Thursday, October 30, 2008

Baltic Blog......Security & Intelligence Briefs, International, Baltic & Russia News October 29, 2008





The Mazeika Report October 28, 2008 go to "blog" link to http://mazeikabloginternationalnews.blogspot.com/ for archival reports for the months of September, August, July and June, 2008Pass this link on to other readers! Breaking stories.....your comments are welcome.... Place this "blog link" into your computer favorites for easy access.
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Red Terror on the Amber Coast
Completion and Release of Documentary Film
“A Story that needs to be told!”

DVD copies: $20.00 each (plus $2.00 postage)

You Tube trailor preview for
Red Terror...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYET4bk0gvU

Film-maker Ken Gumbert and producer David O’Rourke have announced that their documentary film, Red Terror on the Amber Coast, has been completed and released for distribution, and has been accepted for broadcast on Rhode Island Public Television, at a time yet to be set. The film, in the works for five years, describes the Soviet occupation of the Baltics following the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, the fifty year reign of terror the Soviets imposed on the once free and democratic republics, and the resistance to the illegal takeover. The film’s focus is principally on Lithuania. But the film-makers know that the story they present is the story of all three countries.

Almost by accident in 2001, the team of editor and writer David O’Rourke and documentary film-maker Ken Gumbert came upon photographs of prison and torture abandoned by the KGB when they fled their headquarters in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Startled by the blunt cruelty of what they saw, they decided that the terrible story the pictures revealed had to be told.

In June of 2006 they were able to film interviews with a cross section of people, from President Adamkus and Vytautas Landsbergis to the wives of captured partizanai (freedom fighters) who had to fight just to survive while their husbands were in Soviet prisons. And with the full support of the National Genocide and Resistance Center in Vilnius and the Occupation Museum and Film Archives in Riga they have been able to illustrate the personal narratives with rare archival films and photographs.

At present the film-makers, both Dominican priests, are working with Lithuanian-American groups and others to promote the scheduling of the film on public television, in film festivals, and in local communities. They may be contacted directly by interested people.
kgumbert@providence.edu dkorop@sbcglobal.net Tony@TonyMazeika.com


For more information, contact Tony & Danute Mazeika 949 929-9051

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Breaking news & commentary ....click on active links for multiple photos!


Senate 110th Session of Congress (2007 - 2008)
Click the tabs directly below to see vote descriptions and ACT! for America's positions. Then find the vote in the scorecard below and scroll down to the House or Senate member you're looking for. The percentages on the far right indicate the percent of the time each Member voted with ACT! for America's positions.
http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/senate-110th-session-of-congress-2007-2008
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George Soros Funds Catholic Left
An organization founded by billionaire investor and Democratic financier George Soros has funded two “left-wing” Catholic groups that support abortion rights, according to Catholic League President Bill Donohue.
Soros “is connected to two apologists for abortion rights: Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and Catholics United,” Donohue said in a Catholic League release.
“In 2006, Soros’ Open Society Institute gave Catholics in Alliance $100,000 [double the amount he gave in 2005], and in the same year, Catholics in Alliance listed Catholics United . . . as an organization with which it has a formal relationship.
“John Podesta, who runs the Soros-funded organization Center for American Progress, admits that he works closely with Catholics in Alliance and Catholics United.”
Donohue asks, “Why would any Catholic organization take money from a man like George Soros? . . . And why would Soros have any interest in funding Catholic groups? He doesn’t give the Catholic League any money, and if he offered, I would refuse it.
“The reason Soros funds the Catholic left is the same reason he lavishly funds Catholics for Choice, the pro-abortion group that has twice been condemned as a fraud by Catholic bishops. They all service his agenda, namely, to make support for abortion rights a respectable Catholic position.”
On Oct. 17, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput accused Catholics in Alliance and Catholics United of doing a “disservice” to the Catholic Church, according to Donohue, who added, “He’s right — and now we know what really makes them tick.”
Chris Korzen of Catholics United sought to counter the criticism from Donohue by asserting that Soros’ organization also contributes to Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, and Catholic Legal Immigration Services.
But Donohue told LifeNews.com, “Unlike the three Catholic organizations cited by Korzen, Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance are apologists for abortion.
“Their passion for abortion rights is so strong that they refuse to endorse the legal ban on partial-birth abortion.”
http://news.newsmax.com/?Z6ODXcSjvM18yhQcOT6Ow3QZkXbzxJRAZ
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We as a society have only ourselves to thank for this insidious situation. What is remarkable is that these Leftist-pro Marxist instructors and professors have now declared themselves publically on the stage of public opinion. When students go to a university without core belief systems cultivated from parents, church, and family, why should we be surprised when our children join the ranks of radicals. The "boomer" generation did a terrible job with their "generation x" children. So what is next in the devastating culture war ravaging this nation? We deserve the cultural and political consequences based upon our choice of the politicians and educators that serve us.
Tony Mazeika


More Than 3,000 Academics Sign Pro-Ayers Petition
Educators signed a petition praising William Ayers as an education reformer whose ties to the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground are just "history."

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/22/academics-sign-pro-ayers-petition/comments/
Reader comments:
"Really outrageous and alarming. All this has been going on for a loooong time and building up. My daughter Kai is the local chapter head of Parents Televisioon Council (PTC) which monitors television programs for suitability for kids and takes action against bad, lewd, violent shows. It is absolutely shocking what is being shown early in the evening. As well as which companies are advertising on these programs. http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/faqs/main.asp God help us all.
Love,"
Mari-Ann

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Geopolitical Diary: The World According to Riyadh
October 24, 2008 0207 GMT
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will be meeting in Vienna on Friday, a month ahead of schedule. The issue on the table is whether or not to cut OPEC production in light of declining global demand for crude as countries the world over are coming down with the financial flu.
OPEC members like Venezuela, Iran, Libya and Algeria — all of which are pulling their hair out watching oil prices slide down to around $70 a barrel — have been issuing statement after statement over the past week, calling on their fellow OPEC members to cut production so that they can maintain the flow of petrodollars coming into their government coffers. Going by their statements, it seemed as if it was inevitable that OPEC would make a decision to cut production and buoy the price of crude.
But earlier in the week, Stratfor cautioned that an OPEC production cut is anything but inevitable — especially with the Saudis in play.
As the world’s largest oil producer and exporter and the cartel’s undisputed heavyweight champion, Saudi Arabia is the ultimate decider when it comes to the issue of increasing or decreasing OPEC production. Since the Saudis have the most oil, they are the only ones who can take enough crude off the market to make a meaningful difference in price.
Upon arriving in Vienna, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi was asked whether his country supports the idea of cutting output when the cartel meets Friday. His answer: “Who said anything about a cut? Prices will be determined by the market.”
We have a feeling a number of leaders in oil-producing countries across the globe nearly went into cardiac arrest upon hearing those words.
Anything can still happen at this OPEC meeting, but Saudi Arabia is very clearly indicating that is in no big rush to prop up the price of oil. On the one hand, you might consider Riyadh crazy not to want to keep the petrodollars flowing at a healthy pace when global demand is sliding. But Saudi Arabia isn’t worried about the cash right now (the Saudis already have a nice cushion of at least US$1 trillion in petrodollars to fall back on.) Riyadh’s plans for OPEC run on a much deeper geopolitical calculus.
The 1973 oil embargo was the first time Saudi Arabia learned what it meant to use oil as a tool of foreign policy. The Venezuelans ultimately knocked the legs out from under the embargo when Caracas decided to fill the gap by increasing its own oil exports. But nonetheless, the Saudis developed a taste for using oil as a weapon. In the 1980s, the Saudis, in private collaboration with the Americans, shifted gears and increased oil production to flood the markets. The Saudi move was one of the variables that helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union, allowing the Saudi Arabia to drive a major competitor out of the energy market for a good ten years and dismantle what was at the time the greatest foreign policy threat to the West in one fell swoop.
Since then, the Saudis have used their oil wealth primarily as a means of policy to keep U.S. interests in line with those of Saudi Arabia, particularly when it has come to issues of maintaining Sunni power in Iraq and keeping their Persian rivals in Tehran in check. Now, the Saudis are presented with a situation in which the world’s three major economic centers — the United States, Europe and Asia — are approaching recessions nearly simultaneously. The inevitable global economic slowdown spells bad news for the more-vulnerable oil-producing countries such as Venezuela and Iran, whose regime security is almost wholly dependent on oil prices not taking a deep plunge.
From Saudi Arabia’s point of view, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to hold out a bit longer and allow the price of crude to drop a few more dollars to drive some select competitors out of the market. For instance, by turning the screws on Venezuela, Saudi Arabia could get payback for 1973 and knock down a major irritant in the U.S. backyard.
The Russians also have reason to be worried. The Saudis do not like the idea of a resurgent Russia, especially when it comes to meddling in the Middle East. With the Russians already suffering from major liquidity problems, draining their oil revenue would help deflate their ambitions even more.
The Iranians, who have most vociferously called for a production cut, are on the top of Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical target list. The Saudis want to prevent the Iranians and their Shiite allies from radically upsetting the regional balance of power that has historically been in favor of the Sunnis. With Iran already under deep economic distress, the Saudis would be more than inclined to knock Iran down a few more pegs.
There are, of course, other side effects to bringing down the price of oil, particularly for countries less hostile to U.S. interests — such as Mexico, Canada and Brazil, which are going to take a hit from a decline in energy revenues. Of most concern for the United States is Mexico, which might require substantial bailouts to prevent the chaos from spilling over onto the U.S. side of the border as the country is already struggling with a fight against powerful drug cartels and a tight fiscal crisis. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia’s major energy clients — including the United States — would greatly appreciate a break in oil prices to help reduce production costs at home and ease the pains of the coming recession.
In any case, it would be foolish to think that the cost-benefit analysis running through Riyadh’s head right now is simply based on short-term income numbers. Major geopolitical opportunities are dancing before the Saudis’ eyes. We’ll see in Vienna just how hard and how seriously the Saudis intend to play.
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Fact Sheet: Extending Travel Opportunities to Our Allies
President Bush Discusses the Visa Waiver Program
Today, President Bush hosted representatives from seven nations that have met the criteria for admission into the United States' Visa Waiver Program (VWP) and six nations on track to be admitted. In about a month, the citizens of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and South Korea will be able to travel to the United States for business or tourism for up to 90 days without a visa. So-called "roadmap" countries, which are on track to qualify for VWP admission, at today's event were Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Poland, and Romania.
The 13 countries represented at today's event are close friends and allies whose leaders told the President that their citizens believed it unfair that they had to wait in line and pay for visas to travel to the United States when other allies are allowed to travel visa-free. The President agreed while pointing out that in the post-9/11 world, expanding visa-free travel would be possible only as travel security measures are strengthened.
Today's announcement represents a milestone in the long effort by the Administration to modernize the VWP. During a November 2006 visit to Estonia, the President announced that he would work with Congress to expand opportunities for visa-free travel as we strengthen the security of the VWP. The President appreciates the bipartisan support this initiative received on Capitol Hill. As part of the "Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007," Congress acted to give the Administration greater flexibility to admit new countries into the VWP provided that they agree to a number of new security enhancements, notably to share information about threats to our people. The law also requires foreign citizens who want to travel under VWP to register through a new online program that screens for potential security threats.
Extending Travel Opportunities To Some Of Our Closest Allies Deepens Our Friendship And Makes All Our Countries Safer
The VWP currently allows the citizens of 27 countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business without obtaining a visa. Nationals participating in the VWP must travel only for business, pleasure, or transit; stay in the United States for 90 days or less; and, if arriving by sea or air, hold a valid ticket for return or onward travel and enter the United States aboard an air or sea carrier designated as a participant in the VWP.
President Bush believes the best foreign policy for America is one that lets visitors get to know this great country firsthand. Throughout history, some of the strongest advocates of freedom have been those who came to America and saw the blessings of liberty with their own eyes. The President is grateful to these 13 countries for seeking to strengthen ties between our citizens and looks forward to an even stronger partnership in the years ahead.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/10/print/20081017-15.html
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The Moscow Times » Issue 4018 » News

