INTL 5/24 EU/NATO/CIS/CSTO-SCO|Russia: Medvedev Says Summit Going Well/UK Pol.situation

5/18 EU/NATO/CIS/CSTO-SCO| Russia-U.S. nuclear talks/EU economics/The Caucasus, et al
Housecarl

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2009/05/draft_russia_news_analysis.html

May 24, 2009
Russia: Medvedev Says Summit Going Well

According to President Medvedev, the ongoing Russia-EU summit in Khabarovsk is going well. This time, the meeting took place in Russia's remote corner of the Far East, a great distance from Western Europe and its EU member states. "I hope we will continue to have such meetings at various locations in my state. Russia is a large country, with lots of remote and unexplored corners," said Medvedev at a press conference."We talked about current issues of our time such as the financial crisis, the measures being undertaken in our countries to combat this problem, and concluded that the end of the crisis is not yet near, and no one has any idea when we will reach that stage. A similar incident took place in Januray. Perhaps this is a subject that is worthy of the highest attention," said Medvedev.

He noted that at the summit, participants discussed energy security. Medvedev believes that the leadership of the European Union has shown interest in the initiative of the Russian Federation to establish a new legal framework for international cooperation in the energy sector: "It seemed to me that our European partners showed an interest in this idea," as Medvedev expressed hope that the discussion of the Russian initiative will continue, stressing that its implementation is "manifestly in the interest" of European partners.

"At the summit there was also talk of a strategic dialogue. We returned to the subject of a new basic agreement," explained the Russian President. "We are satisfied with the pace of these discussions. The very conversation on this dialogue indicates the similarity of our positions. Hopefully, further harmonization of conditions will take place without undue delay," said the president. He noted that during the summit, the sides exchanged views on the unsettled situations in Europe, such as Cyprus and Kosovo, discussed the security situation in the Caucasus, and the conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "We have talked about the situation in Moldova, discussed the Middle East problem, discussed the Iranian nuclear program, discussed the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan," said the president. "It was a constructive, candid conversation, which is very gratifying, since such candor is important to dealing with situations in different places," said Medvedev. "I am pleased with the outcome of our joint work," summed up the Russian president.

Meanwhile, official indicators painted a worrying picture for foreign direct investment in Russia - it fell by at least 30% in the first quarter of 2009, while direct investment has fallen by 43%. Foreign investors view Russia as unattractive because of the debt burden of companies and frequent intervention by the authorities. However, experts note that they expected greater drop in FDI in Russia. Now, given the devaluation of the ruble, investors are interested in import-substituting industries. The statistic notes that most of the money that came from abroad is of Russian origin.

According to Rosstat - Russian Statistics official agency - in the first quarter of 2009, foreign investments in the Russian economy fell by 30% to 12 billion dollars. At the same time, the number of direct investment fell to 3.182 billion dollars, which is 43% lower than in 2008. The most active investors in the Russian economy are companies from the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, the United States and France. The share of these countries accounted for 76.2% of all foreign money poured into the Russian economy. One financial analyst who asked to remain anonymous noted that the list of these investment leaders are headed by Netherlands and Cyprus - countries with lots of offshore companies, so often what should be "foreign" investment actually turns out to be money previously withdrawn from the country by the Russian entrepreneurs.

The newest and most expensive US fighter planes - the F-22 Raptors - are getting their official workout. On May 21, they were scrambled to intercept two Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers off the coast of Alaska. The contact with American planes was confirmed by Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Drik, Assistant to the Chief of Russian Air Force. Tu-95MS aircraft performed air patrols over neutral waters of the Arctic Ocean and in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands. The Russian crews were practicing their skills in flights over unmarked terrain. It should be noted that the Russian strategic aviation has begun to regularly carry out training flights of patrolling the neutral territory. Russian military insists that its aircraft are not violating the borders of other states, although NATO fighters often are scrambled to escort Russian Air Force bombers in flight. A similar incident took place in January of this year, when four American F-15 fighter plane escorted two Tu-95 bombers off the coast of Alaska.

The Trial Chamber of the Berlin Court ordered the German newspaper Bild to publish a retraction of the fact that Yuriy Lutsenko, the Head of Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, and his son Alexander, staged a drunken brawl at the Frankfurt airport, according to the Ukrainian agency UNIAN, with reference to the Ukrainian Minister's lawyer Genadi Lewinsky. "The court rendered a decision in relation to the Internet edition of Bild, which obliges it to publish a retraction," said Lewinsky. The German newspaper Bild reported that on May 4, German police detained Lutsenko together with his son after a supposed run-in with local law enforcement. According to the newspaper, the Minister and his 19-year-old son were under "severe influence" of alcohol and because of their "inappropriate" behavior, they were not allowed to board their flight to Seoul.

Posted by Yevgeny Bendersky at 7:18 AM

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6350328.ece

From The Sunday Times
May 24, 2009
Carry on chopping but don’t lose your head
Martin Ivens

If MPs believed that the removal of the first Speaker in 300 years would end their woes then the latest round of revelations about their expenses has sorely disabused them. Michael Martin was the Bourbon King of the ancien régime. His downfall, honourable members fear, has only ushered in the Reign of Terror. But, as in any revolution, who stands to gain?

The tumbrils sound nightly for the first editions of The Daily Telegraph’s guillotine. Esther Rantzen appears before the cameras like Madame Defarge, the bloodthirsty knitter from Charles Dickens’s novel set in the French revolution, A Tale of Two Cities. “Off with her head,” she cries at Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton South, who made us peasants pay to treat dry rot in her Southampton pad.

Celebrity candidates and independents are the darling of the hour. But a note of caution. The most famous, the former BBC journalist Martin Bell, who won against the Tory Neil Hamilton in 1997 in Tatton on an anticorruption ticket, is a poor advertisement. The “man in the white suit” has a dirty little secret. The architect of his campaign was Tony Blair’s spin-doctor-in-chief, Alastair Campbell. As an MP, Bell was ineffectual in taking new Labour to task for corruption. On Question Time last Thursday he waffled on and on, as ever.

Local parties should clear out tainted incumbents rather than wait for the loony tunes to unseat them. Too many MPs appear to have lost their heads (only metaphorically, of course) before they have lost their seats. Here is the Tory MP Nadine Dorries talking: “The atmosphere in Westminster is unbearable. People are constantly checking to see if others are okay. Everyone fears a suicide. If someone isn’t seen, offices are called and checked.”

Perhaps Queen Nadine, like Marie Antoinette, thought 10,000 swords must have leapt from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. David Cameron told her to can it. As the distinguished MP Edmund Burke once observed: “The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded.” And thank goodness for that.

Cameron continues to ride the tiger of popular anger with agility. But there are dangers. The Tories, not Labour, are responsible for the most exotic outrages. Claims for moats, manor houses and manure have been succeeded by duck islands and automatic gates.

