The wheels of Ukranian intrigue, it seems, continue to grind. Yesterday the Ukraine parliament sacked the pro-Orange government of Yuri Yekhanurov, after he was accused of striking a poor deal to end the gas price dispute with Russia. My initial assesment last week that, politically speaking, Russia was the big loser, may have been premature. The Yekhanurov government was forced to resign by an allaince of pro-Russian politicians and supporters of sack pm Yulia Tymoshenko. Clearly there is wheeling and dealing a-plenty going on, and the outcome of the new elections which will now probably be held in March seem hard to predict. But at the very least we now need to wait just a little bit longer to see just who exactly was actually pitching for what.
Tag Archives: Europe and the world
In Preparation
Well, it’s nice to know someone is thinking about us.
Some Facts On Turkey And Avian Flu
As everyone keeps saying, the important thing in circumstances like these is not to panic. But the best defence against panic is information, and after that knowledge. So here goes:
1/. The flu virus was actually first detected in the laboratories of the Turkish Agriculture Ministry on December 9 2005, despite the fact that a ministry statement on the same day denied the existence of the disease in Turkey. So when I implicitly questioned the Turkish Health Ministry version in this post on 2 January it seems I was right to be sceptical.
2/. Nearly 100 people are currently receiving treatment in suspected bird flu cases across Turkey. Since there have only been 142 confirmed cases across the globe since the H5N1 strain was first identified in 2003, the New York Times is undoubtedly right to suggest that the flu is spreading faster than expected.
3/. Elizabeth Rosenthal of the NYT is however not quite right when she says that “the Ankara cases have the most alarming implications because….. it is a relatively well-off area, where it is not the norm for humans and animals to live under one roof. ” This is a misunderstanding, since on the outskirts of Istanbul there is a large Kurdish migrant population, which basically lives in shanty towns, and in shanty towns people often keep their own hens:
Five of eight chickens owned by Ramazan and Muhittin Mentes, living in a shanty house in Ikitelli, Istanbul, reportedly died one by one after the New Year. Members of the Mentes family who ate the remaining three sick birds last Tuesday were taken by ambulance to hospital after neighbors notified officials. Members of the Mentes family immigrated to Istanbul from the Baykan district of Siirt, a southeastern Turkish province, two years ago, and have been earning a living selling lemons in the street markets.
There is a blurring of boundaries here, since many of the people affected may simply live outside the formal limits of Istanbul. However, according to this article:
The Governor of Istanbul has announced quarantine measures will be applied in the areas of Istanbul within a three kilometer radius of regions where poultry samples tested positive to bird flu.
4/ The shanty-town structure is important, since it means the bird/human interface is much larger, and thus the possibility of transmission much greater. The speed of the spread may thus not be a function of virus mutation, but rather of the high ratio of birds to humans in some areas.
There is still no evidence whatever of human/human transmission, although obviously the more human cases there are, the higher the possibility of this ocurring. The most important objective, IMHO, should be to eliminate this outbreak before a more normal human flu strain arrives, since this would provide the ideal host for the kind of mutation that none of us want to see happen.
Bird Flu In Istanbul
I don’t think we need to panic, but I do think we need to follow this very closely.
Twenty-one people in the Istanbul area are in hospital amid fears they have bird flu, newspapers said on Monday, raising concern the deadly disease has spread to Turkey’s commercial hub of 12 million people.
Hopefully this outbreak will be contained, but it does seem to be moving very quickly.
Atlanticism Goes Only So Far
Der Standard is reporting that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that “an institution like Guantanamo cannot, and cannot be allowed to, exist for any length of time” and promised to take the matter up with George W. Bush. Those people who expected less criticism from Germany of the War On Terror are clearly about to be disappointed.
It’s a tough move from Merkel, who has been impressively successful in building authority in foreign affairs despite the frankly bizarre position of her government, hanging by a thread from Franz Müntefering’s ego.
Evo Morales Accepts The Invitation
Another example of the law of unintended consequences: Evo was in Spain on Wednesday, probably partly as a result of the spoof phone invite from a right-wing radio station. This ‘invitation’ opened the door politically for Zapatero to offer a courtesy invite which might have otherwise drawn a lot more political backfire from the PP right.
In fact, as the linked article makes plain, it is Spanish interests – especially Repsol YPF, Iberdrola and Red Electrica – that are most immediately threatened by Morales nationalisation plans. This makes yet more dog-in-the-mangerism from the PP (Rajoy was too busy to meet with him) very hard to understand. One more time they seem to be putting Party before Common interest, hoping to be able to ensnare Zapatero in Morales’ web for short term political advantage without thinking too much about the actual future of Bolivia, or of Spanish interests there.
