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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 29th, 2008 Spats over who gets to go to EU summit break out in Poland, Finland. The emergency European summit called to tackle the Georgian crisis and forge a common European position on the issue is itself causing divisions - but over who gets to go to the extraordinary meeting of EU leaders. EU leaders to meet in Brussels on Monday 1 September. Conservative Polish president Lech Kaczynski has demanded he be the one to head to Brussels for the summit, rather than the more liberal prime minister, Donald Tusk. Speaking on Polish radio, the president’s aide, Piotr Kownacki, on Thursday (28 August) said: ” If the president is in the Polish delegation, it is obvious that he lead it due to his office,” according to AFP. The previous day, the deputy prime minister, Grzegorz Schetyna, had said that if the president attended, it “was not going to help matters,” the French news agency also reported. Moreover, the two leaders have a slightly differing perspective on the crisis. The president has attacked the peace plan between Russia and Georgia negotiated by French President Nicholas Sarkozy for making no mention of Georgia’s right to territorial integrity. Mr Tusk, for his part, has not criticised the plan, although he hopes to see a strong position taken by the EU on Russia’s actions. Mssrs Tusk and Kaczynski are to meet on Friday to attempt to resolve the disagreement. Over in Finland, President Tarja Halonen has announced she is to attend the summit, meaning that foreign minister Alexander Stubb would have to wait outside while the president and prime minister talk with other EU leaders. The bumping of the foreign minister this time is causing a bit of a headache for the delegation, as Mr Stubb is also the current chairperson of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), with which the EU has been closely working on the Georgian crisis. The foreign minister and former MEP also played a key role in the negotiation of the Sarkozy peace plan as chair of the OSCE. President Halonen’s chief of staff said on Wednesday that the “starting point” is that the OSCE chairperson will attend and that Finland would have a third seat in the meeting, instead of the normal two, the Helsingin Sanomat reported. However, Brussels officials have all said that a third seat is “impossible,” according to the Finnish daily. Mr Stubb may yet be invited to attend separately in his capacity of OSCE chair, but in which case, he would only be able to participate for the length of his presentation. Elsewhere, although Czech President Vaclav Klaus has been invited, he will not be heading to the summit, with prime minister Mirek Topolánek attending instead, alongside the foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg. The Czech leaders have diametrically opposed views on the conflict, with President Klaus of the opinion that Georgia is responsible for starting the war, while the prime minister blames Russia. Mr Schwarzenberg said that such differences are nothing unusual in the government of a democratic state. The main thing, he said, is that it is the government that determines foreign policy, reports the Prague Post. ——————- Germany and Russia threaten EU-Ukraine relations. 28.08.2008 EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - “There are maybe two or three countries who are strong opposers, strong sceptics,” Ukrainian deputy foreign minister Konstantin Yeliseyev said in Brussels on Thursday (28 August), commenting on EU reluctance to state clearly that “the future of Ukraine lies in the European Union” in the preamble to the new treaty. “In this regard, we count very much on the leadership of Germany, which is the engine of EU integration and a very powerful country, we count very much on their courage,” he added, saying EU explanations - such as lack of formal consensus among the 27 states or public enlargement fatigue - are “not sincere.” “Some other countries like Belgium are also opposed. But Berlin is the key,” another Ukraine official said, with just 12 days left to go before the summit in Evian, France. “They are telling us the chancellory is talking to the foreign ministry and so forth, but no matter what they say, the real problem is Russia.” Germany and Russia have historically close relations, with former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder currently working to help build a new Germany-Russia gas pipeline and with the current chancellor, Angela Merkel, opposing EU diplomatic sanctions against Russia despite Russia’s actions in Georgia. The statement on EU enlargement is a deal-breaker for Ukraine, which says that if Germany’s preferred wording - that the new treaty “does not prejudge future relations” - is used, it will effectively rule out any Ukraine moves toward EU accession for the next 10 to 15 years, when the pact is due to expire. Ukraine is also pressing for NATO countries to offer it a Membership Action Plan in December, with Germany also leading opposition at NATO-level to such a move. Mr Yeliseyev warned that lack of a clear political