As the old gang on his backbenches takes to the airwaves, Cameron must feel like the Duke of Wellington: “I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me.” Anthony Steen will long be remembered for accusing the electorate of jealousy: “I have got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral.” Sir Peter Viggers has told us that the ducks didn’t even like the island house he had so thoughtfully provided for them: he has shipped it off to France. If he had only provided a canopy as shade for his feathered friends . . .

There is muttering in Tory ranks that the leadership is trying to get rid of so-called “bed-blockers”, MPs nearing the end of their career, to advance Notting Hillbillies. The announcement that Andrew MacKay, Cameron’s former aide, will quit parliament, is designed to counter accusations of favouritism.

In private, says an intimate, Cameron is careful to be polite to his erring MPs outright. His lieutenant Ed Llewellyn is skilful at explaining that reforms of funding and star chamber judgments on individual MPs are just necessary business, not personal.

The Conservatives have maintained their lead over Labour in the polls but have dipped below 40%, their lowest level since October 2007. They can console themselves that Cameron’s call for an early general election to wipe the slate clean, however self-serving, is hugely popular with the voters. The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, as I noted last week, is at last beginning to hit his stride. His former rival for the leadership, Chris Huhne, claimed for a Corby trouser press while his predecessor Menzies Campbell made us pay for his trendy interior designer. But most Lib Dems’ claims go beneath the radar.

Gordon Brown’s efforts to save his party from discredit are the mirror image of Cameron’s. There is a big difference, however: the buck stops with the prime minister. Labour has been averaging less than 24% since the revelations began – their lowest level of support since Michael Foot led them to defeat 25 years ago. More than a few Cabinet members have bent the rules, too.

At first it looked as if Brown would single out the Blairite Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, for retribution – her behaviour over flipping her prime residence was in his words “totally unacceptable”. Blears had mocked Brown’s calamitous appearance on the internet with a cheeky newspaper article declaring “YouTube if you want to”. But was her behaviour any more unacceptable than that of male colleagues? It is odd to keep Blears in place with such a death sentence hanging over her. But if Brown sacks her he will look personally vindictive. And if he doesn’t do the deed he will look weak. That is the price of indecision.

Nor has Downing Street calmed destabilising reshuffle fever. Friends of Peter Mandelson say he would like the foreign secretary’s job because his grandfather, Herbert Morrison, briefly held the post under the Attlee government. Not more noblesse oblige, for God’s sake. Others say Brown wants to move him from the business department because his plans to privatise the Royal Mail will cause a rebellion on the backbenches.

Some mischief-makers argue that all this talk is only a blind for the coming appointment of Brown’s political heir, Ed Balls, as chancellor. The sitting tenant at No 11, Alistair Darling, would therefore have to move to the Foreign Office. But the FO’s incumbent, David Miliband, has gone out of his way to say that he doesn’t want to move. Any change the PM makes is likely to be seen through the prism of Brownite-Blairite civil war. That’s his fault.

As for talk of an early election in October, however desirable, it will go unheeded. The grand Treasury plan is to wait for a fast bounce from recession in the autumn and reap electoral reward.

Brown, however, has reined in the wilder advocates of radical parliamentary reform. How can any fagend government have the moral authority to change the voting system without the mandate of an election? Harriet Harman and Jack Straw are tasked with coming up with a nuts and bolts plan for Commons reform. If their scheme tries to bind the hands of the next government, it will be howled down.

The usual high and low minded suspects are calling for a proportional representation system that leads to hung parliaments and coalition government. The virtue of the first past the post system is that at least we can sling the rascals out, individually as well as collectively.

Amid the mud-slinging it must not be forgotten that there are still good men and women in the Commons. A Tory new boy, Douglas Carswell, put down the motion that led to Martin’s departure. Kate Hoey was the Labour free spirit who originally stood up to the Speaker. Virtue, alas, is the only reward for independent minds in politics, though I hope the voters remember her come election time. Everyone suspected that the Labour MP Frank Field was a good man and now we have the evidence of his expenses to prove it. He deserves the Speaker’s job.

Certainly, the worst offenders in the Commons must go, but whatever their faults backbenchers play a valuable role in shielding us from popular passions, too. They are not always the cringing servants of the executive either. It was ordinary MPs, remember, who brought down Britain’s most powerful postwar prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and indicated time was up for Tony Blair.

As ever in the long history of Parliament, as long as they back reform, MPs can avoid a real revolution.

Posted for fair use....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...-what-the-people-want-now-is-an-election.html


MPs expenses: Reform can wait; what the people want now is an election
With politics in the A&E department, it will take more than cosmetic surgery to provide a cure. It’s time for Gordon Brown to go to the country, says Matthew d'Ancona.

By Matthew d'Ancona
Last Updated: 6:46PM BST 23 May 2009

The long Labour era will be bookended by a lot of nonsense about constitutional reform. In 1997, Tony Blair promised what some of his acolytes called “a Reformation”: an ideological march through the institutions, a purge of all that was fusty and traditional, and the birth of “Cool Britannia”. Twelve years on, Gordon Brown’s Cabinet is reported to be pressing for a constitutional convention, electoral reform, a modernised Parliament and – yes, you’ve guessed it – a “new politics”.

In Monday’s Independent, Alan Johnson, the man mysteriously poised to replace the Prime Minister if catastrophe strikes Labour in the June 4 elections, declared that “we need to overhaul the political system and… we should complete unfinished business by discussing again the Jenkins review [of the Westminster voting system] and consulting the British people on proportional representation, which gives greater power to the electorate.”

Nothing happens by accident in Mr Johnson’s apparently breezy world. So why has the Pearly Dauphin chosen this moment to demand that Labour honour its promise to hold a referendum on electoral reform – a promise that was meant to be honoured in its first term?

Constitutional reform is the panic button of the political class: “In case of cataclysmic story about political sleaze, break the glass and call for institutional change.” There is no doubt that – in their first flush – Labour modernisers were drawn to some aspects of constitutional reform: its promise of novelty, innovation, and shiny new government bodies. Blair devoted the first John Smith memorial lecture in 1996 to institutional upheaval, attacking hereditary peers for being descended from the illegitimate children of royal mistresses, and promising “a politics which treats people as full citizens, gives them greater power over government”.

Now that socialism was dead, the bien-pensant prescriptions of Charter 88 filled the Marx-shaped hole. The presiding spirit of that group, Anthony Barnett, provided New Labour with an eloquent blueprint for change in his 1997 book This Time, which spoke of a “Velvet Revolution against corruption” and a “new democratic settlement”.

Some of that settlement was indeed enacted (Scottish and Welsh devolution, a Freedom of Information Act, partial reform of the House of Lords). In retrospect, however, Blair’s interest in constitutional reform was clearly governed by convenience and calculation rather than deep conviction. Before the 1997 election, he engaged in long talks with the Lib Dems about such reforms – an act of seduction chronicled in Paddy Ashdown’s diaries – which brought new meaning to the phrase “he meant it when he said it”.