Morales was also in Brussels yesterday, where he met, of course (who else), Javier Solana.
Oh, How Are The Mighty Fallen!
I can remember a time when Jeffrey Sachs used to do some pretty innovative work in development economics (and this one). Among other parameters influencing ‘take-off’ he used to think the demographic ones important. Increasingly this seems not to be the case. This podcast interview with Bolivian blogger Miguel Centellas and Jeffrey Sachs is not only informative as to what is happening in Bolivia itself, but also on how Sachs’ thinking is evolving. The three key issues explaining the ‘Bolivian Question’ are now: the fact that it is land-locked, the fact that there is huge inequality, and the fact that there is political instability. The first is a reality which only infrastructural investment can ammeliorate, but the second two involve addressing demographic issues if you want to move forward. At least that is my view. Incidentally hat-tip to Miguel Buitrago and also see this post and comments on the Ciao blog.
Quick Response?
Well the news is coming in thick and fast. The EU Observer informs us this morning that:
The EU might build a new gas pipeline on the Adriatic Sea coast in order to ease reliance on Russia following the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute. Hungarian economics minister Janos Koka told news wires about the plan following a meeting of EU energy experts in Brussels on Wednesday (4 December). Under the scheme, tankers would deliver liquid gas from the Middle East and North Africa to an Adriatic region entry point into Europe. A feasibility study is due by March. The EU experts’ meeting was orginally tabled for May, but was brought forward after Russia turned off gas supplies to transit state Ukraine on Sunday causing sharp drops in deliveries to the EU.
I think all this takes us back to the strategic importance of EuroMed.
All Gas Or Just Hot Air?
This is a kind of bits-and-bobs post without a lot of coherence, as I am trying to make sense of something which is hard to make sense of, so anyone with more specialist knowledge, please chip-in.
Now I think what we have here is a highly complex situation, and if individual actors behave strangely in a complex situation, this should not in fact surprise us. The big picture scenario is the economic take-off of what are going to be two enormous energy consumers – India and China – and a growing per-capita consumption of energy in the rest of the OECD towards the previous US ‘highs’. This has lead to a large and significant increase in oil prices, and the rest of what is happening can be seen as the scrum which has assembled in the wake.
Now what else do we know?
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Unfit To Lead The G8?
The question as to whether or not Russia ” truly belongs in the prestigious Group of Eight (G-8) advanced liberal democratic market economies”, and even more to the point, whether it is in a fitting condition to take the helm in that organisation is a question which was asked by Taras Kuzio (Visiting Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University) in yesterday’s issue of Eurasia daily monitor, – a publication which is rapidly becoming a ‘must read’ for those of us who want to follow what is happening along the EU’s eastern frontier.
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What’s in it for Putin?
If there’s one mystery trumping all the others in the recent Russian-Ukrainian gas supply row, it is the one concerning the role and intentions of the Kremlin, particularly with respect to Vladimir Putin: Why fight a public battle over an issue that is almost as intransparent and complicated as the geological processes that created the gas in the first place? Veronica Khokhlova is trying to make some sense of the deal –
On the surface, it’s all clear and nice: they’ve reached an agreement, and we aren’t paying what Gazprom initially wanted us to pay. Europe can relax, too. But … it’s a complex deal. The Reuters piece [she cites on her blog] doesn’t mention Rosukrenergo as part of the scheme, an intermediary company that will be buying Russian gas from Gazprom for $230 and then selling both Russian and Turkmen gas to Naftogas for $95. A Gazprom affiliate and Austria’s Raiffeisen Investment AG own 50/50 stakes in Rosukrenergo, which, in a way, means that Gazprom will be buying gas from itself. Rosukrenergo is registered in Switzedrland, and Raiffeisen Investment AG has, allegedly, nothing to do with Raiffeisen Bank. Oleksandr Turchynov, former head of SBU and Yulia Tymoshenko’s man, launched an investigation into Rosukrenergo in summer 2005, but was not allowed to finish it.”
And Jerome at Eurotrib keeps arguing that all this is (simply) a matter of oligarchic infighting at the expense of the peoples involved (as they are paying significatnly higher energy prices than those paid by their countries/oligarchs energy corporations).
Be that as it may – the real question at hand is, as I see it, the following: did Russia/Putin want to appear weak in this matter, demonstrating to the west that he needs to do in Russia what he deems necessary (remember Yukos, the NGO law), or is the Kremlin/Putin indeed so weak that it has to accept oligarchic infighting to the extent of creating a foreign policy crisis, and that, as a result, the Kremlin needs to tighten its grip? Quite frankly, neither alternative is likely to make anyone happy.