commitment by the West to Ukraine will be seen by Moscow as a green light to expand influence in the east. “If the [EU-Ukraine] summit is not successful … it will send encouragement to Russia that it can influence EU policy and EU strategy,” he said. “If NATO members don’t take this decision, it will show Russia that by using force, they can influence the process of enlargement and obtain a kind of domination of the post-Soviet states.” The deputy minister underlined that Ukraine sees the EU as a guardian of economic and political stability, in contrast to NATO’s hard security role. “We consider NATO as a father and the EU as a mother. With a father it’s mostly physical protection, security protection. With a mother it is mostly economic protection,” he said. Mr Yeliseyev explained that the Russia-Georgia war has raised security concerns in Ukraine due to the situation in Crimea, where 60 percent of inhabitants are ethnically Russian and where Russia keeps its Black Sea fleet, which was used against Georgia, making Ukraine a “third party to this conflict.” “If Ukrainian security detorirated, it would not be a Georgia scenario, it would be a more dangerous scenario,” he said, with the 50 million-strong, former nuclear power currently controlling most of Russia’s natural gas exports to the EU. —————- EU fears Russian action in Ukraine and Moldova: A peace mural in Stepanakert, Azerbaijan: Russia’s action have emboldened separatists across eastern Europe. French and UK foreign ministers have voiced fears Russia may be planning Georgia-type scenarios in EU neighbours Ukraine and Moldova, amid rising tension between Ukraine and Russia and fresh calls for independence by Moldovan rebels. “I repeat, it [Russia’s action in Georgia] is very dangerous, and there are other objectives that one can suppose are objectives for Russia, in particular the Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova,” France’s Bernard Kouchner said on Europe 1 radio on Wednesday (27 August). The remark comes after Russia this week formally recognised two rebel enclaves in Georgia - Abkhazia and South Ossetia - as independent states, following a Georgian attack on South Ossetian capital Tskinvali, to which Russia responded with a military incursion into Georgia. Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova all broke away from Russia’s sphere of influence in the past five years to seek integration with NATO and the EU. But in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, 58 percent of people are ethnically Russian and hundreds of thousands hold Russian passports, with some groups calling for the territory to split from Ukraine. Crimea is also home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet. In Moldova, the Russophone Transniestria region gained de facto independence after a civil war in 1992. The strip of land still houses 1,300 Russian troops. UK foreign minister David Miliband on a visit to Ukraine on Wednesday shared Mr Kouchner’s concern, urging Kiev “not to provide any pretext for Russian actions because, of course, the Russians have used those pretexts in the Georgian case.” The British foreign secretary said the war in Georgia marked “the end of the post Cold War period of growing geopolitical calm in and around Europe.” “Ukraine could be the next target of political pressure by Russia,” EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn told a meeting of Finnish ambassadors in Helsinki the same day, AFP reports. “It is important from a stability point of view that the EU sends a clear political signal that Ukraine’s integration into the [European] Union is possible.” *** Crimean confrontation: Ukraine-Russia relations worsened on Wednesday as President Viktor Yushchenko condemned Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and revealed plans to raise the price for the Russian navy’s land lease in the Crimea port of Sevastopol. Violation of Georgia’s territorial integrity “fuels tensions, not only in the Caucasus,” he said, Interfax reports. “Fundamental agreements and principles of trust … can be lost via thoughtless steps, when diplomacy and the policy of peaceful settlement are replaced with a policy of force.” The Sevastopol lease move comes after Mr Yushchenko earlier threatened to ban Russian ships used in the war against Georgia from returning to port. Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Wednesday warned the president against enflaming pro-Russian feeling on the peninsula by targeting the fleet. “If we don’t change the position on Crimea, if we don’t harmonise relations with the Black Sea fleet, we will be in for very serious problems,” she said. *** Transnistria next? Russia’s recognition of the two regions also raised the temperature in Moldova on Wednesday, with Transnistria separatists predicting their turn will come next. “As regards the recognition of Transnistria, this is a matter of time,” the rebels’ military chief Vladimir Atamaniuc told Russian newswires. “It is Moldova that should be the first to recognise us,” said Oleg Gudymo, a member of the internationally unrecognised Transnistrian parliament. “If they want to live