Conscious that he might need Lib Dem support if the election result were close, Blair strung Ashdown along with promises of coalition, electoral reform and (naturally) a “new politics” based on the realignment of the centre-Left. When Blair won a 179-seat landslide, his interest in this love affair evaporated before you could say “Don Juan”.

Roy Jenkins’s commission on the Westminster voting system reported in 1998, recommending a complex electoral procedure called “AV-plus” – and was promptly shelved. Likewise, the House of Lords remains lodged in an embarrassing, semi-reformed limbo.

Now, as MPs clamber from the wreckage of the expenses scandal, the panic button of constitutional reform is being pressed once more. The crisis has already claimed several scalps, most notably and necessarily that of the Speaker, Michael Martin, who displayed an almost heroic incapacity to see what all the fuss was about.

The election of his successor will certainly give the Commons an opportunity to dramatise its supposed contrition and to promise to behave in future. But only the most credulous dweller in the Westminster stockade would kid himself that the selection of a new Speaker, however noble of spirit he or she may be, will assuage public fury at the astonishing inventory of shame yielded by the Telegraph investigation. Just when you think it can’t get worse, up pops Ian Gibson, MP for Norwich North, using his expenses to pay for his daughter’s home in London, and then selling it to her for half its market value.

A few weeks ago, we still had a rickety parliamentary democracy. Now, the veil has been lifted on something rather different: a disgraced political plutocracy that trembles at the prospect of something like mob rule. Not the storming of the Winter Palace – not yet, anyway – but the ugly populism that thrives when disenchantment with mainstream politics grows. As John Wick, the whistleblower in this story, puts it, nobody could predict “how violent the writhing of the snake was going to be”. According to one poll yesterday, 80 per cent of voters want non-party candidates to stand against incumbent MPs.

No wonder the vile leaders of the BNP are licking their lips as the local and European elections draw close. And no wonder the scramble for what remains of the moral high ground is so desperate. Only Joanna Lumley soars above the fray, a lone figure of uncontaminated authority who could form a government of national unity tomorrow if she wished.

Back on terra firma, party leaders compete to appear more severe in their response to the crisis. Star chambers, investigations, deselection: these are the new currency of routine political action, a currency that inflates by the day. Andrew Mackay’s departure is the most grievous loss yet to one of the main party leaders; it will not be the last.

The corollary is a high-minded demand for (but of course) a “new politics” – “a blueprint for reforming government” as the Guardian called it on Thursday – and a carnival of constitutional reform.

I don’t buy it. There may be arguments for aspects of the so-called “reform agenda”. But the notion that what is required right now is a grand process of constitutional introspection – a talking shop on unprecedented scale – is spectacularly misguided. Politics is in the A & E department. The first thing it needs is a tight tourniquet to stop the arterial bleeding, not a series of elective cosmetic procedures, followed by aromatherapy. Why, for instance, are the advocates of PR so sure that it would improve matters? Would a system that weakened the constituency link and depended upon party lists make MPs more accountable and less corrupt? Precisely the opposite, one might suppose.

The central political fact of the hour is not incomplete constitutional reform but Gordon Brown’s refusal to go to the country. Sometimes, looking at the wood can distract you from the trees: in this case, the 646 members of the Parliament elected in 2005, and the complete collapse of their collective moral authority. The voters brandish their axes, demanding the right to chop down the disease-ridden timber. They are owed nothing less: in a general election, now.

Matthew d’Ancona is Editor of 'The Spectator’

Posted for fair use....
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...t-of-mps-is-becoming-a-witchhunt-1689779.html

Leading article: The pursuit of MPs is becoming a witch-hunt

The abuse of expenses is serious, but we need a sense of perspective

Saturday, 23 May 2009

Another week of revelations of MPs' expenses, another seven days of humiliation for the mother of parliaments. A welter of juicy details involving ornamental duck houses and tree consultants has tumbled forth to join what we already know about massage chairs, moats and bathplugs. The scandal has claimed the scalp of Michael Martin, who becomes the first House of Commons Speaker in three centuries to be ejected from office.
Related articles

* MacKay to step down at next general election
* Voters turn on main parties
* Ex-SAS officer is expenses whistleblower
* Nadine Dorries: This is a witch hunt – the torture must end
* Chris Mullin: Contrary to opinion, we're not all at it
* Cameron tells rebel: 'One more squeak and you're out'
* Brown warned reshuffle may fall victim to turmoil over expenses
* Front-runners stumble in the race for Speaker
* 'I have no wish to be represented by a thief'

Yet, after a fortnight of bloodshed on the green benches of Westminster, the public reaction to this matter is in danger of getting out of hand. The tone of the debate has become hysterical. What began as a justified critique of MPs' behaviour has degenerated into crude bullying. And the row is now in danger of eroding the democratic health of the nation.

No one disputes that The Daily Telegraph had a marvellous story on its hands when it acquired details of every expense claim made by MPs going back four years. And the newspaper had every right to expose questionable conduct from our parliamentarians. Our democracy functions best when our politicians are kept under close scrutiny by the media. Yet the manner in which this newspaper has been delivering these revelations, day after day, is in danger of doing more harm than good to our body politic.

A drawn-out scandal

The damage the drawn-out nature of the scandal is inflicting in Westminster should not be underestimated. It is right that Mr Martin announced his resignation this week. The Speaker had been at the forefront of efforts to prevent the disclosure of MPs' expenses and was far too compromised a figure to preside over the reforms the Commons so evidently needs.

But elsewhere the impact of the scandal has been far from just. Party leaders have been panicked into imposing summary justice on those MPs fingered by The Daily Telegraph. Worse, as Lord Tebbit pointed out yesterday, there is a perception that the Labour and Tory leaderships are protecting their allies, while throwing the rest to the wolves.

The result is that some of the guilty appear to have been let off the hook, while others have been unfairly punished. The events of recent weeks have left many decent MPs disillusioned with politics. In our rush to shame those MPs who have raided the public purse, we risk demoralising the majority who have done nothing wrong. Let us be clear. Where fraud has been committed it should be met with the full force of the law. And the expenses padding practised by many other MPs have, without a doubt, been deplorable. A number of MPs have treated expenses as allowances, to be claimed in any way possible, rather than funds to help them to carry out their parliamentary duties. But there is a big difference between fraud and the milking of a laxly policed expenses system. Claiming for a mortgage that does not exist cannot reasonably be put in the same category of offence as kitting out a second home with furniture from John Lewis.

