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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia, Ukraina sign gas deal

2014-10-31

From English language source: The sticking point up until today has been Russian insistence that Ukraina prepay for part of this winter's gas supplies, and repay about 60 percent of the accumulated debt for past purchases. Russia, Ukraine, and the European Commission have signed an agreement on gas supply and transit conditions until March 2015 during talks in Brussels. The agreement was signed by Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak, Ukrainian Energy Minister Yury Prodan, and vice president of the EC in charge of energy, Guenther Oettinger. The signing was witnessed by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the EC’s new vice president in charge of energy, Marosh Shefchovich. Ukraine will be able to receive the needed volumes of Russian gas until the end of March based on a pre-payment plan at a price of $385 per 1,000 cubic meters, Oettinger said during the press conference. Speaking at a briefing after the signing of the deal, Oettinger assured that Ukraine said it is ready to pay $1.451 billion of its gas debt to Russia “immediately.” According to Oettinger, Kiev will be able to pay back $3.1 billion of its gas debts before the end of the year. However, he added that the final figure will depend on the decision of the international Stockholm court of arbitration on the gas debt dispute. Ukraine will get the money it is lacking with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union, the EC official announced. Oettinger expects that the promised financial assistance from the IMF and the EU will be used by Kiev to pay for Russian gas.

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Europe

EU exit would leave Britain with zero influence, says Barroso

2014-10-20

[BBC] The UK would have "zero" influence if it voted to leave the EU, the outgoing president of the European Commission has said. How much influence does it have now, and how much of that does it use? Jose Manuel Barroso said Britannia could not negotiate with the US and China "on an equal footing" on its own. He also said free movement of people within the EU was an "essential" principle that could not be changed. But if Britain is no longer in the EU then it can be changed... Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps said Mr Barroso was "out of touch" and an "unelected bureaucrat". Not that Grant is so spectacular himself, but I suppose it takes one to know one... Mr Barroso was asked about Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... 's stated intention to negotiate a better deal for the UK in Europe, ahead of an in/out referendum. The prime minister has said he will "not take no for an answer" and "get what Britannia needs" on the question of freedom of movement. 'One last go' If the Conservatives remain in power, a referendum would be held by 2017, Mr Cameron has said. Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Barroso, whose term of office ends this month, said he believed Mr Cameron wanted Britannia to remain in the EU. Thus the corruption spreads. Once the camel gets its nose under the tent it gets the rest of the way in. And then good luck evicting it... "Britannia is stronger in the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ," Mr Barroso said, pointing to the Ebola crisis as an area where Britannia would not have the same level of influence if it was outside the EU. "David Cameron wrote to all of us about Ebola... What would be the influence of a prime minister of Britannia if it was not part of the European Union? "His influence would be zero." But you're not listening to him now so what's his influence anyway? Mr Cameron has said he wants to curb migration within the EU and last week pledged to have "one last go" at renegotiating the rules for Britannia. The Conservatives lost the recent Clacton by-election to the UK Independence Party, which wants the UK to leave the EU.