U.S. Sees Double Hit For Russia's Economy
27 October 2008By Nikolaus von Twickel / Staff WriterRussia will take a double hit from the global financial crisis because it is not isolated from the world and lacks domestic economic stability, a senior U.S. diplomat said.Russia is seeing "the worst of both worlds," David Merkel, deputy assistant secretary of state for Russia, said in an interview Friday.Reiterating the harsh rhetoric that the U.S. administration has adopted since Russia invaded Georgia in August, Merkel blamed the Russian government for the domestic stock market's disastrous performance and a jump in capital flight in the early days of the crisis. Among the government's mistakes, he said, was the "talking down of certain companies." In July, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attacked mining company Mechel, causing its shares to drop."There was already a downturn when the global downturn began," Merkel said.After the brief August war in Georgia, Russia's stock market spiraled downward. President Dmitry Medvedev has said 75 percent of the drop was caused by global turmoil and 25 percent was because of domestic problems.Merkel said Russia was not that isolated from the global economy. "Russia is not an insulated island outside of the world community," Merkel said. "With globalism, Russia is affected by things that happen outside its borders."Merkel reiterated previous remarks by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the Georgia war had reduced Russia's chances of joining the World Trade Organization. "Russia's actions have put in jeopardy its membership in WTO, its accession to the OECD and others," he said, adding that Moscow would probably not make it into the WTO next year.Asked whether he considered Russia imperialist, Merkel said that although Moscow had cooperated with the United States and Europe in the past, its "recent actions are more in line with a 19th-century imperial country."He also said Moscow needed to comply more fully with a peace plan for Georgia brokered by French President Nicholas Sarkozy and Moscow's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent would backfire."I am concerned of what precedent Russia is setting" with regard to other former Soviet republics with ethnic minorities, he said. "I think that is why we did not see anyone in the former Soviet Union pick up Russia's rhetoric and recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia."Merkel made clear that Washington would not soften its position on NATO expansion, seen as one of the reasons for Moscow's stance on Georgia. NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine is just a matter of time, he said.Merkel, who served under the national security adviser to President George W. Bush before moving to the State Department in March, did not say which U.S. presidential candidate he preferred but indicated that Russia had been better off with a Republican administration in the past: "When the Bush administration came in [in 2000], what the Kremlin was saying was, 'Oh, thank goodness. We know how to work with Republicans. This will make things very, very straightforward and productive.'" Merkel said he would return to his native Texas when the next president takes office in January. "I have been in Washington for too long," he said.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/articles/detail.php?ID=371928&print=Y
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TRANSITIONS ONLINE: Our Take: Wrong Time for NATO by TOL24 October 2008
Western allies come to the rescue, but they should resist calls to open the door to membership in the military alliance.
Entire commentary: http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=292&NrSection=2&NrArticle=20100&tpid=10
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October 25, 2008
Despite Crisis, Germany Sees Russia as Land of Opportunity
By JUDY DEMPSEY