Not only unjust, but corrosive

The problem is that the public – along with many in the media – is reacting as if all expense claims are indicative of dishonesty. This is not only unjust, but corrosive. If we expect MPs to divide their work between two distant parts of the country, we have to pay for them to do it. Two reasonable people might disagree about how it should be constituted, but some residential allowance system is necessary. Equally, if we expect MPs to do their job of representing their constituents and holding the Government to account, they need to be given public resources to employ researchers and staff. This costs money. Without these allowances only the independently wealthy will be able to afford to enter Parliament. Those who howl about the corruption of the present system should consider the desirability of returning to the days when politics was the exclusive preserve of the wealthy.

Some have identified a silver lining in this affair: at least the public is now "engaged" in politics. This is naive. The public is engaged with the pillorying of MPs. A public flogging will always attract an audience. But this is not the same as being engaged with politics. MPs' gardening arrangements have certainly fired the public's imagination, but who is debating the issues that are the substance of politics? In fact, the expenses row is squeezing out any debate about serious and pressing issues such as the Government's policies to combat the recession and efforts to curtail runaway climate change.

The hysteria we are witnessing is, in fact, a symptom of the disconnection many feel from the political process. The plans announced by the various party leaders for cleaning up the MPs expenses system – such as preventing second home "flipping" and limiting the range of expenses that can be claimed for – are generally sensible. But the public has regarded this as an exercise in shutting the stable door after the horse's departure. It carries little credibility among those who feel that the political classes will always be a law unto themselves.

Clearly, there remains a considerable job of rebuilding trust in Parliament and our political system. Proponents of constitutional reform have been pressing their case in recent days, urging reform of the House of Lords, a new Bill of Rights and, somewhat counterintuitively, more powers for MPs. Other ideas also worth exploring are fixed-term Parliaments and two term limits for Prime Ministers. But we need to think carefully about the roots of this crisis when considering what reforms are needed. One of the lessons of the past decade is that large majorities tend to encourage a feeling of entitlement among MPs. Electoral reform would help to dispel this mentality; a more proportional voting system would tend to result in tighter Parliaments.

Furthermore, one of the striking features of the public response to this crisis is the vocal support for those who have indicated their willingness to stand as independent candidates at the next election. There is a palpable sense of dissatisfaction with the present choice on offer, a feeling from the public that its ability to register its voice is impeded. A more proportional voting system would relieve some of this pressure. Interestingly, the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, mentioned the 1998 Jenkins review on electoral reform in an interview with this newspaper earlier this week as something that could reconnect politics with the public.

The attraction of the Jenkins proposals is that they would retain the constituency link for MPs while also making the composition of the Commons more representative of how the public votes. With the backing of thoughtful politicians such as Mr Johnson, the Jenkins plan might yet have its day.

The reckoning we need

But we have to realistic. An overhaul of the voting system is not going to be implemented in the coming months, however desirable that would be. And in the absence of such a reform, a general election, in which the public can vote out those MPs who it feels have betrayed its trust, is the next best thing.

While we wait for that reckoning, we ought, collectively, to take a deep breath and rediscover a sense of perspective on recent revelations. Those MPs that have milked the expenses system have, without question, behaved appallingly. But by overreacting to what has taken place, we risk doing our democratic system a double disservice.

Posted for fair use....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/24/editorial-mps-democratic-reform


A new democracy must emerge from this mire

*
Comments (88)


* Editorial
* The Observer, Sunday 24 May 2009
* Article history

The worst conclusion to draw from the parliamentary expenses scandal would be, as the cliche has it, that "politicians are all the same". The opposite is clearly proven. MPs come in a wide range of flavours: honest, lazy, greedy, diligent, clever, stupid. The problem is knowing which is which.

Instead of being a crucible where elected representatives prove their mettle, Parliament has been a closet for their inadequacy. Rotten MPs have coasted through mediocre careers unchallenged.

How has this happened? A case can be made linking the decline of MPs' performance to everything from the power of the whips to the weakness of the speaker to usurpation of Parliament by the EU. It is then tempting, given the scale of public anger, to seek epic reform, renegotiating every clause of our unwritten constitution.

But there is a danger in responding to a big political crisis with too much ambition, if it is not focused. There is plenty of imperfection in the way Britain is run, but the immediate object of rage is specific: MPs serving themselves instead of their constituents. Voters want redress. Other democratic deficiencies - the Lords and royal prerogatives - need fixing, but not with the same urgency.

There are two pressing objectives. First, identify the worst offenders in the expenses scandal and signal a clear end to their parliamentary careers. Second, find a mechanism to re-engage voters in the political process. That means giving people confidence that they will be properly represented in Parliament.

The first part is the easier one. The quickest way to eject the current crop of MPs would be to dissolve Parliament and hold an election. But there is a good reason for holding back from an instant poll. There would not be time to deselect discredited MPs. Votes would be cast not on the merits of new candidates but to punish a few high-profile incumbents. The parliament thus created would be a strange snapshot of a transient mood of anti-political nihilism.

But if there is not to be an immediate election, the parties must act quickly to purge their ranks. They have all pledged to scrutinise their MPs' actions. But they must be clearer about how they will judge one misdemeanour against another. Is "flipping" second home addresses to pay for redecoration a cardinal or venial sin? How strictly will parties interpret the rule that expenses must be incurred in pursuit of parliamentary duty? Duck islands and massage chairs are plainly extracurricular, but other cases are on the borderline. Parties' scrutiny committees must set clear rules and stick to them. And they must get a move on.

A purge of expense scammers would not, however, solve the second problem - the representation gap. That demands electoral reform.

The surest thing to make an MP idle is the possession of an unassailable majority. Likewise, the surest thing to discourage a voter from turning out is the knowledge that, as a supporter of the minority party in a safe seat, his or her vote does not count.

Under the current voting system, the balance of power lies in the hands of a few thousand voters in a handful of marginal constituencies. National policy is bent to their needs.

The alternative must be some form of proportional representation. That is, roughly speaking, a system that gives parties seats in Parliament in proportion to the number of people who voted for them. As an elementary democratic principle, that is hard to dislike.

The most attractive feature of the existing Westminster system is that, in theory at least, it foists a ground-level perspective on even the most high-flying politicians. Prime ministers still have constituents.

But there are forms of PR that maintain the constituency link. The single transferable vote system used in Ireland, for example, elects more than one MP to each constituency on a proportional basis. So, for example, lonely Tories in staunch Labour areas would still have a chance of returning a parliamentarian to speak for them. Unlike PR systems that use nationwide lists of candidates, aspiring MPs would still have to woo a specific pool of voters. Once elected, they would compete to best represent their local area.

No voting system is perfect. But the one used at Westminster looks more derelict than most. It turns the Commons into a caricature of the real political landscape. It can award mandates to parties that fail to win a majority share of the national vote. It did not cause the expenses scandal, but it created the contours of a chamber where so many offending MPs could easily hide.

The three main parties have all committed to punishing the miscreants. That is a necessary first step. But, above all, the expenses scandal is a crisis of representation. It has exposed the underlying illegitimacy of a parliament stuffed with complacent lifers in safe seats. The test of how serious a party really is about change should be the firmness of its commitment to electoral reform.

