in his native Hungary. So generous was Mr. Soros with his money that “Sorosovat” became a new verb in Russian, loosely meaning to apply for a grant.

He continues to be one of the top givers to charities around the world, and has given more than $5 billion away through his foundations.

Yet even Mr. Soros acknowledges that many economists still slight his theories.

“I am known as a hedge fund manager and I am known as a philanthropist, and it’s very hard for, say, academics to accept that a hedge fund manager may actually have something to say about economics,” Mr. Soros said. “So that has been difficult for me to overcome.”

But Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia who won the Nobel for economics in 2001, said Mr. Soros might still meet success. “With a slightly different vocabulary these ideas, I think, are going to become more and more part of the center,” said Mr. Stiglitz, a longtime friend of Mr. Soros.

Mr. Soros’s firm, Soros Fund Management, has been through several turbulent years. Stanley Druckenmiller, his longtime No. 2, left in 2000, in part because he was tired of the constant media attention Mr. Soros attracted. (Mr. Soros credits Mr. Druckenmiller for the winning gamble on the British pound, saying he added the encouragement to bet more money on the trade.)

Several outside investors also left, and Mr. Soros overhauled the company as more of a wealth management tool for his own family and related charities. Mr. Soros said in 2000 that he no longer desired returns like the 30.5 percent his fund returned on average, after management fees, from 1969 to 2000.

In 2004, Mr. Soros tapped his oldest son, Robert, to become the chief investment officer, despite Robert’s reluctance.

At that time, Mr. Soros, was busy trying to turn public opinion against President Bush. He donated $27 million to anti-Bush organizations and traveled the country speaking out against the president. This time around, he is less involved. He endorsed Senator Barack Obama but kept his distance from the campaign trail.

Robert Soros, 44, who once claimed his father based his trades not on grand theories like reflexivity but rather on his back pain, never shared his father’s enthusiasm for the markets. “When you’re a billionaire’s son, you’re less hungry than when you’re a Hungarian immigrant,” one former Soros Fund Management executive said.
Even so, the Soros fund performed well under the younger Soros, and as recently as last June, it was up 10 percent for the year, according to a letter to investors. At the end of July, Robert stepped down from his head investment role, just before his father returned to trading. Robert and his brother Jonathan remain deputy co-chairmen, under their father, the chairman of the fund.

This week, Mr. Wien illustrated the knack of Mr. Soros for timing with an old story. In 1995, Mr. Soros asked Mr. Wien why he bothered going to work every day. Why not go to work only on days when there is something to do?

“I said, ‘George, one of the differences between you and me is you know when those days are, and I don’t,’” Mr. Wien said.

IPCC plenary gives go-ahead for Special Report on Renewable Energy.

Budapest, 11 April 2008. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change formally decided today to produce a Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, for completion in 2010.

“The Special Report will be the reference document for governments and policymakers around the world on renewables,” said Steve Sawyer, The Global Wind Energu Council’s Secretary General.

“The 4th Assessment Report outlined very clearly the threat posed by the accelerating rate of climate change, and highlighted the fact that we have the means to solve the problem. In the critical next decade, renewables are the key option for reducing fossil fuel emissions, along with energy efficiency. The IPCC recognized that the rapidly growing renewable energy sector deserves special attention given the extraordinary growth experienced by wind power and other technologies, even since the cutoff date for material for the 4th assessment report which was late in 2006″, concluded Steve Sawyer of GWEC.

The IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report highlighted very clearly that if we are to avoid the worst ravages of man-made climate change, then global greenhouse gas emissions must peak and then begin to decline before 2020. Discussion on longer term targets will continue as the science evolves and our knowledge improves, but the critical task in the next decade is clear.

 ”The Global Wind Energy Council will certainly play a role in the production of this report, and we hope that the other sectors, too, will contribute their real-world knowledge and experience”, said Arthouros Zervos, GWEC Chairman, who participated in   the preparation of the scoping document which was adopted by the panel in Budapest today. “We fully expect that the Special Report will highlight in an authoritative fashion the key role for renewable energy in combating climate change; particularly because of their ability to deployed rapidly and on a large scale in every country of the world at reasonable cost while addressing both sustainable development and energy security concerns.”

As a result of a scoping meeting held in Germany earlier this year, a proposal was developed which will address the subject in five main sections: Renewable Energy and Climate Change; the individual technologies and their integration into the overall energy system; renewable energy and sustainable development; climate change mitigation potentials and costs; and policy, financing and implementation. Following the formal adoption today by the IPCC, the next step will be for governments to nominate experts to compile the vast quantity of literature on the subject, to write the chapters and to review the comments received from expert and government commentators on the three or four drafts of the individual reports. Eventually, the summary for policymakers will be presented to the full IPCC for adoption, which is currently planned to be in 2010.

The outline of the Special Report is available on the IPCC website at: http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session28/do…

Angelika Pullen, Policy & Communications Director
Mob: +32 473 947 966
 angelika.pullen at gwec.net

Global Wind Energy Council
Renewable Energy House – Rue d’Arlon 63-65, 1040 Brussels, Belgium
Web: www.gwec.net

From: Polish Cultural Institute [mailto:mail@polishculture-nyc.org]
Sent: Montag, 31. März 2008 18:25
To:  mail at polishculture-nyc.org
Subject: No. 312: “BORDERLANDERS: FINDING THEIR VOICE” FESTIVAL

The Borderland Foundation’s work involves an artistic rediscovering of the area’s rich multicultural heritage, which had been all but destroyed by two world wars.                                                                                         – Ian Fisher, The New York Times

In just over a decade Mr. Czyzewski has won an international reputation, helping to set up about a dozen similar centres as far afield as Mostar in Bosnia, Uzhgorod in Ukraine and Arad in Romania.
– Stefan Wagstyl, The Financial Times

Before multitudes from the Eastern European borderlands emigrated to the Lower East Side around 1900, and before many others perished or were resettled in the hell of WWII, the little town of Sejny in northeast Poland was home to Lithuanians, Poles, Jews, Russian Old-believers, Belarusians, Roma, and Germans. As immigrants, they brought their borderland identity with them to the multicultural experiment of America.

For a long time people had been emigrating from Sejny. Today, this little town is exporting to diversified societies worldwide its pioneering methods of community work as a laboratory for multiculturalism. The aim of Borderlanders: Finding Their Voice is to present the ideas and practices of the Sejny-based Borderland Foundation in building bridges between cultures and ethnicities. Multiple identity, exile, immigration, and the arts’ creative role in multicultural community work are the themes that relate the festival’s events to each other.

All performance events are presented in the Lower East Side as a tribute to the multicultural heritage of a district that was home to many Eastern European immigrants in the early 20th century.

BORDERLANDERS: FINDING THEIR VOICE is presented by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York in association with La MaMa E.T.C., Bowery Poetry Club, Millennium Film Workshop, Inc., and the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, New Schoolfor Social Research.

Special thanks to Professor Elzbieta Matynia of the New School for Social Research for her dedication and creative input.

     

Special thanks to LOT Polish Airlines CARGO