From left, Gerhard Schröder of Germany, Vladimir Kotenev of Russia and Thomas Jurk of Germany met last month in Dresden.
DRESDEN — Troubled finances can strain many a relationship. But the marriage of business interests between Russia and Germany is strengthening even as the global financial crisis deepens.
Despite a rapid downturn in both economies, German companies are planning to ramp up long-term investments in Russia, a move likely to increase Germany’s dependence on its largest trading partner.
Nowhere was this growing business connection more apparent than at a top-level gathering last month at a castle overlooking the Elbe River. Many of the hundreds of guests oozed confidence that, despite the conflict in Georgia and the storm in world finance, Russia and Germany would deepen their centuries-old bonds — perhaps even realizing a dream long held by some of binding Russia closer to the West.
“The long-term goal is about integrating the Russian economy with Europe,” said Peter Danylow, director of the East and Central European Association, an independent business body that promotes contacts between Germans and Eastern countries. “We are a long way from that. But Germany is not prepared to give up. There is too much at stake.”
Russia’s vast natural resources and Germany’s engineering skills bring the countries together more often than they drive them apart. Today, the relationship is centered on Germany’s thirst for Russian oil and natural gas, as well as on Russia’s need for capital investment and German manufacturing acumen.
German exports to Russia are vital to the continued flowering of the small and midsize German companies that are the backbone of its export prowess. Their presence in Russia has nearly doubled in five years, to more than 4,600, from 2,500 in 2003, said Peter Schulze, a professor of international politics and a Russia expert at the Georg-August-University in Göttingen. Of these, more than 90 percent are midsize companies known as Mittelstand, which produce things as diverse as machine tools, automobiles and chemicals.
Last year, 3 percent of all German exports went to Russia, and trade volume between the countries reached 57 billion euros, or $73.1 billion. In the first quarter of this year alone, Germany sent 25 percent more goods and services to Russia, according to Klaus Mangold, chairman of the Ost-Ausschuss, an influential group that promotes Germany’s economic interests throughout Russia and the former Soviet bloc.
German companies are also present in the energy sector — although they have been careful not to present a competitive threat to Russian firms. “With some exceptions, the German companies tend to keep away from the big high-profile projects,” Mr. Schulze said.
And many German operations have already ventured far outside the traditional bases of Moscow and St. Petersburg to expand what they see as potentially lucrative opportunities as Russia invests in its future.
“Every fourth Mittelstand company exports to Russia or is planning to increase its market share there,” Mario Ohoven, president of the Federation of the Mittelstand, said.
German businesses are looking at juicy contracts for investments like the Winter Olympics at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, in 2014. Beyond Sochi, even fatter contracts beckon. “There is a massive need of investments in the infrastructure, whether roads and water, railways and airports and energy,” said Mr. Danylow. “There is a huge need for technological know-how.”
Burckhard Bergmann, a former chairman of the German energy company E.on Ruhrgas, told the gathering that Russia would need to spend an estimated $525 billion through 2030 just to modernize its railway tracks. A further $165 billion is needed by 2012 to upgrade the energy sector, he said.
Some German investors acknowledge that the turmoil in the global financial system has raised new risks. Russia’s stock market, already weakened after its conflict with Georgia, has been among the hardest hit in the world by the crisis. This has forced officials to repeatedly close stock exchanges, prop up the ruble and spend billions to promote liquidity. Oil, which helped Russia flex its political muscle, is now cutting into its income as the price plunges.
The turmoil has also made it harder to pull investments together. “It is not so easy to finance projects now,” Frank Schauff, a German who heads the Association of European Businesses in the Russian Federation, said.
And then there are problems endemic to Russia itself. Other German managers based there pointed to the absence of property rights and the lack of progress against both inflation and corruption, which President Dmitri A. Medvedev has vowed to fight.
But if Germans have doubts about Russia, they tend for the most part to keep them behind closed doors. Privately, for example, German managers say they were rattled by the jailing in 2003 of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former chairman of the Yukos energy company, who politically challenged Vladimir V. Putin, then president. Publicly, German businesses largely keep quiet about Yukos and say little about the pattern of troubles that other Western oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell and BP, have run into in Russia since then.
If anything, German politicians and business executives have pursued closer ties with Russia. This bond was highlighted by the attendance of powerful players at the castle on the Elbe, where German managers from Moscow mingled with Russian officials, and East German veterans of Soviet enterprises chatted up younger Russian entrepreneurs.
Gerhard Schröder, a former German chancellor who went straight to the payroll of the Russian energy giant Gazprom after he lost a 2005 re-election bid, spoke supportively of Russia as a reliable energy partner and a stable place to invest — Moscow’s war with Georgia notwithstanding.
Unlike Western companies that have posed threats to Russia’s strategic industrial or political interests, German businesses, at least publicly, have not fallen out with the Kremlin. The longstanding cultural, political and educational ties between Russia and Germany may explain why.
According to government officials, German managers in Russia squirm when the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, criticizes the clampdown on Russian media and dissenters. German companies have not been punished or penalized, despite her outspokenness, according to the Ost-Ausschuss.
In fact, Mrs. Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister, have suggested that Germany codify its status as a crucial partner to help Russia modernize its infrastructure. Mr. Medvedev, in Berlin in June on his first presidential visit to a Western European capital, was enthusiastic. German business people are merely waiting for the lawyers to draft the agreement.
The investment opportunities sound enticing, but Mr. Schauff, who now heads the Ost-Ausschuss organization from Moscow, sounded a note of caution.
“I think Russian officials underestimate the task and scale of modernizing Russia,” he said. “Look at the reunification of Germany and how much money and planning was needed to modernize East Germany.”
Mr. Schauff said Russia’s $157 billion stabilization fund, created from energy export revenues, could be used for infrastructure projects. “But it is an enormous task,” he said. “It requires immense planning, strategic thinking, identifying concrete projects and following them through.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25dresden.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&pagewanted=print


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Belarus asks for Russian aid
Oct 26, 2008 2:37 PM
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, seeking extra funds to help his ex-Soviet state ride out the global financial crisis, held talks with traditional ally Russia on Saturday.
A delegation from the International Monetary Fund is to arrive in Belarus on Monday to consider its request for a $2 billion (NZD$3.6 billion) loan, and Lukashenko's government has also been offered a loan for the same sum over two years from Russia.
The Kremlin said in a statement Lukashenko held talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at an official residence outside Moscow which touched on the global financial crisis. It gave no details of any agreement.
Market analysts say Belarus has a total debt of $14 billion (NZD$25.1 billion). It also faces the prospect of a sharp hike in the amount it pays for imports of Russian gas in 2009.
Belarus's largely state-controlled economy has suffered little in the global crisis and analysts forecast robust growth. But they say the liquidity crunch means Belarus will struggle to refinance its debt and it lacks the reserves to make debt repayments on its own. A planned Eurobond issue faltered because of the turmoil on world markets.
Belarus's central bank has said it is seeking loans as a "precautionary measure" to ensure problems in neighbouring economies caused by the crisis do not spread to Belarus.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411366/2232013
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Tunne Kelam: Speeches at the plenary session of the European Parliament on Holodomor, October 22 and 23, 2008
Strasbourg, 22.10. 2008
Artificial, man-made famines were used systematically as a tool by Communist totalitarian regimes to increase their hold on enslaved populations.
75 years ago, Soviet dictator Stalin decided to uproot Ukrainian national identity and Ukrainian resistance by creating a famine in the bread basket of Europe. He not only confiscated all available grain to be used for exports in order to buy Western technology for enforcing industrialization and militarization of the Soviet Union, but he also decided to use the resulting famine to punish millions of farmers who resisted forced collectivisation – the establishment of total state control over their lives and traditional ways of production.
Regions struck by the famine were not merely denied assistance. Even worse, hundreds of villages were cordoned off by the Red Army. Hundreds of thousands of starving people were denied a most elementary human right - the right to escape from certain death. People who tried to flee were hunted down like animals and shot.
Finally today we are reacting to one of the most appalling crimes by the Communist dictatorship – deliberately starving people to death. An authoritative moral and political assessment of such crimes is long overdue.
All victims of crimes against humanity deserve the same status. There cannot be first class victims of Nazism and second class victims of Communism just because Europe still lacks an integrated approach to the totalitarian crimes of the past century and because Europe has hesitated to take a concrete stand on the crimes that took place in the Eastern part of the continent.
We have a duty to learn what happened under Stalin just as well as we know what happened under Hitler.
We need not only to extend our solidarity to the Ukrainian nation, indeed, to all victims of these mass crimes against humanity, but also to pass a moral verdict. Only in this way can we reach the goal of the current debate - to guarantee that this monumental, destructive disregard for human lives and dignity will never again be repeated in any part of Europe.
What we really need is an all-European reconciliation. However, reconciliation can only result from truth and justice. Our duty is to make sure that the famous "Never Again!" will equally apply to the Ukrainian nation.
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Explanation of the vote on Holodomor resolution, adopted by the European Parliament on October 23, 2008.
Today I voted for the resolution on Holodomor – the great Ukrainian famine.
The resolution rightly calls Holodomor an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people and, indeed, against humanity.
However, due to the position taken by certain political groups, the resolution has not used the term “Genocide” that would be fair and appropriate to be used in the case of the Ukrainian national tragedy.
The Ukrainian Parliament and 26 states have defined this crime that caused the deaths of at least four million people as genocide.
Recital B of today’s resolution quotes the United Nations Convention on the crime of genocide from 1948 that unequivocally covers the Ukrainian case.
I hope that in the near future the European Parliament will follow the example of the Ukrainian Parliament and the other 26 states mentioned.
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Russia Must Pull Out Troops From S. Ossetia - Estonia President
Thursday, October 23, 2008 6:54 PM
(Source: Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English)TALLINN. Oct 23 (Interfax) - Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia must be pulled back to where they were before August 7 and that international observers must be let into the republic.
"Russia must abide by the obligations assumed under the Medvedev- Sarkozy peace plan and to pull its troops back to the position they were at before August 7," Ilves told German President Horst Koehler in Berlin on Thursday, according to the Estonian presidential service.
"Refugees must return to their homes, and humanitarian aid and international observers must have unrestricted access to the conflict territories, primarily South Ossetia," the Estonian president said.
Ilves also said that the NATO operation in Afghanistan should be continued. "NATO has no right to give up Afghanistan, or to get tired," he said.
"In Afghanistan the Alliance must strengthen the will and increase the role of the states involved in the ISAF operation, which will make our activities more powerful and trustworthy. Their success will demonstrate that NATO should be taken seriously," he said.
Ilves backed NATO's open-door policy, saying that the admission of new members is "the Alliance's independent decision which third countries have no right to veto."
"NATO's doors remain open for those who have opened themselves to democratic reform and law, and who are consistent and successful and want to join NATO," he said.
"NATO today is not opposed to any state. It advocates common values and principles, and democracy," the Estonia president said.
(c) 2008 Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
Window on Eurasia: South Ossetians Want to Be Independent of Russia Too, Moscow Paper Says