People are angry because they were taken for granted. The obvious and the right recompense is to give them a vote that counts.

Posted for fair use....
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/377366.htm

Sunday, May 24, 2009
Updated at 24 May 2009 22:43 Moscow Time.
The Moscow Times » Issue 4152 » Top Stories


Dmitry Astakhov / RIA-Novosti
From left, Barroso, Klaus, Medvedev and Solana attending a news conference Friday at the end of an EU-Russia summit in the Far East city of Khabarovsk.��

No Kremlin Guarantee of Gas to EU
25 May 2009
By Nadia Popova / The Moscow Times

Russia cannot guarantee that there will be no halts in gas supplies to Europe, President Dmitry Medvedev warned at a news conference closing an EU-Russia summit in Khabarovsk on Friday.

Further raising the specter of a new gas shut-off, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin separately indicated that the country would not extend any loans to Ukraine. Ukraine's failure to pay for Russian gas resulted in the halt of deliveries to more than 20 European countries in January.

"Russia has offered no assurances and will not offer any," Medvedev said when asked about the possible suspension of gas supplies to Europe later this year. "What for? There are no problems on our part. ... Let the one who pays for the gas offer assurances."

Adding to the tension, Medvedev said he had doubts about Ukraine's ability to pay for gas this year. "If the Ukrainian side has got the money, that's great. But we have got some doubts about the solvency of Ukraine," he said.

Ukraine currently needs about $4 billion to pump 19.5 billion cubic meters of gas into its underground reserves, Medvedev said.

Putin gave different figures later in the day, saying Ukraine needed about $5 billion.

"The gas should be pumped in now, because it will be impossible to pump it in the needed volume later," Putin said in the Kazakh capital, Astana, after talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The prime ministers met on the sidelines of a CIS summit.

Asked to explain the discrepancy between Medvedev's and Putin's figures, Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the leaders had rounded off the figures.

Valentin Zemlyanskiy, a spokesman of Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-controlled gas monopoly responsible for filing the reserves, did not answer his cell phone Sunday.

Moscow has previously indicated that it was willing to lend the money to Kiev as an advance on gas transit fees for the next five years. But Putin said Friday that Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko "considers the form of payment unacceptable and nearly illegal."

"We will hardly be able to solve this problem under such a regime," Putin said, according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the government's web site.

Medvedev said in Khabarovsk that Russia wanted to help Ukraine but expected the European Union to share a considerable part of the burden. "In other words, if the talk is about loans, let's help the Ukrainian state obtain the amount of money it needs. It is not us who have problems with solvency, after all," he said, according to a transcript on the Kremlin's web site.

But Putin suggested that no loans would be forthcoming. "We have applied to the European Commission with this question" of providing financial support to Ukraine, Putin said. "We got the answer through a minister of finance, 'We have no money for Ukraine.'"

"Supplies for domestic consumers in Ukraine is a very important condition for gas transit to the European consumers," Putin said. "No one should pretend it doesn't concern him."

EU officials attending the summit in Khabarovsk expressed concerns about possible gas disruptions. "There should be no more suspensions in the gas supplies," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said at the news conference. "We ask Russia and Ukraine to do everything in their power to prevent another crisis next year."

Medvedev, however, maintained that the Energy Charter -- the current legal framework that regulates energy supplies in EU countries and establishes rules for resolving disputes -- was not enough to prevent disruptions. "Ukraine ... is a member of the Energy Charter, and so what? They did what they wanted to do. They spat on the Energy Charter," Medvedev said. "It means that some other instruments are needed."

Medvedev has suggested a new energy charter that would replace the current one adopted in 1991 and signed by 51 countries. Russia signed the charter in 1994 but never ratified the document, which it now calls "outdated."

"We consider some of these ideas very useful," Barroso said, adding, though, that the EU would "rather build on existing agreements."

European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said in Khabarovsk that the EU was ready to consider incorporating some Russian proposals into the existing charter, Bloomberg reported. Russia, however, has insisted on a full overhaul of the document rather than spotty changes.

Turning to another thorny issue, the Eastern Partnership program, Medvedev said EU officials had "failed to persuade" him that it would not harm Russia's interests. "What confuses me is that some states ... take this partnership as a partnership against Russia," he said.

The Eastern Partnership program, which involves all 27 EU members as well as Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, seeks free trade agreements and relaxed visa rules between the EU members and the former Soviet countries, and it promises support for political reforms in those countries. The partnership is worth at least 600 million euros ($841 million) from 2010 to 2013, according to the European Commission's web site. Russia is worried that an Eastern Partnership agreement that was signed on May 7 is an EU attempt to meddle in what it considers its sphere of influence.

"We have tried to persuade President Medvedev ... that the idea of the Eastern Partnership is not aimed against anybody and of course, not against Russia," Czech President Vaclav Klaus, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said at the news conference, flanked by Barroso, Medvedev and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

No progress was reached at the summit on a replacement for the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation agreement that expired in December 2007.
The Gas Problem

Russia called on the European Union on Friday to help find money for Ukraine to prevent a new gas supply crisis while failing to agree with Kiev on how to store gas to ensure smooth gas transit to Europe this winter. Any hint of a gas dispute raises the blood pressure of European governments and consumers (who get a fifth of their gas from Russia via Ukraine), piques the interest of Naftogaz bondholders and casts a shadow over ties between Russia and Ukraine.

The following are key facts about gas issues that the two countries have to resolve while grappling with a deep economic crisis that has hit the state finances and currencies of both.

* Gas has to be stored in Ukraine for the winter period to guarantee smooth transit to Europe.
* As gas consumption rises during winter, the two countries do a simple gas swap. Ukraine uses Russian gas meant for Europe entering the country in the northeast and compensates Russia by sending gas stored in the west of the country to Europe.
* More than 10 billion cubic meters needs to be stored to ensure this transit to Europe.
* Ukraine"s government has said it has 16 billion cubic meters of gas in storage and wants to buy a further 12 bcm, worth about $3.25 billion at current prices, to cover Gazprom"s and its own winter needs. Naftogaz has not confirmed these figures.
* At the start of the year, Ukraine had 17 bcm stored, and gas intermediary RosUkrEnergo had 11 bcm. RosUkrEnergo stocks were transferred to Ukrainian ownership, so about 12 bcm has been consumed since January as Ukrainian purchases of far dearer Russian gas fell.
* Gazprom does not want to simply give the storage gas to Ukraine for safekeeping.
* Ukraine prefers to limit its purchases of the gas now because prices are to expected to drop sharply later in the year when the gas is needed.
* Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz has proposed that it could buy the extra gas for storage using Gazprom"s advance payment of transit fees for using the Ukrainian pipeline system to pump gas to Europe.
* But with European consumption falling sharply, it is difficult to tell how much transit fees Gazprom will pay, risking Naftogaz having to pay back money later in the year.
* A Russian government source said Gazprom had paid its 2009 fees in full already. A Ukrainian source close to the gas talks said $2.15 billion had been paid, the majority of which Ч $1.7 billion Ч being the amount that was owed in the first quarter.
* The Ukrainian government, its finances stretched to the limit, has said state banks could lend Naftogaz the money for the extra gas. A bill in the parliament proposes the idea of the funds coming from the state purse.
* Naftogaz, receiving support from the state, needs to pay back a $500 million Eurobond by Sept. 30. Investors have been wary of a Ukrainian default after the currency plummeted and the country plunged into recession.