in peace with us they have no other option.” Earlier this week, Russia’s ambassador to Moldova, Valeri Kuzmin, also used threatening language on the frozen conflict. “Moldova should draw its own positive conclusions after the conflict in South Ossetia,” he said. “I believe [Moldovan] leaders will use their wisdom … to not allow such a bloody and catastrophic trend of events” *** Stepanakert statement: While Russia is still waiting for any of its allies to join it in recognising the Georgian separatists, the Russian-backed breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan yesterday gave its support. “This fully meets the principle of the self-determination of nations and fundamental norms of international law,” the Nagorno-Karabakh “foreign ministry” in Stepanakert said, warning Azerbaijan that any use of force would end in a Georgia-like “humanitarian catastrophe.” EU and US-ally Azerbaijan is a growing exporter of oil to Europe via a pipeline bypassing Russia and aims to ship natural gas to the west through the EU’s future Nabucco pipeline as well. —————— EU sanctions would be ‘grave mistake,’ Russia says August 29, 2008, EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS As the European Union considers imposing sanctions against Russia over its recognition of independence for Georgia’s rebel regions, Moscow has said that any punitive measures would be a “grave mistake,” harming the 27-nation bloc as much as Russia itself. “First of all, I highly doubt that [sanctions] might ever happen, but hypothetically speaking, this would be to the detriment of the European Union as much, if not more, than to Russia,” Russia’s ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said on Thursday (28 August). France has called an emergency EU summit on 1 September to reassess relations with Russia. The comment comes shortly ahead of an emergency EU summit scheduled for 1 September in order to reassess the union’s ties with Moscow in the face of its actions in the South Caucasus. France, the current EU president, has warned that “sanctions are being considered and many other means as well” - words that were quickly denounced by Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who said the idea showed the workings of a “sick imagination.” In practice, just a few countries - mainly the UK, Sweden, Poland and three Baltic EU states - are pushing for a tough line against Russia. Even if achieved, punitive measures could be limited to no more than suspension of visa-free travel talks or postponement of negotiations on a new EU-Russia treaty, currently scheduled for 16 September, EU diplomats said. “I can only express the wish that European leaders will be able to rise above the emotions of the day and consider seriously and without prejudice the perspectives of strategic partnership with their important partner, the Russian Federation,” ambassador Chizhov told journalists in Brussels. “We need the new agreement as much as the EU does - not less, not more,” he concluded. The French EU presidency itself will not table punitive measures, while Germany - which is heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas - also has little appetite for punishing Moscow. “We are strongly committed to keeping open channels to Russia. We have to look at who will be hurt by sanctions, what will be the costs and benefits,” one senior German official was cited as saying by the Financial Times. German Socialist MEP Martin Schulz told Financial Times Deutschland: “[Sanctions] would play into the hands of radical elements in Moscow, who want an escalation of the conflict.” An isolated Russia? Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - widely seen as the man driving Kremlin policy - has accused Washington of playing a role in the current conflict in Georgia to benefit one of the US presidential candidates. “The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US president,” Mr Putin said in a CNN interview on Thursday (28 August). He explained that US citizens had been present in the area during hostilities, following direct orders from Washington, which also trained and supplied the Georgian army. The White House dismissed the allegations by describing them as “not rational” and “patently false.” Another round of verbal attacks took place at the United Nations last night (28 August), with Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin accusing the US of hypocrisy. He cited the US-led invasion of Iraq and Kosovo’s unilateral secession from Serbia, backed by major Western powers, as examples. “I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States [about] weapons of mass destruction. Have you found them yet in Iraq or are you still looking for them?” Mr Churkin said, according to Reuters. So far, no country has followed Russia in recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, although Moscow’s Ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said he expected a “number of countries” to do so, with Belarus suggesting it may take the step before the weekend. Virtual integrity Mr Chizhov referred to Georgia’s territorial integrity as a “virtual concept” rather