Gas row sends shiver through icy Europe

[Alpha Centauri]

Originally Posted by Philidor

Showing my ignorance, but why can't the Ukraine be by-passed and the gas pumped North through Belarus, Poland, Germany and the Baltic States?

Apparently it can, BUT there is a poor throughput rate on the alternative routing(s), for technical reasons (ie they can't cope with the level of throughput that would be required). Russia is keen to discuss upgrading those routings with the countries through which they lie - and renegotiated terms for the transit fees they would demand for the pipelines crossing their territories.

Belarus is a country which causes worry to both the West and to Russia also. The last Stalinist state left in Europe, it is viewed with alarm by the EU and USA - its leader, Lukashenka, is a strong-arm soviet-style madman, whose tricks have included "locking the US Ambassador out of his house", and an attempt at monetary union with Russia which was called off at 23:59 on the day before, in a tv broadcast in which Loonyshenka called the Russian leaders "cheats, liars and fraudsters". Any sympathy which the Kremlin may have had for this nutcase promptly evaporated. However, the Kremlin does rather welcome having any kind of buffer-state between itself and a Poland that's now a vassal state of the USA... and is housing missile silos pointed at Russia. You could also say, however, that the Belarussian people shouldn't have to live in a Stalinist madhouse merely for Russia's convenience. It's not a pretty scenario from anyone's point of view.

The best hope of breaking the stalemate in Belarus would be for Lukashenka to be voted out by his own people. However, the level of brutal corruption in Belarus is so advanced that they had to announce a recount in the last elections, as Lukashenka had accidentally received 104% of the vote. The Opposition in Belarus are under constant harassment, are frequently arrested (usually before Elections), and admit that their chances are mostly hopeless whilst the voting system remains under Loonyshenka's beady eyes. Meanwhile the people there live in near-medieval poverty. Any attempts by Russia to intervene have been labelled "imperial aggressive intentions" by the West, so it's a no-win.

My local metro station in Moscow is also a mainline rail station - the end of the line that comes from Berlin, Warsaw, and Minsk. Every morning I see the Belarussians arriving on this train, dressed like war refugees - all coming in search of illegal guest-worker jobs on building sites, or chambermaiding in hotels, or in restaurants and other similar kinds of casual work. None of them have a good word to say for their megalomaniac emperor. There's little or no work in Belarus - schoolteachers earn $62-$105 per month. They can clear that in a DAY in Moscow giving private tutoring lessons.

Giving Alexander Lukashenka control of Europe's main gas pipeline would be like sending your children to Dr Mengele's Summer Holiday Home for Kids And on that topic both the EU and Russia are in firm agreement

The truly laughable aspect of this man is that he has been driving through a "reunion with Russia" campaign - because he seriously hopes and intends to stand as Leader of the reunited country and declare a return of the USSR

[Philidor]

Amazing. Cheers Reiner. I'm still angry at Gorby for allowing the break-up to occur (sorry Mischa). I'm not a conspiracy theorist but have always assumed he was a high-placed CIA asset, the triumph of US Cold War spookery.

[Alpha Centauri]

Originally Posted by Philidor

Amazing. Cheers Reiner. I'm still angry at Gorby for allowing the break-up to occur (sorry Mischa). I'm not a conspiracy theorist but have always assumed he was a high-placed CIA asset, the triumph of US Cold War spookery.

My own view would be the opposite, though. Gorby did everything possible to try to hold the pieces together - he was a hard-line Communist on a damage-limitation exercise. He realised that the wheels had come off in Central Europe and he couldn't save it there. But his reaction was very interesting... he pulled back all the soviet troops to the USSR frontier, in the hope of trying to limit the collapse to the E Bloc countries only, but hold at least the USSR itself together. In a mad kind of way he did, but he was sabotaged by his own allies - who kidnapped him, saying he'd been useless.

I really have very little respect for Gorby at all. This might be "received" from friends in Russia, and maybe it's a bit judgemental. But he had this dreadful "yokel" accent in Russian, and liked to use long words and terms that he didn't understand... so there are "Gorbyisms" in Russian just like Bushisms in American. Gorby loved to produce long paragraphs of burocratic gobbledygook that meant absolutely nothing. Putin's minders knew this, and it's why Putin always produces laconic seven-word sentences which are completely to the point.