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Europe

EU Rejects Putin Demand for Ukraine Deal Changes

2014-09-27

[AnNahar] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... had written to Brussels demanding changes to a landmark EU-Ukraine accord, but it ruled out reopening the deal without Kiev's consent. Putin's letter to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso reportedly threatened retaliatory measures if the EU and Ukraine do not stick to their agreement with Moscow to delay the implementation of the deal until 2016. The Ukrainian and European parliaments last week both ratified the association agreement, the rejection of which by then-president Viktor Yanukovych last year triggered the political crisis in the former Soviet state. European Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen confirmed that Barroso had received a letter from Putin about the deal and said Brussels "will of course decide on the best way to respond." But she pointed out that the controversial pact was a "bilateral agreement" between Kiev and Brussels. "If there are any changes they have to be agreed between the EU and Ukraine," Hansen told a press briefing. "We are not seeking any changes to the agreement, Ukraine is free and sovereign to make choices in its interests." The Association Accord, which includes a wide-ranging Free Trade Agreement, is at the heart of the bitter stand-off between the EU and Russia over the future of its Soviet-era satellite. Moscow has repeatedly charged that the tie-up damages its legitimate interests and its economy. During trilateral talks between the EU, Ukraine and Russia on September 12, the EU announced unexpectedly that it had agreed to delay implementation of parts of the FTA to the end of 2015. The EU said it was a step to help bolster a ceasefire negotiated by Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on September 5. The trilateral talks, it insisted, were only about how to implement the accord and not about the content. Moscow has since tried to widen the talks to include amendments to the Association Accord itself, EU sources said. Putin's letter "casts a much wider net" than any concerns raised during talks on the September 12 agreement, an EU source said. The letter talks not only about specific trade issues but also about "systemic problems" with the Association Agreement, the source said. The clear impression is that Putin is seeking new concessions, the source said, adding: "The EU cannot accept that Russia decide for Ukraine." The Financial Times reported Friday that Putin had threatened "immediate and appropriate retaliatory measures" if Kiev tried to implement any part of the deal. Last week, in a letter seen by AFP from Russian Economy Minister Alexey Ulyukaev to EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, Russia said further talks on the pact should "clearly fix a mandate" for "the proposal for amendments to the Association Agreement".

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Europe

EU readies new Russia sanctions as Ukraine war fears grow

2014-08-31

The European Union readied a fresh wave of sanctions against Russia on Saturday with warnings that the escalating crisis in Ukraine was putting all of Europe at risk of conflict. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said as he visited Brussels to plead with EU leaders for tougher measures that Kiev and Moscow were on the verge of "full-scale war". Fears of a wider confrontation spiralled after claims that Russia has sent troops to help fight a new offensive by pro-Kremlin rebels that has wrested several southeastern Ukrainian towns from Kiev's control. EU Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso warned that the crisis was near a "point of no return" and said Brussels had drawn up new sanctions against the Kremlin that the 28 leaders would discuss at their summit on Saturday.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia to send aid convoy to Ukraine

2014-08-12

[Iran Press TV] Russia and Ukraine have reached an agreement for Moscow to send a humanitarian aid convoy to Kiev in cooperation with the International committee of the Red Thingy. The announcement came after a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso on Monday. Putin told Barroso that Moscow "is sending a humanitarian convoy to Ukraine in cooperation with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Thingy." The Red Thingy has confirmed that it has held talks with both countries and said that eastern Ukraine's humanitarian situation is critical as reports say thousands have no access to water, electricity, and medical aid. Moscow has been urging Kiev to permit it to send humanitarian aid to the residents of the eastern regions, but Ukraine and the West have opposed the move. On Saturday, the US and Britannia labeled any Russian humanitarian mission in Ukraine as "unjustified and illegal." Russia's decision follows Ukraine's intensified military operations, particularly around Donetsk, over the past week. On Sunday, the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk came under fresh shelling, as fighting between government troops and pro-Russian forces continues.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Barack Obama banned from entering Chechnya

2014-07-27

[THEGUARDIAN] Although Russia has not responded to US sanctions over the Ukraine crisis by putting a travel ban on President Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... , there is one part of the country he is now barred from entering: Chechnya. On Saturday Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the small Russian republic that has been the scene of two devastating separatist wars in the past 20 years, said he was placing Obama on a list of people banned from visiting. The list also includes European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... figures Jose Manuel Barroso, Herbert van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton. Kadyrov, wrote on his Instagram account that the ban was in response to US and EU actions in Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, which he called "state terrorism ... any action taken by a non-Moslem state that constrains the violent impulses of Moslems or their allies ... On Saturday, the Russian foreign ministry released a strongly worded statement blaming the US, in part, for the Ukraine crisis. "The United States continues to push Kiev into the forceful repression of [Ukraine's] Russian-speaking population's discontent," the statement said. "There is one conclusion — the B.O. regime has some responsibility both for the internal conflict in Ukraine and its severe consequences."