than reality, even arguing that Russia’s moves are justified under the peace plan brokered two weeks ago by French leader Nicolas Sarkozy - a deal seen as too vague and too Russia-friendly. “Let me refer to the six-point plan of Presidents Medvedev and Sarkozy, which does not include a reference of territorial integrity and it’s not a mistake … it was deliberate I would say,” the Russian diplomat said. But Russia has failed to win backing from its allies within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, comprising China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, whose leaders limited themselves to supporting Russia’s “active role in promoting peace” in the post-conflict phase. —————- France accuses Russia of ethnic cleansing: Kouchner in Georgia during the five-day war. Talk of “war” and “ethnic cleansing” hit European TV channels on Tuesday (26 August) as France and Russia debated Moscow’s hard backing of rebel groups in Georgia. But plans for next week’s EU summit and new EU-Russia energy links remain unaltered for now. “We fear a war and we don’t want one,” French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said on the France 2 television station, after Russia gave formal recognition to Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions earlier in the day. “If it’s hot, we don’t want it.” The minister showed a map of South Ossetia and pointed to the town of Akhalgori, saying: “Tonight, Russian troops are sweeping through it, pushing Georgians out and over the border. It’s ethnic cleansing.” In a separate interview on France’s LCI channel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dared the EU to impose diplomatic sanctions at next week’s EU summit. “If they want a degradation of relations, they will get it,” he said. “The ball is in the European camp.” “We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War,” the president also said on the Russia Today TV channel. On the Arabic Al-Jazeera network he spoke of using “military means” against a future US missile base in Poland. Meanwhile, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO members of rearming Georgia. “They are even starting to supply new types of weapons, restoring the military infrastructure that was used in the aggression,” he said, Ria Novosti reports. The rhetoric coming from Poland and Georgia was no less harsh, with Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski telling Polish daily Dziennik Russia will “again lose” in a confrontation with the “10 times richer” West. “The end of the revival of Russia’s imperialism has started,” Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said, calling for Europe to impose a travel ban on Russian leaders and their families, while claiming he has “serious signals” that the crisis will speed up Georgia’s integration with NATO and the EU. Business as usual? Germany continued to sound a calmer note throughout the day, however, indicating that suspension of EU-Russia treaty talks is still not on the cards. “We will not solve conflicts if we do not talk to each other,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said on a visit to Lithuania, DPA reports. Ms Merkel’s trip to the Baltic states and Sweden is aimed at promoting a new Germany-Russia gas pipeline - Nord Stream - which Germany calls a “strategic European project,” but which the former-communist EU states fear will strengthen Russia’s energy leverage against eastern Europe. Meanwhile, French EU presidency officials quietly brushed aside a joint proposal by Poland, Sweden and the Baltic countries to invite the fiery Mr Saakashvili to the EU summit on Monday. “The idea did not meet with much enthusiasm,” a Polish diplomat told PAP. Russia’s recognition of the rebel enclaves will make the EU meeting more “complicated,” Dutch Green MEP Joost Lagendijk commented. “With this, it will be more difficult for the moderates to say: ‘We should not alienate Russia’,” he told AFP. Kosovo parallel: With Russia continuing to draw parallels between South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Kosovo - which has been recognised 46 countries worldwide - individual Belarusian MPs were the only non-Russian entities to back Moscow in its recognition of the two rebel regions so far. “I’m sure that Belarus will become one of the first countries to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Belarus lower house delegate Aleksei Ostrovsky said, BelaPAN reports. But Minsk remained quiet on Wednesday morning, with EU diplomats noting that President Alexander Lukashenko is currently trying to improve relations with Brussels to offset Russia’s influence on his eonomically-fragile dictatorship. The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation [China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan security alliance] is to meet in Tajikistan to discuss the Georgia issue on Thursday. But Moscow’s traditional allies have also taken a back seat in the conflict for now, amid an EU push to offer Central Asia new ways of breaking Russia’s monopoly on its transit of oil and gas to Europe. ————– Bulgaria makes case for Nabucco pipeline. Bulgaria