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Anti-Kremlin party wins Lithuanian ballot
October 27, 2008
VILNIUS, Lithuania - A conservative party critical of Russia won Lithuania's parliamentary ballot, the Baltic country's election commission said yesterday, signaling the return of a center-right government after seven years of leftist rule.
The Homeland Union led by former prime minister Andrius Kubilius won the first round of the vote two weeks ago and extended its lead in Sunday's runoff to capture a total of 44 seats in the 141-member Parliament, the commission said.
The governing Social Democrats finished in second place with 26 seats, losing their grip on power in the former Soviet republic, which joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.
The conservatives are expected to join forces with three smaller center-right parties to form Lithuania's 15th government since breaking free from the crumbling Soviet empire in 1991.
"We will take the responsibility to form a coalition," said Kubilius, a strong critic of Russia who has been stuck in opposition since leading a short-lived government between 1999 and 2000.
Kubilius said he expected to be nominated as prime minister.
"I do not see a reason why I can't be in the position, which I have already worked in during difficult times," he said.
Earlier yesterday, President Valdas Adamkus said that he would offer the prime minister's job to the party that won the most seats.
Lithuanian voters have been exasperated with scandals surrounding the governing Social Democratic Party. They also fear rising energy dependence on Russia, as their country of 3.4 million people closes a Soviet-era nuclear plant next year under an agreement with the European Union.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/10/27/anti_kremlin_party_wins_lithuanian_ballot?mode=PF
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Lithuania votes in centre-right coalition - Summary
Posted on : 2008-10-27 Author : DPA News Category : World
Vilnius - Lithuania was set Monday for a new political landscape after centre-right parties triumphed in the Baltic nation's general election Sunday night. According to preliminary results, the right-wing Homeland Union - Christian Democrats secured 44 seats in the country's 141-seat parliament, the Seimas, making it comfortably the largest party.
Rounding out a new four-party ruling coalition will be 16 seats belonging to the Rising Nation Party, 11 seats to the Liberal Movement, and a further eight from the Liberal and Center Union.
Thus, the coalition will control at least 79 seats, while opposition parties will be able to muster a maximum of 62.
Even while votes were still being counted on Sunday night, the leaders of the four centre-right parties had joined to appear before the TV cameras and make clear their intention to work together.
"Lithuania is choosing change - which will be implemented by a centre-right coalition," Andrius Kubilius of the Homeland Union told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Kubilius is now set for a second spell as prime minister, after serving previously in the position from November 1999 to October 2000.
The Social Democrats of current Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas will be the largest opposition party, having secured 26 seats.
Alongside them will be the Order and Justice Party of former president Rolandas Paksas, taking 15 seats and the Labor Party of Viktor Uspaskich with 10 seats. The remainder will consist of minor parties and independents, whose loyalties are unpredictable, at best.
Once Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus performs the formality of inviting Kubilius to form a new government, coalition partners will have to agree about who will control which ministries.
The Homeland Union insists it must control the four key ministries of finance, economics, defence and foreign affairs, while the Rising Nation Party is believed to covet the parliamentary speaker position.
Monday morning, the four party leaders formalised their alliance by signing a document stating their willingness to work together to tackle "the challenges Lithuania is facing under the developing conditions of the global financial and market crisis."
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/238774,lithuania-votes-in-centre-right-coalition--summary.html#

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Lithuanian center-right parties agree to form coalition government after winning vote
October 27, 2008 - 07:59 a.m.
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) - Four center-right parties in Lithuania have signed an agreement to form a center-right government.
The coalition is led by the conservative Homeland Union, which won the most seats in the Baltic state's parliamentary election.
The agreement stresses that Lithuania is facing an economic crisis and the four parties are prepared to help steer the country of 3.4 million people through the upcoming challenges.
President Valdas Adamkus said Monday that he expect the new coalition would be able to begin reforms as soon as possible.
The center-right coalition won 79 seats in Lithuania's 141-member legislature after Sunday's runoff.
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market_news/article.jsp?content=D942QS100#adSkip
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Kubilius: the right man for a Lithuanian crisis - Feature
Posted on : 2008-10-27 Author : DPA News Category : Europe
Vilnius Leaders of Lithuania's parties include a stunt pilot who was the first European president to be impeached, a fugitive gherkin magnate and a game show host who was once arrested in connection with a bomb scare. In such a bizarre political landscape, Andrius Kubilius seems unusual for being a professional politician. Kubilius is seen as the country's likely next prime minister after a round of coalition-building wraps up in the wake of recently finished elections.
Born 1956 in Vilnius, Kubilius grew up in communist Lithuania, graduating from the physics faculty of Vilnius University in 1979. He joined the Sajudis Movement, the main centre of political opposition to Soviet occupation, in 1988 and quickly rose through its ranks during the struggle for independence.
After independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, he entered parliament in 1992 as a protege of president Vytautas Landsbergis. In 1993 he was a founding member of the Homeland Union.
Kubilius has already had one brief spell as prime minister, in 1999-2000, during which time he proved to be business-friendly without being tied too closely to vested interests. He played a key role in the liberalization and privatization of key industries such as gas, electricity and the transport sector.
As a result, he has retained more respect than many other politicians who emerged in the first few years after Lithuania regained its independence.
Even Viktor Uspaskich, the aforementioned gherkin magnate, who lies at the other end of the political, personal and social spectrum from the dapper Kubilius spoke in glowing terms of his rival's upright character recently - though that could have had as much to do with trying to get into the good books of the next prime minister as anything else.
Kubilius is a good organizer and established the Homeland Union as an efficient, opposition political machine, complete with a slick website, personal blog and media-friendly attitude.
He gradually built pressure on the government of Gediminas Kirkilas, but resisted overt populism. However, by doing so, opened up the door for the avowedly populist Rising Nation, or "Showbiz" Party, to gather up that vote. They will now likely be Kubilius' main coalition partner.
The future stability of a Kubilius-led government is likely to rest on whether he can develop a good working relationship with Arunas Valinskas, the leader of Rising Nation and a former TV game show host.
But perhaps the real reason for Kubilius' return to the top of the Lithuanian political scene is simply a case of history repeating itself. The Sajudis Movement was a broadly-based right-leaning coalition designed to keep Lithuania intact during a political crisis. This time, Kubilius has managed to assemble another centre- right coalition that will aim to take Lithuania safely through an economic crisis.
Kubilius says he is relishing the challenge and cites Ireland as an example of how a small country can achieve a big turnaround in its fortunes.
"We have a situation which is really challenging. But challenges can mean more interesting times for government than a calm period," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"My personal experience in government was in the crisis of 1999, so I think this government will be of a similar type. We shall not be afraid of making deep changes. We have the example of Ireland in the middle of the 1980s when, during a crisis, they made a national agreement. That became exactly the basis of the success of Ireland in later years. Perhaps also this crisis is needed for Lithuania to go into the future," he said.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/238749,kubilius-the-right-man-for-a-lithuanian-crisis--feature.html#
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Vilnius and Riga lagging behind other Baltic Sea region cities
Danuta Pavilenene, BC, Vilnius, 27.10.2008.
Vilnius was considered far behind other cities in the Baltic Sea region in terms of economic development and potential competitiveness according to a survey, published by German researchers in Rostock, Radio Vilnius informed.
Vilnius.
The survey compares nine cities in the region: Kiel and Rostock in Germany, Poland's Gdansk, Vilnius of Lithuania, Riga – Latvia's capital, Tallinn of Estonia, Turku of Finland, Umea of Sweden and Aarhus of Denmark. The evaluation of potential in the study is based on the assumption that competitive advantage not only depends on traditional factors, such as real estate prices, transportation costs and the labor force, but that it also depends on factors with indirect effects on the economy, such as innovation, expertise and openness, reports ELTA.
Based on all these factors, Vilnius, together with Riga and Gdansk, ranked in the group with the worst potential, far behind both the lead group of Turku, Umea and Aarhus and the middle group of Kiel, Rostock and Tallinn.
The survey shows that Vilnius has serious problems in terms of innovation and level of knowledge. Concerning innovation, the authors of the survey emphasize that the investment Vilnius makes into research and technological development, at just 0.76% of gross domestic product (GDP), is less than half of the European Union average of 1.9% of GDP. They also point to the fact that research facilities are poorly funded and scientists earn a pittance, which has led to the loss of intellectual and professional personnel.
According to the survey, Vilnius, with 135 university students for every 1000 residents is well above the EU average, yet the city is falling behind the rest of Europe in terms of people employed in the knowledge economy sector.
The authors value the multi-cultural nature of Vilnius as well as the fact that the number of employed women in the city is above the EU average.
However, the survey states that residents of Vilnius face many challenges when trying to reach a balance between their family and work. According to the research, this fact relates to the poorly developed system of nursery schools and kindergartens in the city.
The research was carried out by the Hamburg Institute of International Economics in cooperation with the Hamburg office of the professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/analytics/?doc=6536&ins_print
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Baltic Blog......Security & Intelligence Briefs, International, Baltic & Russia News October 23, 2008



The Mazeika Report October 22, 2008 go to "blog" link to http://mazeikabloginternationalnews.blogspot.com/ for archival reports for the months of September, August, July and June, 2008Pass this link on to other readers! Breaking stories.....your comments are welcome.... Place this "blog link" into your computer favorites for easy access.
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Red Terror on the Amber Coast
Completion and Release of Documentary Film
“A Story that needs to be told!”