Reuters

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Frost in Siberia

Published: May 24 2009 19:36 | Last updated: May 24 2009 19:36

Russia and the US may be seeking some kind of rapprochement after the tensions of the Bush years. But when it comes to relations between Russia and the European Union, things remain distinctly tetchy. Dialogue between Moscow and the EU may not be as strained as it was last autumn in the immediate aftermath of Moscow’s incursion into Georgia. But as last Friday’s EU-Russia summit in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk demonstrated, the relationship is very uneasy.

Two issues created tension. First there was energy security. The EU wants to ensure that there is no repeat of last January’s gas row between Russia and Ukraine which left thousands without heat across central and eastern Europe. It wants Russia to ratify the European Energy Charter treaty, a document that regulates energy pipelines and which Brussels deems essential to ensure security of supply. However, President Dmitry Medvedev made clear at Khabarovsk that he refuses to do this – and instead used the summit to showcase his plans for a wholly new international treaty governing energy relations.

The second issue of tension was the EU’s attempt to boost relations with six former Soviet republics through its Eastern Partnership. This is hardly something that needs worry the Kremlin. The EU has committed limited funds to the partnership, is offering no visa facilitation deals and no long-term promises of membership. But President Medvedev castigated the project as something that can be “turned into a partnership against Russia”.

On both issues, the EU should hold its ground. On energy security, in particular, it must press home demands that Russia should ratify the Energy Charter treaty, which sets out clear rules covering investor protection, transit rights and dispute settlement. Brussels should by all means examine a proposal from Russia that the EU might help Ukraine pay its gas bills. But that can only be a stop-gap measure. Russian ratification of the ECT is essential; and EU member states must not fall into the trap of allowing Russia to undermine existing rules by starting negotiations on an unnecessary new treaty.

EU member states must also recognise one other point: that a common energy strategy is an issue of fundamental interest to the EU. Some EU states still have a tendency to pursue bilateral energy relationships with Russia, weakening the union’s overall negotiating position. They need to recognise that this is a practice that allows Russia to divide and rule Europe on energy. Solidarity is needed now as never before.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

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Sunday, May 24, 2009
Updated at 24 May 2009 22:51 Moscow Time.
The Moscow Times » Issue 4152 » Opinion

Competing for Privilege
25 May 2009
By Dmitry Trenin

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. While Russia was determined to create a center of power in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the enlarged European Union started paying more attention not only to the "new Eastern Europe" (Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine), but also to the South Caucasus and Central Asia -- all areas of what is still being called, with decreasing validity, the former Soviet Union. Europe's Eastern Partnership with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine is the clearest statement so far of its capability and willingness to project its soft power onto what Moscow regards as its hereditary sphere of influence.

Few in Moscow were amused by the EU's move, sponsored as it was by Stockholm and Warsaw and presented in Prague. The Kremlin sees the Eastern Partnership -- under the guise of innocent-enough goals that few could oppose, such as increased trade and cooperation -- as yet another geopolitical attempt by the West to wean these countries away from Moscow's orbit. The tension was seen at the EU-Russia summit on Friday in Khabarovsk, despite the smiles and friendly protocol that was observed.

For some, the only solace is that Eastern Partnership may be too weak and unsustainable for a real breakthrough. With just a few hundred million euros in the bank and no prospect of EU membership for any of the six former Soviet republics in the foreseeable future, the initiative might as well fizzle out after the Swedish EU presidency in the second half of 2009. When it comes to relations with Russia, the EU is notoriously disunited.

Whether apprehensive or dismissive, Moscow sees the situation in terms of a geopolitical competition between itself ("defending its birthright") and an assertive West ("expanding its influence.") Some may even remember the mock warnings heard from some U.S. observers a decade ago: For Russia, NATO's enlargement to the east will have very "light" consequences compared with the EU's. To those Russians who at the time took the position of "anything but NATO," they quoted the old Chinese curse, "be careful what you wish for." Now, these warnings are being vindicated.

The Russians are right about increased competition in their neighborhood but wrong about its nature and its drivers. The name of the game is not dominance and allegiance but freedom and models of development. The new Eastern Europeans and nations of the South Caucasus are not a prize to be won or lost in a global geopolitical game. They decide for themselves who they want to align themselves with -- the EU, Russia or perhaps some combination of the two.

The choice is not a simple "switching of alliances." For all the talk of a Brussels diktat, the six countries -- just like the Central Europeans before them -- feel much more comfortable dealing with a nonhegemonic EU than a heavy-handed Moscow. Europe may see the six nations as backward and requiring economic assistance, but it treats them as independent. Moscow, by contrast, unabashedly views the neighbors as its own "zone of interests" (or "privileged interests," as President Dmitry Medvedev distinctively coined.) This creates apprehension in those countries that remember very well what is what like to spend decades under Moscow's control. It is noteworthy that in the aftermath of the Georgia war last August, not a single Russian ally or integration partner followed Moscow in recognizing Abkhazia or South Ossetia. They all refused not out of any affection or sympathy for Georgia or President Mikheil Saakashvili. They were simply sending a Moscow a distinct message: We are independent states, not adjuncts of a former superpower.

The issue is not just money either. Although money is important, especially in a crisis, it is the opportunity that the world's largest economy generates that motivates Russia's neighbors. By contrast, Russia remains an economy largely built on energy and raw material resources, and once it phased out subsidies for its gas deliveries and started using economic sanctions for political ends, its power of attraction diminished greatly. Countries that seek paths to faster development and economic modernization look to the West, not to Moscow.

Whether the six Eastern Partnership countries succeed or fail makes a lot of difference to themselves, the EU and Russia. They need all the support and attention from Brussels and the EU member states that they can get. Ukraine, in particular, is crucial. Putting the divisive NATO issue to one side, Kiev and Brussels need to focus on the EU to help modernize the largest country in Eastern Europe. Moldova, one of the EU's smallest and poorest new partners, requires urgent attention in Brussels to prevent a social and economic meltdown on Europe's doorstep. In Moldova and the South Caucasus, the EU needs to become more present and effective as Russia's partner in resolving the many conflicts. And as Europe diversifies its energy imports, it will need to become more seriously involved with the countries in the Caspian region. This calls for a long-term EU strategy and a coordinated foreign policy. This is a tall order, but if successful it will be a quantum leap for Europe.