has called on the EU to throw all its weight behind the Nabucco energy corridor, a pipeline designed to lessen the bloc’s dependency on Russian gas. “Finding enough supplies is the big problem and it cannot be solved just by the efforts of the companies in the Nabucco consortium … Without a political deal, this case cannot be solved,” Bulgarian economy minister Petar Dimitrov said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday (27 August). The Nabucco project - connecting Turkey with Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary - should enable the transportation of Caspian energy resources to the European market, but it remains unclear how to feed the pipeline. Earlier this year, Turkmenistan agreed to supply 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas to the European Union each year. In addition, the union hopes the bulk of the supplies could come from countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Egypt or Iraq. In order to address this very point, Mr Dimitrov suggested a high level political meeting take place between the EU and potential suppliers as well as transiting countries. “Russia is holding political talks to buy out the available gas from the Caspian region … I believe the EU should also hold such political talks and not narrow it all down to just principal support for the Nabucco project,” the Bulgarian minister told Reuters. According to Forbes, Russia’s state-run gas monopoly, Gazprom, offered to buy all of Azerbaijan’s gas exports earlier this month. Demand for energy is sharply rising in the European Union and it is expected to import at least 360 bcm - out of 500 bcm consumed - from countries beyond the 27-country bloc by 2020. At the same time, the EU has been trying to diversify its energy supplies away from Russia. The Nabucco project’s capacity amounts to 31 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year. The EU hopes construction will begin in 2010. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2008 TRADE WITH RUSSIA HAS BROUGHT PROSPERITY TO THE FORMERLY SLEEPING SHIMANE PREFECTURE OF JAPAN.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2008
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2008 Miliband rallies ‘coalition against Russian aggression’ {starts with talks in the Ukraine.} http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/… David Miliband will make a keynote speech in Ukraine today strongly condemning Russia’s decision to formally recognise two breakaway regions of Georgia. The Foreign Secretary said he was visiting Kiev in a bid to assemble the “widest possible coalition against Russian aggression”. Russia’s president Dmitri Medvedev was yesterday accused of “inflaming” the crisis by insisting that South Ossetia and Abkhazia should be independent. Mr Medvedev told a news agency: “We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War. “But we don’t want it and in this situation everything depends on the position of our partners.” He said the West would have to “understand the reason behind” the decision to recognise the regions if it wanted to preserve good relations with Russia. *** “It will also not work,” he said in a statement yesterday. “It is contrary to the principles of the peace agreement, which Russia recently agreed, and to recent Russian statements. “It takes no account of the views of the hundreds of thousands of Georgians and others who have been forced to abandon their homes in the two territories.” The Foreign Secretary was backed by Western leaders including US President George Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Mr Bush condemned Mr Medvedev’s decision as “irresponsible” and called the move “inconsistent” with UN Security Council resolutions and the French-brokered ceasefire plan. “Russia’s action only exacerbates tensions and complicates diplomatic negotiations,” Mr Bush said. Ms Merkel condemned Russia’s decision as “absolutely not acceptable,” but said Europe must still keep channels of communication open with Moscow. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said the Russian decision was “regrettable, and we reaffirm our attachment to Georgia’s territorial integrity”. France, which currently holds the EU presidency, has called an emergency meeting of EU leaders on Monday to review the relationship between Russia and Europe. *** Yesterday Russia cancelled a visit by Nato’s secretary-general, and it has complained that the alliance is bolstering its military presence in the Black Sea. And in a move that is likely to increase tensions even further, Mr Medvedev later warned that his country may respond to a US missile shield in Europe through military means. Mr Medvedev said the deployment of an anti-missile system close to Russian borders “will, of course, create additional tensions”. He said: “We will have to react somehow, to react, of course, in a military way.” Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 26th, 2008 EU - save Ukraine from Russia, The European Foreign Policy Council (ECFR) NGO says. Philippa Runner, from Brussels for the EUobserver, August 25, 2008. The European Union should formally recognise Ukraine’s right to join the EU and offer it a “solidarity clause” to help prevent Russia from undermining Kiev’s pro-democratic government in the wake of the Georgia conflict, a European foreign affairs think-tank has said. “The next focal point for security tensions - although not for war - might be Ukraine,” the European Foreign Policy Council (ECFR) warned in a flash report on Monday (25 August), urging Brussels to make a strong show of friendship with Ukraine at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting on 5 September and the EU-Ukraine summit on 9 September. Russian cruiser - the Black Sea fleet has been stationed in Crimea since 1783. In the “mid-term,” the ECFR advised the EU to make a political declaration endorsing Ukraine’s EU perspective, draft a road-map for a visa-free travel deal, and help Ukraine to ready itself for NATO membership and the ejection of Russia’s Black Sea fleet from its old home in Crimea. www.SustainabiliTank.info thinks this is a very raw idea - not even half backed. We have seen Sevastopol and neighboring towns and waters. They are filled with old and newer Russian warships and the people in the towns are mainly Russian. Talking of the people - also in the Eastern part of Ukraine most people are Russian transplants, they speak Russian and feel they want to be part of Russia. We said this many times - to save Ukraine from Russia, the solution is an amicable divorce - so the best the EU could do is to advise the Ukraine to go for their own good to a marriage/divorce councillor and promise them the EU membership if they agree to severance from some of the heavily Russian territories. Surely, the EU can say to the Russian Prime-Minister that moving in with force will be dealt with in economic terms, but we all know that if ,and when, these statements are put to test, the EU will not go to war because of the Ukraine. Further, in the Ukraine case there is not even an argument like we had for Ossetia, where we said that if one opts for independence - this should lead to an Ossetia State that includes both - South and North Ossetia. There is no similar condition in the case of The Ukraine.} The ECFR study sees Russia’s assault on Georgia as part of a wider plan to rebuild the old Soviet sphere of influence, noting that some pro-Kremlin analysts such as Sergei Markov recently floated the idea of a Russia-led “East European Union,” which would mimic EU integration and include countries such as Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Turkey. *** Tensions flare: Russia-Ukraine tensions flared in recent weeks after Moscow accused Kiev of supplying arms to Georgia, and Kiev tried to limit Russia’s use of its Crimea-stationed warships against Georgia. Inside Ukraine, pro-western President Viktor Yushchenko’s senior aide, Andriy Kyslynskiy, last week accused Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of striking a secret deal with the Kremlin in return for Russia’s support when she runs in the next Ukrainian presidential elections in 2010. Mr Kyslynskiy also said political “interference” by pro-Kremlin elements in the Ukrainian establishment has reached levels unseen since the run-up to the 2004 Orange Revolution, adding that Russian intelligence is funding and steering Crimean separatist groups. Some 60 percent of the 2 million people who live in Crimea are ethnically Russian, hundreds of thousands of whom secretly hold Russian passports, the ECFR says. Crimea was historically Russian and has been home to the Black Sea fleet since 1783. It became part of Ukraine when Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, with the Russian fleet set to leave by 2017 under a bilateral deal. In the wider Ukraine, about 25 percent of the 50 million-strong population are Russophone, most of whom live in the east of the country and many of whom oppose Ukraine’s integration with NATO and the EU. *** Warning shots already fired: ——————– Georgian rebels in Abkhazia seek greater EU recognition. Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea - is a once a popular holiday spot for Russian elite. The Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia is keen to get EU recognition as an independent country, after the Russian parliament passed a resolution urging the Russian president to endorse Georgian rebels’ ambitions of statehood. “We are not interested in only Russia recognising us,” Abkhaz deputy foreign minister, Maxim Gunjia, told EUobserver on Monday (25 August), adding that he expects Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to shortly back the pro-independence vote by Russian MPs. “We want the European Union and all states to recognise our independence. This is a very positive moment for the EU - it could follow Russia’s example and also recognise Abkhazia. It is the only way to preserve stability and peace in the region.” “We recognise that full recognition is a very big demand of Abkhazia for the EU at the moment,” Mr Gunja added, indicating that Abkhazia would also be interested in other ways of increasing its presence on the international stage. “The EU could instead give a voice to Abkhazia in