DVD copies: $20.00 each

You Tube trailor preview for Red Terror...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYET4bk0gvU

Film-maker Ken Gumbert and producer David O’Rourke have announced that their documentary film, Red Terror on the Amber Coast, has been completed and released for distribution, and has been accepted for broadcast on Rhode Island Public Television, at a time yet to be set. The film, in the works for five years, describes the Soviet occupation of the Baltics following the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, the fifty year reign of terror the Soviets imposed on the once free and democratic republics, and the resistance to the illegal takeover. The film’s focus is principally on Lithuania. But the film-makers know that the story they present is the story of all three countries.

Almost by accident in 2001, the team of editor and writer David O’Rourke and documentary film-maker Ken Gumbert came upon photographs of prison and torture abandoned by the KGB when they fled their headquarters in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Startled by the blunt cruelty of what they saw, they decided that the terrible story the pictures revealed had to be told.

In June of 2006 they were able to film interviews with a cross section of people, from President Adamkus and Vytautas Landsbergis to the wives of captured partizanai (freedom fighters) who had to fight just to survive while their husbands were in Soviet prisons. And with the full support of the National Genocide and Resistance Center in Vilnius and the Occupation Museum and Film Archives in Riga they have been able to illustrate the personal narratives with rare archival films and photographs.

At present the film-makers, both Dominican priests, are working with Lithuanian-American groups and others to promote the scheduling of the film on public television, in film festivals, and in local communities. They may be contacted directly by interested people. kgumbert@providence.edu dkorop@sbcglobal.net Tony@TonyMazeika.com


For more information, contact Tony & Danute Mazeika 949 929-9051

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Breaking news & commentary ....click on active links for multiple photos!


Comments from readers:

"Tony:

You really collect the best articles on Russian politics and economics. Your report is better than any of the single journals, because it gathers such good information from all of then - it is a real study in current Russian realities.
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Welcome to the ACT! for America 2008 Candidate Voter Guide
ACT!
for America emailed and mailed our 2008 issues questionnaire to over 1,000 candidates for President, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. To see a copy of the questionnaire, click here.
Every effort was made to confirm that the candidates received the questionnaire and were aware of it. Return receipts for surveys both mailed and emailed have been retained. Hundreds and hundreds of phone calls were placed to the campaigns, asking them to return the questionnaires. We also sent an email to our members encouraging them to contact candidates who had not yet completed and returned the questionnaire.
Numerous candidates, including both Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, did not respond to the questionnaire. However, ACT! for America has been able to provide research on how Senators Obama and McCain stand on the issue of terrorism, and there are some clear differences.
To review the research on Senators Obama and McCain please click here. Also, you can review both senators’ voting record on key national security votes going back to 2003 by clicking on our congressional scorecard. There you will also find the voting record of Vice President candidate Senator Joe Biden.
Some candidates emailed or mailed a response in lieu of filling out the questionnaire. Those responses are posted for those candidates. All other candidates who refused to respond in any way are identified with a “Refused to Respond” stamp.
Questionnaires that were returned to us have been posted to our website for your review. The completed questionnaires that you see are precisely what we received, including any comments the candidates wished to make for any of the questions.
If a particular candidate for U.S. Senate you are interested in is listed as “Refused to Respond”, and you would like to contact this candidate’s campaign to find out why, please click here for a list of candidates who did not respond and their contact information.
If a particular candidate for U.S. House of Representatives you are interested in is listed as “Refused to Respond”, and you would like to contact this candidate’s campaign to find out why, please click here for a list of candidates who did not respond and their contact information.
Nothing contained in this voter guide section should be construed as ACT! for America endorsing or not endorsing any candidate, or favoring or not favoring any candidate. The information provided is intended for informational and educational purposes only.
http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/learn/voter-guide?tmpl=component&print=1&page=

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Geopolitical Diary: Falling Oil Prices Drag Down High Hopes

Stratfor Today »-->October 16, 2008

With the Dow dropping another 700 points and fears of recession setting in, the price of crude oil dropped to US$71 a barrel on Wednesday, its lowest point in more than 13 months.
This is a huge shift from July, when oil prices were more than double what they are now — US$147 a barrel. Back then, prominent leaders like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were swimming in petrodollars and grinning from ear to ear, planning their geopolitical agendas.
Chavez’s utmost priority is to secure his hold over the country, especially since more and more Venezuelans are growing disillusioned with his Bolivarian vision as inflation keeps climbing and food becomes scarcer. His way of holding onto power is to keep throwing money at his population, as well as his regional allies, through oil-funded social welfare programs and to buy plenty of arms from the Russians for the Chavistas protecting him and his support base. The Venezuelans announced today that they are betting on $60 per barrel oil for their 2009 budget. But with oil prices dropping this fast, Chavez is going to be in for a rude surprise.
Putin’s main priority is first to consolidate Kremlin control at home, then work to consolidate Russian influence in its formerly Soviet periphery. One of the ways to achieve the latter is to use handsome energy revenues to undermine Western influence in places like Latin America and the Middle East and to bully the Europeans, who are dependent on Russian energy, into complying with Russian demands. Though oil prices are dropping, Russia is still much better off since much of its energy comes from natural gas, for which Russia can set the price. But lower oil prices will still give the Russians pause in their actions moving forward.
Ahmadinejad’s main priority is to secure support for himself and the clerical regime at home by keeping the population happy with energy and food subsidies. Next on his list is the need to consolidate influence in Iraq and the wider region through a variety of proxies that need to be armed and paid on a regular basis. But with Iran’s exports falling, its energy industry in disrepair, gasoline imports draining the economy and now oil revenues falling, the country is spiraling further and further into economic turmoil.
A number of geopolitical agendas will need to be revised as oil prices continue falling. But we need to also keep in mind that this drop in oil prices is likely just the beginning.
An economic recession has just barely begun in the United States, and has yet to hit the wider world. The recession in Europe is also just starting, and since Europe’s monumental economic ailments are entrenched in the banking sector, it will be at least another several months before the Europeans can start to recover. Moreover, the slowdown of exports from Asian markets is only just now starting to come to light. The recovery of the Asian states is first dependent on the Western consumer base recovering. In short, what we’re looking at is a protracted decrease in demand lasting from months to years across the globe.
To put that into perspective, in 1997-1998 during the Asian financial crisis, the countries hit by recession were Japan, South Korea and the Southeast Asian countries. Though that economic crisis was more localized, it still resulted in a 10 percent drop in global demand and a three-fourths drop in global crude prices to around $8 dollars a barrel.
Compare that situation to the present day, when the United States, China, all of Europe as well as much as the developing world is getting hit with recession. Oil prices have dropped more than 50 percent in a little more than two months, yet the coming drop in global demand has barely even cut into the price of oil. And to put that into perspective, this drop in price is happening in spite of the “geopolitical heat” already factored into the market price of oil, including threats from Nigerian militants, Israeli war threats against Iran and Russia browbeating the Caucasus. The oil markets are boiling down to the fundamentals, and unfortunately for the big oil-producing states of the world, those fundamentals are acting bearish.
http://www.stratfor.com/