Ironically, Russia is likely to benefit from Europe's cohesion and its neighbors' success. Moscow's obsession with the 19th-century notions of geopolitics is a drag on its own post-imperial adjustment. Only when it is fully divested of these hang-ups will it be able to find a fitting place and a useful role for itself in the globalized environment.

In the long term, Russia will probably not follow its neighbors into the EU, although joining a pan-European economic area and a European-Atlantic security compact would make a lot of sense. Russia will stay as a separate unit, but it will recognize the EU not as its geopolitical rival, but as a regional leader and a rich source of modernization. The Kremlin will live to enjoy the proximity and learn to profit from the occasional friction. Finally, it will also learn the art of dealing with smaller neighbors through methods other than dominating, bullying or punishing them.

By 2030, United Europe for Russia may begin just beyond Belgorod and Bryansk. This will be a huge relief for a country whose standing in the world will be decided not by what occurs in Europe but by what happens in Asia.

Dmitry Trenin is director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

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From the Los Angeles Times
In Germany, widespread spying is back, this time by corporations
Hundreds of thousands of employees have had their cellphone, e-mail and computer records secretly searched. Companies say they did it to expose misconduct.
By Henry Chu

May 23, 2009

Reporting from Berlin — Growing up in West Germany, Lothar Schroeder never knew that terrible sense of violation suffered by people in the communist East at the hands of the secret police who tailed them, bugged their homes and recruited neighbors and even family members to snitch on them.

Now he knows.

But it's not a totalitarian state doing the snooping this time; it's some of the country's largest corporations -- big names in telecommunications, transportation and retail.

Last year, authorities informed Schroeder that Deutsche Telekom had secretly combed through his cellphone records, apparently to root out the source of leaks to the news media. Schroeder, a union representative on the company's board of supervisors, was stunned.

"I never could believe that Deutsche Telekom would use their data in this way, never," he said, adding ruefully, "Perhaps I'm a little bit naive."

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany is being rocked by a string of spying scandals that have staggered residents with their scale and brought back painful memories of the prying eyes of Big Brother during the Cold War.

The firms have admitted spying on hundreds of thousands of employees, including monitoring their e-mails and installing hidden cameras to see how many bathroom breaks they took or whether co-workers were falling in love.

The breaches of privacy have claimed the jobs of two top executives and triggered a parliamentary investigation. Lawmakers are also discussing a revamp of Germany's nebulous and somewhat outmoded rules on data protection, to clarify what kind of prying is allowed and under what conditions.

The most shocking scandal so far involves the state-owned railway firm, Deutsche Bahn, the country's biggest employer.

In January, after an expose by a newsmagazine, the company was forced to acknowledge that it had spied on 173,000 employees -- nearly three-quarters of its workforce.

In 2002 and 2003, a security firm hired by Deutsche Bahn sifted through workers' e-mails and, in some cases, their computer hard drives for data, including addresses, phone numbers and banking information.

The company said the examination was part of a legitimate internal campaign to sniff out possible signs of corruption, such as covert links between employees and suppliers.

Yet out of the review of tens of thousands of workers, only about 100 instances of possible impropriety reportedly turned up, a dismal batting record that Peter Schaar, Germany's commissioner for data protection, finds deeply disturbing.

"In principle, of course, enterprises have an obligation to prevent and fight against corruption," Schaar said in a telephone interview from his office in Bonn. "But in the Deutsche Bahn case, they went beyond the limits. . . . The question from my side is, is it proportional to carry out a screening of so huge" a scope?

That question is freighted with especially heavy baggage in Germany, a country haunted by a shameful past of mass surveillance, from the brutal excesses of the Nazi era to the dark days of division between East and West, when the East German secret police, the Stasi, ruthlessly invaded every corner of people's lives.

As a result, Germans jealously guard their privacy -- a fact Google found out the hard way. When the company dispatched cars equipped with cameras to cities to snap ground-level photos for its Street View software program, complaints flooded in to the authorities. More than a dozen states in Germany have demanded that Google stop its photographing unless it deletes images of people's faces, car license plates and other sensitive material from its central database. The matter has not been resolved.

Germans who thought spying a thing of the past have been dismayed by what they see as Deutsche Bahn's equivocal response to the crisis over corporate surveillance, despite its apology to affected employees. Executives initially said that the company had checked up on only about 1,000 of its senior staff members and that security agents had looked only at e-mails.

A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn declined to comment for this article. The company is preparing a response to a criminal complaint filed by an employee over the spying, after which prosecutors will decide whether the evidence warrants investigation.

Proving criminal wrongdoing could be difficult.

"We can't go and put the Bahn in jail. We have to find the actual person who [ordered] this," said Michael Grunwald, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Berlin. "That's the problem in cases where banks and big firms are involved. Who was the one who knew everything and made the decision?"

Some punishment, though not judicial, has been meted out. At the end of March, under growing pressure, the company's beleaguered chief executive, Hartmut Mehdorn, was forced to step down.

A week later, the discount supermarket chain Lidl also fired a high-ranking executive because of its own privacy violation debacle.

The company hired detectives last year to watch workers at various branches using tiny cameras. No detail seemed too small for the snoops to note in their reports, including that one employee sported tattoos on both her arms, another's friends consisted "mainly of junkies," one went to the restroom with unusual frequency and a male worker drew a heart on a note to a female colleague.

The company was fined $2 million for its actions. But critics call it little more than a slap on the wrist.

"If you had asked me two years ago, 'Would this be imaginable?' I would've said no," said Schaar, the data protection commissioner.

Before the recent wave of corporate cases, his office focused mostly on the use and abuse of personal information by the state.

That remains an extremely sensitive topic in Germany; a proposal two years ago to expand the government's ability to spy on personal computers for counter-terrorism purposes met with loud protest. Last year, the constitutional court ruled that such searches could be performed only in very serious cases in which lives and property were at risk.

Now, Schaar said, "we have learned that enterprises are collecting much more data on individuals than the state does."

In his opinion, Germany's 30-year-old data protection law is ripe for an overhaul, because the simple "mainframe world" it was based on, where electronic data were collected in giant processing centers and access was easier to control, no longer exists.

"Now everybody's using a PC, a mobile phone, GPS navigation system, e-mail, Internet and so on," Schaar said. "It's very complicated to define who's responsible for which data and to protect data against incompatible use."

Schroeder, the labor activist, is no longer surprised by new allegations of corporate spying, not after the raft of recent cases and his experience at Deutsche Telekom.

An independent report in January concluded that 60 people associated with Deutsche Telekom were spied on in 2005 and '06, their phone records rifled for evidence of improper contact with journalists or others outside the company. Investigators have yet to determine who authorized the operation.