various European forums and institutions,” he said. “Only Georgia is invited to such forums while discussing the Caucasus, which is why the information the EU is receiving is biased, and why the conflict became possible.” *** The lower house and the upper house of the Russian parliament on Monday both unanimously voted through a resolution urging Mr Medvedev to recognise Abkhazia and a second Georgian rebel territory, South Ossetia, as independent states. The resolution has a largely symbolic value so far, as the legal decision resides solely with the Russian president, with some western experts doubting the Kremlin will follow through. “The game is completely open, but it would be much more reasonable for Medvedev not to do so. If he doesn’t, he holds onto a very powerful bargaining chip with regards to the EU and US, and Georgia itself,” conflict prevention think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG), analyst, Alain Deletroz, said. “If he wants to turn a military victory into a diplomatic victory, he will not recognise [the rebel enclaves], because it will then become extremely difficult for the EU to keep an open dialogue with Moscow,” Mr Deletroz explained. “What Russia wanted was a division within NATO. If they go too far, they will only achieve the opposite - a unification within the alliance.” *** The China angle: “Even for the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation [the China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan security alliance], recognition would create problems. For the same reasons that China was not happy with the West’s recognition of Kosovo, Beijing would also not be happy with Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” the ICG expert added, pointing to China’s discomfort over its own separatist problems, such as Taiwan. The European Commission was reluctant to issue any reaction to the Russian parliamentary vote ahead of next week’s extraordinary summit on EU-Russia relations, but the EU has repeatedly said it supports Georgia’s “territorial integrity.” “The debate is ongoing in Russia, and we will not react as long as the debate is ongoing,” European Commission spokesperson, Ton Van Lierop, told reporters in Brussels. Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Tbilisi in civil wars in the 1990s, setting up de facto states with their own mini-parliaments and paramilitary forces within Georgia’s internationally-recognised borders during a tense, 15-year long ceasefire that erupted into open conflict on 7 August. Tbilisi has accused Russia of giving the rebels financial and political backing, as well as arms, in order to keep NATO and EU-aspirant Georgia divided. It also accuses the separatist and Russian forces of “ethnic cleansing” in pushing out the last remaining ethnic Georgians from the two territories during the recent war. ———————- UNDP Releases Information on a UN Angle: Please see - http://www.innercitypress.com/undp1georg… It seems that Inner City Press came up with information, acknowledged by UNDP, that together with the George Soros Open Society International, and the Swedish Government, there was a very modest supplemental funding of Georgian officials, including the President, to make it possible for them to run a rather non-corrupt government in the National interest of Georgia, and perhaps also in the interest of the oil buyers of the West. Above link leads to an article that starts: UN’s Engagement with Saakashvili Included $1500 a Month, Soros and Sweden Also Paid. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, August 25 — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was paid $1500 a month by the UN Development Program earlier this decade, on top of his official presidential salary, UNDP has told Inner City Press. UNDP says the goals of these payments, in which the Swedish government and financier George Soros joined, were to allow the Georgian “government to recruit the staff it needed and also to help remove incentives for corruption.” While receiving these $1500 monthly payment, Saakashvili committed to increase tax collection in Georgia. Deals were signed with , among others, British Petroleum, for the Baku - Tbilisi - Ceyhan oil pipeline. UNDP, and presumably its two co-funders, applauded this development. ——- This last article mentions also the old UNDP problem with having helped with injecting hard currency to North Korea that, as the claim goes, has helped them finance the acquisition of nuclear know-how. So, UNDP is a tool for covert actions and not just a victim of side effects in what they consider to be development work? In the tape attached to the article, Matthew Russell Lee points out at the unevenness of the way, North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe were dealt with, and surfaces the idea that the treatment is in relation to the interest of internal politics in the US. So back to our posting, how will the UN be used in the case of the Ukraine - which is rather more of an EU then a US problem?
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 25th, 2008 In Ten Years, Russia Has Gone From Bankruptcy to Material Affluence.