The Geopolitics of Russia: Permanent Struggle
Stratfor Today » October 15, 2008 1847 GMT
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series of monographs by Stratfor founder George Friedman on the geopolitics of countries that are currently critical in world affairs.
By George Friedman
Full report via link: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20081014_geopolitics_russia_permanent_struggle
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Oct. 20, 2008
Russia Unromanticized
John R. Bolton
Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz argued recently on this site that the United States should neither be "isolating" Russia nor drifting toward "confrontation." The Post's Masha Lipman urged us to avoid "Cold War preconceptions and illusions." Unfortunately, these distinguished commentators are aiming at straw men: No serious observer thinks we face a new Cold War or that isolating Russia because of its increasing foreign adventurism is a real solution. U.S. opposition to Russia's recent behavior should not rest on a desire to "punish" Russia but on the critical need to brace Moscow before its behavior becomes even more unacceptable.
Russia has been growing increasingly belligerent for some time. Its invasion of Georgia is only the most recent and vicious indicator of its return not to the Cold War but to a thuggish, indeed czarist, approach to its neighbors. Vladimir Putin gave early warning in 2005, when he called the breakup of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century." In the same speech, Putin lamented that "tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory." He may now be acting to reverse that "catastrophe," as further demonstrated by Moscow's embrace of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and other efforts to interfere in that country's elections. Prudence based on history requires us to assess Russia's invasion of Georgia as more than an aberration until proven otherwise.
Russia has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to threaten American interests: providing cover to Iran's nuclear weapons program by enthusiastically neutering sanctions resolutions at the U.N. Security Council and trying to market reactors to Tehran; selling high-end conventional weapons to Iran, Syria and other undesirables; using its oil and natural gas assets to intimidate Europe; making overtures to OPEC; and cozying up to Venezuela through joint Caribbean naval maneuvers, weapons sales and even agreeing to construct nuclear reactors.
Take the controversy over locating U.S. missile defense assets in Poland and the Czech Republic. We fully informed Russia before withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that we would create a limited (but geographically national) missile defense system to protect against the handfuls of missiles that might be launched by states such as North Korea or Iran. As anyone can tell from looking at a globe, anti-missile sites in Europe wouldn't defend against the missile trajectories of a Russian strike on America. (That's why the Distant Early Warning Line was in Alaska and Canada, not Europe.) Russia's threats against Poland are aimed at intimidating Western Europe, an all-too-easy objective these days. We have real interests at stake, such as a route to the Caspian Basin's oil and gas assets that does not traverse Russia or Iran. If Moscow's marching through Georgia goes unopposed, marching will look more attractive elsewhere, starting with Ukraine, which has a large ethnic Russian population "beyond the fringes" of Moscow's control. "Legitimate security interests" do not justify invading and dismembering bordering countries.
A rational Russia policy has to escape the persistent romanticism of Moscow in recent administrations and the desire of some Europeans to close their eyes and hope things will work out. Too many Europeans believe they have passed beyond history and beyond external threats unless they themselves are "provocative." Last spring in Bucharest, that mentality led Germany and others to reject U.S. suggestions to put Georgia and Ukraine formally on a path to NATO membership. Moscow clearly read that rejection as a sign of weakness.
Ultimately, what most risks "provoking" Moscow is not Western resolve but Western weakness. This is where the real weight of history lies. Accordingly, attitude adjustment in Moscow first requires attitude adjustment in NATO capitals, and quickly, before Moscow's swaggering leaders draw the wrong lessons from their recent successes.
First, NATO must reverse the Bucharest summit mistake immediately. This is achievable before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20. Admitting Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into NATO has stabilized a possible zone of confrontation in the Baltics, and moving to bring in Ukraine and Georgia would eliminate a dangerous vacuum in the Black Sea region. Second, we should scale up rapidly in military cooperation with current and aspiring NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe to make it clear that more Russian adventurism is highly inadvisable. Hopefully, other NATO countries will join with us, but we should act bilaterally if need be. Third, we should proceed fully with missile defense plans, on which we have repeatedly offered Russia full involvement and cooperation, to protect us all from rogue-state threats.
Such an approach will not endanger Western security but enhance it. And if Russia takes offense, better to know that now than later, when the stakes for all concerned may be much higher.
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Europe's Message to Moscow
By Dan Hamilton
The European Union has entered diplomatic no-man's-land by deploying more than 200 monitors to areas of Georgia next to the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, replacing Russian forces that invaded Georgia in August. The EU's Georgian deployment is a test of its ability to manage relations with a resurgent Russia, and to develop a more credible approach to the volatile "in-between" lands that stretch along EU borders from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
The EU faces some tough challenges. Moscow has not only refused to make good on its commitment to remove its forces from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it has actually recognized the two Georgian provinces as independent countries, given many of their citizens Russian passports, and deployed a sizable contingent of its own forces. EU efforts to initiate mediation talks in the conflict fell apart in Geneva Wednesday due to disagreement between Georgia and Russia over participation of the two breakaway regions.
In the short term, the EU is well-advised to maintain its position as "honest broker" in the conflict. This allowed it to mediate and engineer the current ceasefire, and despite this week's setback offers an opportunity to work with all sides to tackle the unresolved issues of status for the provinces and security for people across the area.
In the longer term, however, the EU must review its approach to Russia and the region as a whole.
The message to Moscow is straightforward. If Russia continues to bully its neighbors and cling to outmoded spheres of influence, the international community will hold Russia accountable. If it uses its energy wealth to invest in its people, build a more sustainable economy grounded in the rule of law, tackle its truly stunning health and demographic challenges, and build better relations with its European neighbors, the EU and the U.S. stand as willing partners.
The EU's message to smaller neighbors demands more from Brussels. The EU has an interest in preventing violence along its eastern borders. It needs to address wider Europe's remaining conflicts, most of which are labeled "frozen" but are really festering sores that have dragged down small young democracies and blocked their economic development. The EU also has an interest in projecting stability eastward so that instability does not flow westward. It needs to discourage its neighbors from irresponsible behavior and to engage with them in ways that reduce the region's vulnerability to Russian pressure and forge closer links to the EU itself.
EU enlargement has been the bloc's greatest foreign policy achievement. EU leaders remain reluctant, however, to acknowledge that a turbulent Europe without walls and barriers requires vigorous efforts to extend the EU's brand of democratic stability even further eastward. Now that EU forces have been forced to deploy to the eastern shore of the Black Sea, the magnitude of wider Europe's challenge - and the need for a more dynamic response -- may become clear.
Dan Hamilton, director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS, is the host of Next Europe.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/sais/nexteurope/2008/10/europes_message_to_moscow.html
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Mullen Offers Reassurance to Baltic Republics
By Jim GaramoneAmerican Forces Press Service
RIGA, Latvia, Oct. 21, 2008 – Following a meeting this morning in Helsinki, Finland, with his Russian counterpart, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff traveled here to discuss defense issues with Latvian officials.
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, accompanied by Latvian Brig. Gen. Juris Maklakovs, the chief of defense, discussed defense and NATO issues with Latvian President Vladis Zatlers, Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins and Defense Minister Vinets Veldre.The Baltic republics – all members of NATO – are nervous following Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia all want more precise NATO defense plans in the wake of the Russian action in the Caucasus. Mullen said his trip is designed to assuage some of the nations’ concerns.“One of the reasons I am here is to send a very visible message of reassurance,” the chairman said during a news conference with Zatlers. Alliance members are having discussions on the Russian actions and all nations remain committed to staying unified on the Georgia invasion, the chairman said. “It’s been pretty clear across the board that NATO was not accepting in any way, shape or form what Russia has done in Georgia,” he said. “All of us are concerned by the recent invasion into Georgia of Russia,” Mullen said. “In my past experience in NATO, I’ve always tried to understand the views of the Baltic [republics] because of the history and how they view what has happened. Those are part of the conversations we have had today. I think it is very important that … NATO recognizes what the alliance means and the responsibilities and obligations that go with it.”NATO fighters guard the Baltic nations’ airspace and perform the peacetime air defense and air policing function. U.S. Air Force F-15 aircraft based at Lakenheath, England, currently have that mission as part of NATO.The mission over the Baltic republics is an important one, Mullen said. The alliance had a recent exercise of that mission, he noted. All nations realize its importance to the alliance and to the Baltic nations, he said, though he would not go into specifics about air police plans or specific scenarios used to train the NATO flyers.“It is a NATO mission that many nations have stepped up to in the past and will continue, certainly through 2011,” Mullen said. The chairman thanked Latvia for its support in the Balkans and for sending personnel to Afghanistan.
Biographies:Navy Adm. Mike Mullen
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=51591

