So the long-running Russia-Ukraine gas crisis is finally over. It was only the day before yesterday that it got going wasn’t it? The Ukraine will pay Russia an agreed price of $230 per 1,000 cubic metres. More interesting is what is in the fine print:
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Monthly Archives: January 2006
What A Surprise!
According to the Financial Times this morning “Vietnam’s economy is expected to maintain rapid growth in the year ahead, after its gross domestic product last year expanded 8.45 per cent – the fastest pace of growth in nearly a decade.” This is to be added to the fact that “Economic growth in Vietnam, which averaged about 7 per cent between 2000 and 2004, has been driven in recent years largely by surging exports, after the signing of a long-anticipated bilateral trade agreement with the US in 2001”.
Now let’s take a quick look at the charts, yes, that’s it: median age 25.51, fertility 2.2 , life expectancy 70.61. The median age is still a little low for achieving complete take-off, but it is certainly in at the bottom end of the ‘new tigers’ range, and with fertility down to 2.2 and life expectancy already comparatively high, that median age looks set to rise rapidly.
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Not Everything It Seems To Be?
It was the late AJP Taylor who suggested that the efficient (or proximate) cause of the first world war was to be found in the the way the national railway timetables had been drawn up. Without wishing to take issue with Taylor (either for or against), it does occur to me that a certain amount of light may be thrown on the otherwise puzzling decision of Gazprom to throw the tap by taking a quick look through looking the election timetables of all the key players (in both Eastern and Western Europe). I was put in mind of this point by the following opening gambit in what is in fact a very interesting and to the point article in today’s FT:
“Russia’s row with Ukraine has triggered fresh concern over the security of Europe’s energy supplies and some see nuclear power as the biggest beneficiary.”
Nuclear power, hmmmm. I hadn’t thought enough about this point when I knee-jerked my response yesterday.
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Battle Royal
A long time ago, in a year already far away, some commenters were mentionning a recent poll showing that Ségolène Royal was now leading the race to become the socialist party nominee for the 2007 French presidential election. One salient finding of the poll was that she was supported by a plurality of both French voters (36%) and socialist sympathizers (48%).
At this point, even casual observers of the French political scene would to tempted to ask : just who the hell is this Ségolène Royal I have never heard of? Well, I’m glad you asked and I was preparing to bore you with a clumsily written and long-winded summary about the race for the Socialist party nomination and Ms Royal’s short but happy political carreer. But I’ve just found that Doug Ireland has already done it, albeit in a clear way, complete with color pictures, snarky criticism of the French press and the inevitable comparison to Hillary Clinton. So go read him and come back if you really want to know my opinion about Segolène Royal’s chances.
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Human Victim Of Bird Flu In Turkey?
Well, as we say in Spain: one hot one and one cold one. Last Friday I posted about how Turkey may well be making progress in modernising its legal system thanks to EU pressure. Today the worry is that the information system in Turkey may well still be extremely deficient. This is highlighted by the death of Muhammet Ali Kocyigit and the fact that three more of his siblings were admitted to hospital with symptoms which sound suspiciously similar to flu.
News.com.au suggests that Muhammet died of flu, but the Turkish Health Ministry is at pains to assert that even if the cause of death is to date unknown, it wasn’t avian flu. Let’s just hope they’re levelling with us!
Running On Half Gas
The big news today I suppose is that Ukraine has just received a mid-winter present: someone turned off the gas. The issue here seems to be not the what but the how. Ukraine has been receiving gas at incredibly subsidised rates from Russia, and there is no good reason why this should continue indefinitely. But for those of us who are worried that Russia – as a wanabee rogue state – could present possibly the most important future threat to EU stability, the way this has been done is surely far from re-assuring.
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Sparkling Spain
Spain’s economy is of course booming, (as it has been for the last ten years). The inflation rate is booming too. Some even go so far as to suggest that Spain should now become a member fo the G8. Spanish people are of course buying a lot more houses, indeed more housing units were built in Spain last year than in Germany, France and Italy combined, and since, as Brad Delong pointed out yesterday, as long as interest rates stay low, the housing sector can keep booming, and since in the short term interest rates in Spain will stay low, then the boom looks set to continue. Plenty of reasons then, at least for now, to break open the bubbly.
Which is what, of course, a lot of people having been doing. In Spain by bubbly people normally mean Cava, a Catalan beveridge which is really remarkably similar to French Champagne. This year, however, things may be a little different, at least in some parts of Spain, since in addition to having a smokeless celebration, many will also be having a cava-free one.
So what is this all about? Well funnily enough rather than being about Eve (whether New Year’s or Xmas), this topic is in fact much more about José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (the Spanish Prime Minister/President).
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A New Year
Happy new year, everyone.
It’s an afoe tradition to invite our readers to make predictions for the new year.