The Russia that we see so sure of itself economically as well as militarily and politically no longer has anything to do with the humiliated and financially ruined power of exactly ten years ago to the day. August 17, 1998, the crisis in public finances that had been brewing for months pushed the Russian government to simultaneously devalue the ruble and declare itself in payment default on its Treasury bonds (GKO). An unprecedented double decision that cost international investors 100 billion dollars and Russia’s middle class most of their savings. The local financial system was paralyzed; households sometimes had to resort to barter to survive; shortages in essential products resurfaced while food prices increased two to three times in a few weeks. The ruble’s 80 percent drop reduced even average salaries to an absurd … 60 dollars a month. ***
Today, it’s difficult to hire someone in Moscow for less than a thousand dollars a month. The advance of material affluence hits you in the face and is not limited to nouveaux riches. Russians are renovating their apartments, traveling, increasing consumer loans and have made their country Europe’s premier automobile market. Six to nine percent growth depending on the year, has allowed Russia to rank 13th globally in Gross Domestic Product. The country now enjoys the planet’s third largest foreign exchange reserves and clears the world’s third largest trade surplus. The ruble, which everyone once fled, is freely convertible since July 2006, and has strengthened 60 percent against the dollar in ten years. Finally, this country which in 2000 still struggled to service its public debt - then 150 percent of GDP - is now virtually debt-free (8.5 percent of GDP).
Beyond the short-term boost of the ruble’s devaluation, the Russian authorities conducted a very effective macroeconomic policy. Rejecting Keynesian recovery measures, Moscow established a free market fiscal reform of the flat tax variety that had the immense virtue of prompting the underground economy to regularize itself. In consequence, the ridiculous tax receipts which had forced the government to resort to the GKO which carried the seed of the 1998 crisis, improved spectacularly, to the point that Russia now regularly clears a budget surplus before debt service equal to five percent of GDP. ***
Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher. ——————===============————— Russian Jerks Meet Western Knee-Jerks, writes Steve Weissman for truthout/perspective http://www.truthout.org/article/russian-… The photo shows: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and US General John Craddock, head of the US European Command, after a press conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, on August 21, 2008. The Russians can be real jerks, but they are not the only ones dragging us into a cold war redo. Blockheads on all sides are bringing back the risk of all-out nuclear conflict, along with a new arms race and the thrusting of American power from the Russian borderlands to wherever we see a Russian proxy. ***
Sarkozy now insists that Russia can implement these extra measures only in the immediate vicinity of the two provinces, while Western media have talked about a “security zone” on the Georgian side of the administrative borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But none of this appears in the written agreement the Russians signed. Even more to the point, the Russians never agreed in the cease-fire to maintain Georgia’s “territorial integrity.” As Sarkozy well knows, they explicitly rejected any such provision and have openly declared they would now support South Ossetia and Abkhazia in seceding from Georgia, just as the United States and most of Europe supported Kosovo in breaking away from Serbia.
*** If democracy and self-determination are the goal, it would be smarter by far to call the Russians on their bluff as “liberators” and propose an internationally supervised referendum to ask the Ossetians and Abkhazians what they want. But, no. The Western Europeans continue to embrace Saakashvili, even as they put off making Georgia (or Ukraine) a full-fledged member of NATO. No one, either in Europe or the United States, wants to go to war to defend Georgia, not even John McCain, whose foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann was a paid lobbyist for the Georgians. But now that the cold war juices are flowing, very few - left or right - seem willing to step away from Saakashvili’s grasp. This is a particular problem for the Democrats, who are beginning their convention in Denver this week. Barack Obama, the presumptive presidential nominee, has called for costly social programs, from universal health care to the creation of new energy sources. But his vice-presidential pick, Joe Biden, has just returned from visiting Georgia as a guest of Saakashvili, and is pushing a $1 billion aid package for the Georgians. And that’s just the first billion. If the United States leads NATO into a new cold war, the costs could be staggering, which will leave very little for “change we can believe in.” So far, I’m fairly pessimistic. Obama seems to have absorbed Biden’s zeal for Saakashvili, and on the question of Georgia most of the Democratic Party now sounds like secondhand McSame. But there’s always hope. If we can believe Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russians do not want a new cold war, and most Americans would clearly prefer health care to warfare. The question is whether American democracy and a new leader committed to change are strong enough for the popular will to prevail. Permalink | |