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Russia, Iran and Qatar discuss gas cartel
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
TEHRAN, Iran: Iran, Russia and Qatar discussed the formation of an OPEC-style cartel among some of the largest natural gas producing nations on Tuesday, a prospect that has unnerved energy-importing nations in Europe and the United States.
The meeting appeared to be the first serious talks about the creation of such a cartel since Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, first raised the idea in January 2007.
The prospect has raised concern in the United States and around the 27-nation European Union, which depends on Russia for nearly half of its natural gas imports. Moscow, which controls many of the European pipelines delivering gas from Russia and Central Asia, already has a tight hold on supplies.
Russia has been accused of using energy as a weapon, in particular in its disputes with neighboring Ukraine. European Union leaders have said they would stand against any Russian effort to create a gas cartel, fearing energy prices — and Russia's political clout — could rise further as a result.
Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said Tuesday that the three countries with the largest natural gas reserves will "seriously pursue the formation of an organization of gas exporting countries."
Nozari spoke on state TV after a meeting with his Qatari counterpart, Abdulla Bin Hamad al-Attiya, and the head of Russia's state-controlled energy company Gazprom, Alexei Miller.
He said the three parties decided to discuss the cartel further at the next meeting of their foreign ministers.
Many experts say a natural gas cartel that resembles the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries group would be tough to achieve.
Unlike oil, which is traded on an exchange that constantly updates the market price based on supply and demand, most gas is sold under tight contracts that allow buyers to lock in prices for up to 25 years. As a result, a cartel would likely have little influence.
The formation of a gas exchange also would be difficult because most natural gas is delivered via pipelines and is not as easily shipped around the world to different buyers as oil. Pipeline infrastructure also requires significant investment that often makes long-term contracts necessary.
Former Russian President Vladimir Putin and Qatar's emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, announced in April 2007 they would explore the creation of a cartel to represent the interests of producer countries in controlling the global market.
Russia and Qatar are two of the world's largest producers of natural gas, and tiny Qatar sits atop the world's single largest gas field.
A leaked confidential study by NATO economic experts in 2006 had warned that Russia may be seeking to build a gas cartel including Algeria, Qatar, Libya, the countries of Central Asia and perhaps Iran, and cautioned that an OPEC-like near monopoly would strengthen Moscow's leverage over Europe.
Because of growing demand and lessening supplies, the United States also has increasingly relied on natural gas imports in recent years.
Weeks after the Russian-Qatari announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman spoke out against the formation of a cartel. Appearing at an energy conference in Houston in February 2007, he said initiatives that seek to control the flow of energy supplies and circumvent the role of the market to set prices "are contrary to the long-term interests of both producers and consumers."
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=17130808
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Ground is shifting under empires of Russian oligarchs
By Andrew E. Kramer
Saturday, October 18, 2008
MOSCOW: Are the Russian oligarchs going bust?
In the global financial crisis, perhaps no community of the affluent has fallen as hard, or as fast, as the brash Kremlin-connected insiders whose wealth was tied up in the overlapping bubbles of the Russian stock market, commodity prices and easy credit.
Full report via link: http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=17047280
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Russian ruble crisis costs the Kremlin billions
By NATALIYA VASILYEVA and DOUGLAS BIRCH – 1 day ago
MOSCOW (AP) — Only a few months ago, the Kremlin was talking about pricing its oil in rubles and making the ruble a regional reserve currency, giving it a status closer to that of the euro and the dollar.
But that was before Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, the Russian stock market crashed and the price of oil fell by half.
The ruble has declined steadily since the Aug. 7 start of the five-day war with Georgia, losing some 10 percent to 12 percent of its value against the dollar. Without intervention by the central bank, which began in early September, it might have fallen further, faster.
Anton Struchenevsky, an economist at Troika Dialog investment bank, said Monday the Central Bank was spending $600 million a day to buy rubles and support the currency's exchange rate, for a total of $20 billion in less than two months. Other experts put the cost of defending the ruble as high as $50 billion.
While Russia has more than half a trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves, Struchenevsky said: "This cannot last forever."
Some analysts think the Central Bank is trying to engineer a soft landing for the ruble — letting exchange rates fall to strengthen Russian industry by raising the costs of competitors' imported goods. The aim would be to let the ruble slide gradually to avoid causing panic.
Andrei Illarionov, a former Kremlin adviser and now a government critic, told reporters Monday that "the Central Bank, to safeguard itself, made a decision to start a devaluation, a soft devaluation of the ruble."
Allowing the ruble to fall too quickly would contradict the Kremlin's official line, which is that the Russian economy remains healthy, vibrant and largely insulated from the impact of any global recession. The currency's strength and stability had until recently been a proud symbol of the country's rise from the ashes of its 1998 economic crisis.
Governments can either set an official exchange rate, sometimes based on another currency, or let their currencies float — let the international currency trading market set the rates.
Russia's Central Bank pegs the ruble to a so-called "basket" of the dollar and the euro, allowing it to float only within a narrow range. The aim is to avoid the economic shock of sudden swings in the currency's value.
A decision to abandon the peg and float the ruble "would doom the banking sector," said Nataliya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank. "There is a nervous mood in the air, but if the ruble loses state support, there will be panic. People would be withdrawing rubles from their deposits and converting them into dollars."
Yegor Gaidar, an economist and former prime minister, last week praised the government's efforts to support the ruble. "This is a smart decision," he said. "We absolutely do not need panic on the currency market."
Until this summer, the ruble had been gaining for several years on the back of higher prices for Russian commodities, especially oil and gas. The ruble strengthened to 23.14 against the dollar in July, its highest level in 9 years.
But the currency's fortunes have reversed dramatically in the past three months. It hit a 20-month low Friday, trading at 26.4 rubles to the dollar. On Monday, it ticked up a hair to 26.3.
Meanwhile, some of Moscow's sidewalk currency exchanges over the weekend were selling dollars for more than 28 rubles — the result, apparently, of whispers that the Kremlin was about to let the ruble float against international currencies.
The Central Bank reassured markets it would continue to support the Russian currency, and introduced measures Monday to limit traders who used currency swaps to profit from the ruble's decline.
Oil prices also rose modestly Monday, further strengthening the ruble.
Some analysts say Russia's economy remains relatively healthy and the currency should show more resilience, but many Russians remember the 1998 currency collapse.
"The ruble has been steadily growing in the past few years on capital inflows, but a large part of people and businesses still have no faith in the ruble," said Evgeny Nadorshin, chief economist at Trust Investment Bank.
A rapid devaluation would not just undermine faith in the currency; it could cause political problems for the Kremlin as well. Many Russian regard the 1990s, a crippling period of poverty and turmoil, as a time of political and economic humiliation.
But Russia was in a much weaker economic position 10 years ago, and no one expects a replay.
Even if the government decided to let the ruble float, Struchenevsky said, there would be no repeat of 1998, when the value of the ruble dropped fourfold and inflation surged to 80 percent.
Besides helping domestic manufacturers, he added, it would allow the government to adopt more flexible economic policies.
Associated Press writers Lynn Berry and Steve Gutterman contributed to this report.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gc9QQ79DpD3JRodHliUAZxZuy6_wD93UDJH00
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MOLDOVA AZI > POLITICS > NEWS
http://www.azi.md/news?ID=51597
October 20 2008
European political and religious leaders will back Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia
Nearly 40 political leaders - representatives of the European People's Party - and senior officials from the Orthodox clergy met for an "inter-culture dialog" organized by the Party in Iasi (Romania) last weekend, where they decided to underpin Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia in their European integration efforts.
Adevarul newspaper of Romania wrote that the political and religious leaders decided to create a partnership to the east of the European Union that will include Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia. The European leaders promised to support a message on these states' joining the European Union, the paper wrote.
The said political and religious leaders presume that these three FSU states are members of the European family of nations, and the leaders are positively assessing the countries' efforts aimed at integration into the European Union.
INFOTAG
http://www.azi.md/print/51597/En
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Sources: US To Waive Visa Rules For 7 Countries
(Butler, AP) Friday, October 17, 2008APBy Desmond ButlerThe Bush administration plans to remove visa requirements for the citizens of seven allied countries, congressional aides said Thursday.President Bush will announce Friday that Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and South Korea will be added to the U.S. visa waiver program as early as next month, the aides told The Associated Press.The White House would not confirm the list but said Bush is to speak Friday on the visa waiver program. The congressional aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the president will announce the decision.The administration has sought to reward close allies with visa-free travel but has met resistance from some lawmakers who say the visa waiver program could make it easier for terrorists to slip into the United States.The program currently includes 27 countries, including most of Western Europe. Exclusion has been a sore point among some new NATO allies that have supported U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of those countries, including Poland, did not make Friday's list because they could not meet admission requirements.Negotiations with Greece, which has long sought to join other Western European countries in the program, have faltered, prompting complaints from the Athens government and Greek-American groups that it is being punished because of unrelated political disagreements with Washington over the entry of neighboring Macedonia into NATO.Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said he was concerned the administration waived some criteria for admission so the seven countries could be approved before Bush leaves office."I am dismayed the administration has decided to expand the Visa Waiver Program before implementing security measures required by law, a move that could very well jeopardize the security of the United States," Lieberman, a supporter of the program, said Thursday in an e-mail.Congress last year enacted a law to expand the program while requiring that the government implement a system under which visitors from non-visa countries would have to register online with U.S. authorities before their departures and provide some personal information. Lieberman contends that program will not be in place when the new countries join.
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NATO fighters practice air defense over Baltic skies
21/10/2008 12:31 TALLINN, October 21 (RIA Novosti) - NATO fighters started on Tuesday exercises aimed at policing the airspace over the Baltic countries as part of the Baltic air-policing mission, the Estonian defense ministry said.
The Baltic air-policing mission is a NATO air defense Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) in order to guard the airspace over the three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The current exercise involves up to 15 NATO aircraft from the Baltic States, the U.S., Poland and Denmark. Overall supervision of the exercise will be carried out from a NATO Combined Air Operations Centre in Germany.
Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo said earlier that the exercises would become a routine part of the Baltic air-policing mission.
The Baltic States have a poorly equipped air force and air defense capability, which cannot provide sufficient protection of the airspace and perform the so called air policing function - prevention of airspace violations and landing by aircraft that have gone off course either on purpose or unintentionally.
Since March 2004, when the Baltic States joined NATO, alliance nations have policed the airspace over the region on a three-month rotation basis from Lithuania's First Air Base in Zokniai, near the northern city of Siauliai.
At present this mission is carried out by the U.S. Air Force. The Americans deploy 100 personnel and four F-15C fighters at a Lithuanian airbase in Zokniai.
The current agreement on the protection of Baltic airspace by NATO fighters runs until 2011, but the Baltic States are insisting it be extended until 2018.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20081021/117852508.html
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U.S. pilots take on Lithuania sky duty
By Charlie Reed, Stars and StripesEuropean edition, Saturday, October 4, 2008
England-based fighter pilots deployed to Lithuania this week to police the skies on behalf of NATO.
Four F-15s from the 493rd Fighter Squadron at RAF Lakenheath along with 130 airmen took over from the German air force for a three-month rotation in the Baltic States. The U.S. is one of 13 NATO countries committed to the air policing mission in the region, which also includes Latvia and Estonia.
Pilots are running training sorties every day, although "a majority of the mission is just sitting alert," said Capt. George Downs, a project officer from the 493rd.
The fighter jets will provide air defense for the region, once governed by the former Soviet Union.
This is only the second time the U.S. has taken part in the Baltics mission since its inception in 2004, the year the countries joined NATO and the European Union.
"I think the biggest thing we’ll take away is increased solidarity and confidence in our NATO allies and an understanding that we’re all in this together," Downs said.
The U.S. troops are operating out of Lithuania’s Siauliai International Airport near the northern city of Siauliai. Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to declare its independence in 1990 though Russian troops did not withdraw until 1993, according to the CIA World Factbook.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=65039&archive=true
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Source: http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2679293.html Lithuania As Nato Member Should Fear Confrontation With Russia - U.S. Diplomat
Friday, October 03, 2008 7:57 PM (Source: Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English) MOSCOW. Oct 3 (Interfax) - U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried thinks that Lithuania should aspire to establish good relations with Russia at any cost. It is not Lithuania that started confrontation with Russia; it is Russia that created problems by intruding a neighboring country, Fried said on the air of the Lithuanian National TV within the framework of this visit to Vilnius. Lithuania is a NATO member, and NATO is a serious organization, and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which provides for collective security, is a serious obligation, the diplomat said. Asked if the Baltic states have a defense plan in case they are attacked, Fried said that this is a standard of NATO to be ready to fulfill Article 5 of the Treaty: there is nothing new, dramatic or scandalous about this. NATO is now authorized to do what it should do: to revise how the Alliance is ready to fulfill its obligations under Article 5. Russia has privileged interests in some regions, Fried told a meeting of the Enhanced Partnership in Northern Europe (e-PINE) in Vilnius on Thursday commenting on a statement by Russian authorities. Russia should assess it forces, which would allow it to do something constructive in the world rather than to intimidate others, the U.S. diplomat said. Russia's statement about rights and spheres of influence is an anachronism inherent to the 20th century, he said, adding that Russia has taken this view and we need take this into consideration. The fact is that we do not recognize Russia's rights to a sphere of influence, and this could create difficulties for Russia, Fried said.
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October 21, 2008
Few in Baltic States Voice Preferences in U.S. Election
Latvians, Lithuanians divided over whether election makes a difference
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
USA
Democrats
Election 2008
Elections
Favorability
Leadership
Republicans
Americas
Former USSR
by Ian T. Brown
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Citizens in the Baltic state of Latvia slightly favor Democratic Sen. Barack Obama over Republican Sen. John McCain in the U.S. presidential election, though a majority do not voice a preference. In Estonia and Lithuania, respondents are split between the two candidates, but even more respondents do not have a preference.
These Gallup Polls were conducted during key moments of the U.S. election season. In Estonia and Lithuania, Gallup surveyed respondents in June and July, shortly after Sen. Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic nomination to Democratic rival Obama. In Latvia, Gallup polled in July and August, concluding days before the Democratic and Republican National Conventions began.
Access to media is likely not a serious issue for Baltic residents. On the Gallup Communications Index, which measures citizens' connectedness to electronic communications such as telephone and television, Estonia's score of 69 is average for Europe, and Latvia's and Lithuania's scores of 64 and 60, respectively, are not that much lower.
While large majorities in each country do not express a preference for whom they would like to be the next U.S. president, more respondents have an opinion about whether the outcome of the U.S. presidential election makes a difference to their country. Lithuanians and Latvians are more likely than Estonians to say the election makes a difference to their country, but overall are divided as to whether it makes a difference. In Estonia, a majority of respondents (61%) say the election outcome does not make a difference.
In an editorial published by The Baltic Times in July, Joseph Gerzen argues that the presidential election does in fact have significance for Lithuanians, largely because of President George W. Bush's selection of Lithuania as an alternative host country for the missile defense shield. Gerzen maintains that if McCain were elected president, he would continue to push for such partnership, possibly at the expense of Lithuania's relations with Russia. Nonetheless, Gallup finds Lithuanian respondents split equally between McCain and Obama. Gerzen's argument may not mirror how Lithuanians' view their interests with respect to the election.
As a point of comparison to another former Soviet state, Georgian respondents voice a preference for John McCain and a majority do think the election outcome will make a difference to their country. While Georgia needs continued U.S. support for its bid to join NATO, Baltic nations already have well-established economic and political ties to the West, possibly explaining why the election resonances less with Baltic nations' citizens. Energy ties with Russia and the possibility of a new pipeline through the Baltic Sea likely demand more of their attention.
Survey Methods
Results are based on face-to-face interviews with 601 adults in Estonia, aged 15 and older, conducted in June-July 2008; 513 adults in Latvia, aged 15 and older, conducted in July-August 2008; and 506 adults in Lithuania, aged 15 and older, conducted in June 2008. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is between ±4 and ±5 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111190/Few-Baltic-States-Voice-Preferences-US-Election.aspx?version=print