Lukashenka is a sort of Gorby clone - a soviet pen-pusher who has never had a proper job. But he's a miserable and unhinged man, and although it's fun to joke about him, in all reality he is one of the great living tyrants of our age

[Philidor]

On a related subject, I didn't know Chavez provided "Bush Alaskans" i.e. residents of Alaska living off the road network, with cheap heating oil:

Among the beneficiaries of the 100 gallons of heating oil were 65 Native American tribes, including those in Alaska, Montana and South Dakota.

Alejandro Granado, the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Citgo Petroleum, the Venezuelan government's Houston-based oil subsidiary, said he discussed the plan to renew the program with Chavez on Wednesday morning.

The decision "is the result of a strong commitment and a big effort on the part of Citgo and our shareholders in light of the current global financial crisis and its impact on the oil industry in general," Granado said in a press statement.

Venezuelan oil, which is a lower grade than conventional crude and trades at a lower price, peaked at $126 a barrel in July and now sells for about $40 a barrel. About 93 percent of Venezuela's export revenue comes from oil sales, mostly to the U.S.

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/645918.html

Until recently Chavez subsidised London transport with cheap fuel oil for the buses. The new mayor canceled the arrangement. It seems odd that Sara Palin accepts socialist oil, yet London won't. But it is -40 in Alaska...

[Alpha Centauri]

Meanwhile the Ukrainians have come back to the discussion table - with the amusing idea that gas should be turned on immediately with the EU bankrolling their energy debts!

I just saw the Czech Foreign Minister interviewed on tv - he called the Ukrainian plan "blackmail".

[micrologus]

Originally Posted by Reiner Torheit

Meanwhile the Ukrainians have come back to the discussion table - with the amusing idea that gas should be turned on immediately with the EU bankrolling their energy debts!

I just saw the Czech Foreign Minister interviewed on tv - he called the Ukrainian plan "blackmail".

[haydnguy]

Originally Posted by Philidor

Amazing. Cheers Reiner. I'm still angry at Gorby for allowing the break-up to occur (sorry Mischa). I'm not a conspiracy theorist but have always assumed he was a high-placed CIA asset, the triumph of US Cold War spookery.

So your saying that the U.S. is no better than the old Soviets???

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by haydnguy

So your saying that the U.S. is no better than the old Soviets???

IMHO it's not done the world much good to have had just one superpower since 1989.

[haydnguy]

Originally Posted by Philidor

IMHO it's not done the world much good to have had just one superpower since 1989.

I would agree with you on that.

[Mischa]

Showing my ignorance, but why can't the Ukraine be by-passed and the gas pumped North through Belarus, Poland, Germany and the Baltic States?

The other opportunity btw. is the planned Baltic Sea Pipeline, which is quite a fascinating politicum: the plan was signed ten days before our last election, when it was clear, that Schröder wouldn't have a chance. Just a couple of weeks after he lost the election, Schröder became a manager of the pipeline-consortium. Stinks, doesn't it?

Here they go: Gas-Gerd & Gasputin:


This pipeline is highly controversial, some governments like Sweden are afraid of environmental damages in their area, others (Poland and the Balticum) feel left out and in danger without a transfer through their countries. Some worries are quite reasonable in my opinion, I still hope it won't be finished. Other worries are just playing nasty games with nasty old stereotypes. The highlight of the discussion was last autumn, when the US ambassador of Sweden urged Sweden to 'take the lead' in resistance towards this project in a Swedish paper.
Generally he asked for more European cooperation to develop alternative energy sources and transport routes for energy, including from Central Asia, that would bypass "the Kremlin's control." (sic!)

The much more favored pipeline he had in mind is that Nabucco-pipeline, transfering gas from traditionally stable areas like the Caspian area through Turkey and the Balkan.

Germany receives Gas from Russia now since 35 years, there had never been any problems, be it during the last days of Cold War, be it in quite a number of political controversies. Russia owns more then 25% of the world's natural gas ressources (there's an old Russian saying: when god moved over the earth to distribute the treasures of the world, his hands deep freezed over Siberia and he had to drop most of the good stuff), followed by Iran and Katar with each 15.

But the pipeline aside - isn't it disturbing how a government like the Ukrainian one gambles away all the respect they gained a couple of years ago? Mind you, the storage tanks of natural gas are miraculously filled there, while tens of thousands of Serbians are now without gas these days for instance.