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International-UN-NGOs

EU Presses Sudan to Free Woman Held for Apostasy

2014-06-11

Golly. Betcha they feel better after that ejaculation. [AnNahar] The heads of the EU's major institutions urged Sudanese authorities on Tuesday to free a Christian woman sentenced to hang for apostasy, joining a wave of international condemnation. Jose Manuel Barroso, Herman Van Rompuy and Martin Schulz "express their deepest dismay and concern" over the fate of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, who has been sentenced to a hundred lashes and sentenced to death by hanging on charges of apostasy and adultery. The EU heads said Sudan had an "international obligation to protect the freedom of religion and belief" and called upon "the responsible Sudanese authorities and appeal courts to revoke this inhumane verdict". Ishag, who was born to a Moslem father, was sentenced to death on May 15 under Islamic sharia law that has been in place since 1983 and which outlaws conversions under pain of death. The 27-year-old was raised an Orthodox Christian, her mother's religion, married a Christian man originally from South Sudan and already had a 20-month-old son before she gave birth on May 27. The case has embarrassed the Sudanese authorities, which gave contradictory statements last week about her release, raising the ire of Western governments and human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... groups. Ishag's lawyer said Monday a three-judge panel in Sudan will examine an appeal against the sentence but gave no date for a ruling.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas calls on armed wing to kill soldiers and settlers

2014-06-11

Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has called on members of its armed wing in the West Bank to target Israeli soldiers and civilians in a bid to ease the plight of its prisoners in Israeli jails, a party front man said on Monday.! "We call on the men of resistance in the West Bank, primarily the Al-Qassam Brigades, to fulfill their duty in protecting the prisoners on hunger strike by targeting the occupation soldiers and its settlers," Hamas front man Hussam Badran wrote on his Facebook page Monday. "The occupation must pay a high price in the blood of its soldiers and settlers until it is persuaded to solve the issue of prisoners on hunger strike. This is everyone's task, on the individual and organizational levels," he wrote. Badran's comments came a week after the swearing in of a Hamas-backed Paleostinian unity government in Ramallah, endorsed by the US and the EU. On Sunday, EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso told the Herzliya Conference that Israel should support the new Paleostinian government "in the interest of a future peace deal and of a legitimate and representative government." Israel suspended all negotiations with the Paleostinians in the wake of the government's formation, saying it was not prepared to maintain contact with a government backed by Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and much of the West. The US and much of the international community took an opposite stance, and argued that the new Paleostinian government's ministers were not "affiliated" with Hamas. Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... has said the new government recognizes Israel, accepts past agreements with Israel and renounces terrorism. Hamas spokesmen have said the group's position on Israel, which it seeks to destroy, has not changed. Some 125 Paleostinian prisoners held in administrative detention in Israel launched a hunger strike seven weeks ago over their imprisonment conditions. UN Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... last week over the prisoners' health. The prisoner issue has also exacerbated existing tensions between Hamas and Fatah. Solidarity protests with the prisoners organized by Hamas across the West Bank were violently suppressed by PA security on Monday, Hamas charged. Hamas MPs Hassan Youssef and Fathi Qar'awi were physically attacked. According to the website of Hamas daily Al-Resalah, PA security stopped cars in a solidarity procession in Ramallah, confiscating posters and flags brought by the motorists. Policemen also detained journalist Musib Said, confiscating his press card and camera and demanding he delete his photos. "Reconciliation is at risk due to the behavior of the PA," Hamas MP Nayef Rajoub warned in Al-Resalah on Tuesday. The "premeditated attack" by PA security on the families of hunger strikers was "a clear message to the domestic reconciliation" and "a powerful stab in the back of the prisoner movement," Rajoub charged. In a statement published on its website Tuesday, Hamas called the assault on its deputies "a serious and unjustified violation that only serves the occupation." The unpaid salaries of some 50,000 civil servants appointed by Hamas in Gazoo over the past seven years remains another major bone of contention between Hamas and Fatah. In a presser held in Gazoo Monday, Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya called on the unity government to cover Hamas's salaries just as it did the salaries of PA civil servants living in Gazoo -- employees who have abstained from work for years at the behest of Ramallah in protest over Hamas's bloody takeover in 2007. "How dare the unity government rush to pay the salaries of Ramallah's employees who stopped working seven years ago... while preventing the payment of salaries to those who really worked on the ground during this period? Can this paradox possibly exist even after the [end] of the divide?" wondered Hayya.