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Baltic markets hold steady
Posted on : 2008-10-21 Author : DPA News Category : Business
Riga - The three Baltic stock exchanges continue to trade in a steady range this week, maintaining the trend started at the end of last week. The NASDAQ OMX Tallinn exchange closed down 0.75 per cent Tuesday. Vilnius was down 0.56 per cent, while Riga's exchange, the smallest of the three, rose 5.94 per cent.
That was enough to cause the Baltic Benchmark Index (BBI) which includes data from all three exchanges, to record a modest rise, closing up 0.37 per cent at 332.19.
Despite the general flatness in the markets, there were one or two big fluctuations among individual stocks.
Lithuanian furniture maker Klaipedos Baldai recovered its losses of last week with a big 15 per cent rise in its share price. Latvian fur farmer Grobina headed in the opposite direction with an 11 per cent loss.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/printstory.php?news=237967

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Fuel in Lithuania costs less than in other Baltic countries
Danuta Pavilenene, BC, Vilnius, 20.10.2008.
The decreased prices for crude oil affected the prices for oil products in the global market. Last week, a liter of A-95 petrol cost 3.45 litas in Lithuania, 3.58 litas in Latvia, and 3.50 litas in Estonia.
The price for a liter of diesel fuel stood at 3.73 litas in Latvia, 3.79 litas in Estonia and 3.62 litas in Lithuania.

According to Daiva Joksiene, head of the marketing department of Lietuva Statoil, the prices for crude oil dropped because of the continuing crisis in the world"s finance markets, the decreased consumption of oil and its products in the U.S. and other countries, as well as the restored level of the U.S. reserve, which was imbalanced after the month of hurricanes.
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/transport/?doc=6306&ins_print
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Lithuanian budget to go for debate on Oct. 28
Oct 20, 2008TBT Staff in cooperation with BNS
VILNIUS - A draft Lithuanian national budget for 2009 is set to go to Parliament for debate in 2009.
"The morning session on Tuesday next week will be devoted entirely to the presentation of the draft budget and accompanying legal amendments," Ceslovas Jursenas, the speaker of the Seimas (Lithuania's parliament), told lawmakers on Monday.
The budget, which will include a nearly 3 percent deficit, has received harsh from both local and EU officials.
"No way [it should be signed]," EU Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget Dalia Grybauskaite told the Baltic News Service after a meeting with President Valdas Adamkus. "I gained solid experience during the critical situation in 1999 and 2000 when all public expenditures were trimmed. By more than 10 percent, and not just 5 percent. Such reserves do exist. The authorities should buy less limousines and should rather think and balance the appetites of individual departments with the economic and fiscal policy, financial resources. They should start there instead of doing harm to people," Grybauskaite said.
The government last Friday sent to the parliament a draft 2009 national budget which envisages that next year's expenditures will exceed revenues by 2.64 billion litas (0.87 billion euros) and targets a fiscal deficit of almost 3 percent of GDP.
As to the draft, the revenues of the national budget (the central government plus municipal budgets), including the EU funds, will total 30.199 billion litas in 2009, up 2.7 percent from the revenue amount envisaged for 2008. Budget appropriations are seen growing by 2.43 billion litas, to 32.838 billion litas.
The Finance Ministry projects that the country's economy will grow by 1.5 percent next year.
http://www.baltictimes.com/print_article/21582/
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