Prague Property

I can haz beesburger?

Somehow I can’t see Lolspider catching on…. Happy New Year

Earlier this month Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness met Edward Kennedy during a US visit. Previously Paisley would have vilified Kennedy, for his allegiance with Irish Catholics but now he thanked him for his support of successful peace talks. Kennedy on his part called Paisley and McGuinness “almost idealist” in seeking to move their country forward.

I know the Poor Mouth would have to bulk up even to make flyweight in the political blogosphere but if I had to choose one political item that has made me a little less world-weary (as opposed to the thousands of things that have sent my weltschmerz levels thought the roof) it must be the Paisley/McGuinness collaboration.

Let’s face it. who really would have thought this time last year that Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness would be in the same room as each other, let alone be visiting the USA as the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland? I can imagine that there are a lot of people as pleasantly surprised as I am at this turn of events. Who would have thought that Paisley and McGuinness would be praising the Irish cricket team’s success at the World Cup (or that McGuinness liked cricket – I can imagine that admission had some GAA diehards spluttering into their stout!) Who would have thought that they would have been dubbed the Chuckle Brothers (not the real Chuckle Brothers, mind you)

Seriously, the two have put serious differences aside and have worked damned hard in their new roles. The smiles may seem a bit contrived at times but they do seem to have developed a good working relationship. I am sure there will be plenty of scope for disagreement and argument as time goes by but right now they represent stability and that can only be good for Northern Ireland in terms of continued peace and of course prosperity – Northern Ireland must appear a far more attractive place for investment than it has for a very long time.

Although nothing is ever absolutely certain, I do hope that 2007 is a watershed year for Northern Ireland

Ringing Out the Old

By Grigory Pasko, journalist

The new year is a holiday for all. For the president of Russia especially: he was officially appointed to this post precisely on New Year’s Day, in 2000.

They say that in this upcoming year, Putin is going to leave the post of president: the Constitution does not allow him to be elected to a third term. But they also say that he doesn’t intend to wander too far away from this post, so that there would be an opportunity in a year to once again return in the capacity of president. What can you do? Power, like a disease, is infectious.

In the year about to end, the American magazine «Time» acknowledged the Russian president as person of the year. Let’s take a look – in honor of the New Year! – at this person with a bit of light humor, and from another side – not the one from which the obsequious colleagues from «Time» looked at him.

So here I am in Prague, and I have been in bed for the last few days. I was looking forward to getting away and relaxing for a little time, hopefully tomorrow I will be better as Anna nearly is and she has had the same thing for one day longer.
The fireworks have been [...]

It’s getting close to 6:30 PM in Moscow, and no doubt some seriously entertaining festivities are already well underway as Russia concludes quite a memorable year. But will the Russians ring in 2008 with the same energy and apprehension as 1965? I found this entertaining tidbit from the TIME magazine archive which shows a rather remarkable government-planned New Year’s Eve celebration from more than 40 years ago at the height of the Cold War: Nothing, in Soviet doctrine, is much more reactionary than Christmas, combining as it does “bourgeois” religion with capitalist commercialism. But the New Year is something else again. For years, the Communists have emphasized this ideologically safer holiday while downgrading or disguising Christmas (which in the Russian calendar falls on Jan. 7). With beaming approval from the Kremlin, Moscow last week was feverishly preparing for the biggest, brassiest and most bountiful New Year’s blowout in Communist history.

At the end of 2006 Wikipedia listed 53 verified surviving veterans of WWI. A year on and the number has fallen to just 19. 2007 saw the death of the last known serving officer (Philip Mayne), the last Romanian veteran (Gheorghe Panculescu) and the last Scottish veteran (William Young).

These are the known surviving veterans:

Henry Allingham (British) - at 111 the oldest living WWI veteran

Harry Patch (British) - the last surviving British soldier to fight in the trenches on the Western Front

Bill Stone (British)

Claude Choules (British)

Syd Lucas (British)

Glady Power (British)

Lazarre Ponticelli (Italian)

Delfino Borroni (Italian)

Francesco Chiarello (Italian)

Frank Buckles (USA)

Harry Landis (USA)

Raymond Cambefort (French)

Louis de Cazenave (French) - the last surviving French veteran of the Western Front

Franz Kunstler (Hungarian - ethnic German) Last surviving veteran of the Austro-Hungarian army

Erich Kastner (German) - Last known German veteran

John Babcock (Canadian) - Last known Canadian veteran

Yakup Satar (Turkish) - Last known veteran of the Ottoman Army

Stanislaw Wycech (Polish) - Served in the Polish Military Organisation. Last known Polish veteran

John Campbell (Australian) - Last surviving Australian veteran

In a few years there will be none left. France and Canda will hold state funerals for the last veterans. In Britain there will be a national memorial service in Westminster Abbey.

There’s been no shortage of criticism of the TIME selection - this one is from a column in the San Antonio Express News: So here’s some criticism based on Stengel’s own standard. If you define “powerful” as having at your disposal the economic, military, police — secret and otherwise — and media forces of an increasingly autocratic nation, then Putin’s your man. If using that immense power to throw your opponents in jail as your critics perish under the most extraordinary circumstances amounts to bold, earth-changing leadership, then Putin has it in spades.

Nord Stream, a consortium led by Russia’s Gazprom, is building a new pipeline that will cost at least €5 billion. The controversial project is facing “growing opposition from governments and private environmental groups.”

The Lithuanian president has acknowledged that energy issues with Russia create tension, but says that they “should in no way harm Lithuanian-Russian relations”.

Gazprom is doubling its number of liquid gas filling stations in Russia, boosting its monopoly on the domestic LPG market. The president of Gazresurs says that “large state-owned energy companies like Gazprom continue to buy up gas refineries and filling station chains. At the same time, they also dictate the price for independent retailers, for example, by increasing transportation tariffs.”

The Russian Natural Resources Ministry is hoping to attract $32 billion in investment for six major new projects. Russia’s state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport has filed a lawsuit against Kommersant newspaper over comments made by Oleg Shvartsman about “velvet reprivatization” in an interview. Foreign investment in car production in Russia will exceed $1.8 billion this year. Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control, will impose temporary restrictions on fish imports from a number of foreign companies starting January 1, 2008. Countries to be affected include Argentina, Vietnam, China and the US. Russian engineering and steel company OMZ will invest just under half a billion dollars in the next five years in steel and nuclear equipment plants in the Czech Republic. Many fund managers believes that “Russia will take over China’s crown next year” as the Russian market becomes an increasingly attractive option. “It is rich in commodities and natural resources, for which there is huge global demand, and share prices are still quite cheap.” Luxembourg’s Bluebird Securities has acquired a 5.7% stake in Russia’s second largest gas producer Novatek. Severstal, Russia’s biggest steelmaker, aims to increase profit from its US operations almost threefold by 2010 with the help of a $1bn investment plan to increase output and improve quality.

PHOTO: This undated handout photo shows a gas-well of Russian gas company Novatek in Yamalo-Nentsky region. (AFP/HO/File)

Today: RA show to go ahead; Putin praises Bush’s “personal commitment”; foreign policy will be “constructive” next year, says Lavrov; Russia’s relations with Iran and South Korea could strengthen; Moscow’s property boom; Yukos administrator can “ignore” earlier ruling; new survey says Russia’s is a “surveillance society”.

President Vladimir Putin has been accused of “sexing up the Duma [...] with an array of glamorous new female recruits” including former athletes who have starred in topless photoshoots and the principal ballerina of the Bolshoi.