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Europe

EU Calls Crimea Referendum 'Illegal', Plans New Sanctions on Moscow

2014-03-17

[An Nahar] Crimea's referendum on joining Russia is "illegal and illegitimate", the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... said Sunday, announcing that it would decide on sanctions on Monday. "The referendum is illegal and illegitimate and its outcome will not be recognized," the European Council and European Commission presidents said in a joint statement. EU foreign ministers meeting from 0830 GMT on Monday "will evaluate the situation tomorrow in Brussels and decide on additional measures" against Moscow, Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso said. Crimeans voted Sunday in the referendum on joining Kremlin rule amid intense Western pressure on Moscow not to annex the region in the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War. Both Washington and Brussels have imposed initial sanctions and warned they will take much more serious steps, up to full economic measures, if the vote went ahead.

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Europe

EU Parliament Head Raps Member States over Loss of Trust

2014-03-05

[An Nahar] European Parliament President Martin Schulz on Tuesday criticized EU member states for a loss of public trust in EU institutions. Schulz, who is running for the top job in the European Commission, said the European Council was slowing down political integration within the EU. "If the Council is the most powerful body and the popularity of the EU is falling, does that not concern you?," he said of the powerful body representing the EU's 28 member governments. Schulz said the Council's final say in the appointment of the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive, amounted to a "lack of democracy" that had eroded public confidence in the EU as a whole. Under current rules the Parliament, the only EU institution directly elected by voters, can put forward candidates for the role of Commission president, but the final decision rests with national leaders in the European Council. Granting Parliament the final say in the choice of Commission president would "strengthen EU democracy", Schulz said during an often heated public debate in the European Parliament building. Schulz made his comments in the lead-up to the EU elections in May, which have turned into a referendum between pro- and anti-European groupings with bad boy parties expected to do better than in the past. Schulz also denounced what he called "the blame-game" by member governments, saying national leaders were quick to take credit for successes in the EU, but blamed it for failures. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who will stand down in November, denied the Council lacked democratic legitimacy but said there was a general "crisis of confidence" in Europe. He called for a vigorous debate on the EU's future, rather than the kind of "institutional engineering" advocated by those wanting to grant more powers to Parliament.

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Europe

Head of EU Executive Barroso Hails Tymoshenko Release

2014-02-23

[An Nahar] European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Saturday welcomed the release of Ukraine's jailed pro-Western opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko and called for an independent legal system in the troubled country. "Welcome release of Tymoshenko. Independent justice system essential for a democratic Ukraine," Barroso said on his Twitter account.

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Europe

EU chief sounds alarm over rise of extremism

2013-12-08

[Pak Daily Times] EU Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso has made an impassioned plea for Europeans to resist mounting populism and extremism ahead of bloc-wide elections in May. So he's not talking about turbans, he's talking about the guys who want to get rid of the turbans. Europe is struggling to recover from a devastating economic crisis that has helped fuel anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment, with far-right political parties gaining traction in several countries, including La Belle France. And with elections to the European Parliament due in May, the migration of workers from poorer to richer member states has become a hot political issue. "We must have the courage to fight these very negative forces," Barroso told AFP in an interview during a visit to Gay Paree for a major summit focused on security in Africa. "I am vehemently calling on Europeans to step out of the comfort zone, to quit their silence, to not always let extremes make their move, to have -- in La Belle France too -- the courage to defend Europe. "I would like it not to be the anti-Europeans who take the initiative by manipulating emotions and anxieties" linked to the crisis and unemployment, Barroso said, less than six months ahead of elections to the European parliament in which Death Eater parties look well placed. Last month, Marine Le Pen, head of La Belle France's far-right National Front party, and Dutch anti-Islamic leader Geert Wilders announced a "historic" alliance aimed at creating a group at the European parliament after the elections. This could also include Belgium's Vlaams Belang, Italia's Lega Nord and Austria's Freedom Party. Other countries have strong populist parties, such as Britannia's UKIP. "I would like to see pro-European forces from the centre-left, centre-right and centre have the courage to come and defend Europe, to show that there are things that must be done at a national level too," said Barroso, who in 2014 ends his second five-year mandate at the helm of the Commission. The former Portuguese prime minister said it was important to "explain that Europe is not the cause of problems but is also part of the solution."

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