Schroeder, a senior official with Germany's United Services Union, credited Deutsche Telekom with trying to correct its mistakes. Its data protection committee is drafting recommendations on privacy, and the company has issued written assurances to subjects of the spying that such an intrusion will not happen again.

Is that enough?

"I hope so," Schroeder said cautiously. "But I do not want to be naive again."

henry.chu@latimes.com

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Russian outposts look East, but unspared by crisis
(AFP)
24 May 2009

KHABAROVSK, Russia - It’s morning at the market and the traders are opening stalls crammed with Chinese goods, chatting in Mandarin and grabbing a quick breakfast of steaming noodles.

But although there is hardly a non-Chinese in sight, this isn’t China — it’s the second biggest city in the Russian Far East, Khabarovsk.

The gigantic Vyborgsky Market on the city outskirts sells everything from radios to fishing rods and is graphic evidence of the trade ties that have developed between Russia and China over the last decade.

Ta Wei, proudly polishing the kitchenware he sells at his stall, is one of hundreds of Chinese traders selling on imported China-made goods to willing Russian consumers.

“I came here to work two years ago as back home there are too many people fighting for too few jobs,” said the 23-year-old, who like many of the traders comes from the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin.

“But here there is a great opportunity as the Russians are not so good at mass producing consumer goods, so we import ours which are cheaper,” he said in fluent but heavily-accented Russian.

The market, the size of several football pitches and containing both open-air stalls and shops, appears like a slice of China transported to Russia save for some Russian cashiers and early morning shoppers.

Indeed, the economic influence of Russia’s fast-growing neighbour is one of the main points that differentiates a city in the Russian Far East like Khabarovsk from its counterparts in European Russia.

The architecture of the city, with long avenues of Soviet apartment blocks interrupted by the occasional belle epoque building and golden-domed Orthodox Church, is hardly different to European Russia.

One major difference is on the roads — the familiar Russian-made brands of Lada or Volga are nowhere to be seen, with locals preferring to drive cars imported from Japan or South Korea.

During this week’s EU-Russia summit in the city, local officials were keen to point out that three-quarters of foreign investment in the region — mainly in the energy sector — now comes from Europe.

But the fact remains that Asian countries still account for the lion’s share of trade.

According to local customs figures, China accounted for 35 percent of the Russian Far East region’s total imports in 2008, followed by Japan with 29 percent.

Of exports — chiefly energy, oil products and timber — South Korea accounted for 37 percent, Japan 28 percent and China 12.1 percent.

That is hardly surprising when Khabarovsk is eight hours by air from Moscow but is close enough to China for a day trip and only a short hop from Seoul or Tokyo by plane.

“The future development of the Russian Far East will depend not so much on the European Union but on countries of the Asia-Pacific,” President Dmitry Medvedev declared during his summit visit this week.

“After all, the emblem of our country is a two-headed eagle,” he added.
‘The government has no right’

But having an economic orientation sharply different to European Russia has not saved Khabarovsk and the rest of the Far East region from the economic crisis that hit the entire country so hard.

Russia’s overall trade with China, which Moscow has worked hard to expand, plunged in the first quarter this year by 42 percent from the year earlier to 7.3 billion dollars amid the economic crisis.

According to Medvedev’s special envoy for the Far East region, Viktor Ishayev, unemployment has risen to 135,000 from 103,000 at the start of the year.

With a third of Russia’s territory but barely five percent of its population, the energy-rich region has always had to work hard to generate activity, a problem compounded by downward demographic trends.

Meanwhile, one aspect of the region’s tilt towards the Asia Pacific has also alarmed the federal authorities in the economic crisis and caused unprecedented tensions with Moscow.

With the domestic Russian car industry in grave trouble, the Moscow government hiked tariffs on imported cars in a bid to put Far Easterners off their preferred imported Japanese and Korean brands.

Throughout the Far East, the decision proved hotly controversial but rare anti-government protests in Khabarovsk and Vladivostok failed to win concessions from Moscow.

Pavel Minakir, head of economic research at the Far East department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said trade volumes with Japan would not be the only factor affected by the tariff hike.

“There will also be an important knock-on effect on transport as sea transport is greatly involved in this trade.

“There will be an effect on the ports. And on top of that a negative effect on consumers,” he told local newspaper Biznes Vesti.

Look in any car park in Khabarovsk and the only vehicles present are brands like Toyotas and Nissans. Despite government incentives, Russian models are elusive.

“The people here don’t like the authorities in Moscow. The government doesn’t want us to buy Japanese cars. But they are cheaper and the quality is better,” fumed one taxi driver, Eduard.

“The government has no right to tell me what I should drive.”

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Cleaning up Parliament

From The Economist print edition

Political climate change
May 21st 2009


Britain’s legislature needs a vigorous cleansing; but now is not the time to redesign government

OVER the past century, the British have lost a lot—their empire, their military might, their economic leadership and even their sense of superiority. But they still reckoned that they had one of the best parliaments in the world. The constitution might be a mess, the executive insufficiently checked, but compared with America’s Congress and most of the European systems, Westminster seemed relatively clean.

That is why the revelations of the past two weeks—that MPs have been picking taxpayers’ pockets, pushing the rules to breaking point on second-home mortgage relief, massage chairs, moat-clearing and the like—have been such a shock. The public is apoplectic. The speaker of the House of Commons was obliged to resign on May 19th, the first time since 1695 that a holder of that office had been ejected (see article).

Such profound shifts in the political climate are rare. What to do about this one? A vast array of solutions are being rushed forward. Broadly, they fit into three categories. There is an electoral solution: the opposition Tories want a general election to let the people sweep the cursed crooks from office (and themselves into it). There is a range of constitutional reforms, from fewer MPs to proportional representation. And there is institutional spring cleaning—changing the allowances system, improving MPs’ usefulness and getting rid of the most grievous offenders. This newspaper is not afraid of calling for elections or constitutional change, but in this particular situation the emphasis, especially now, should be on the last set of proposals. That is because this crisis—no matter how shameful the offences involved—is institutional, not constitutional.

Going, going, Gordon…

Begin with the idea of an election. The prospect of a fresh start is certainly alluring. These are unsettled times, in Britain as elsewhere. Having been forced, teeth gritted, to support failed bankers in lavish retirement, taxpayers are rightly outraged by the discovery that MPs too have their noses in the trough. Although Britons usually take a dyspeptic view of their representatives, there is a different, bloodier mood now. Giving the people a say would in theory cleanse the system.

There may indeed soon be good reasons for forcing an election—especially if it becomes obvious, as it well might, that Gordon Brown’s spindly government has lost the authority to govern the country. But the expenses crisis, if anything, weakens the argument for a contest now. If an election were called next week, Britain might well end up with a Parliament for the next five years that is defined entirely by its views on claiming for bath plugs, rather than on how to get the country out of the worst recession in 70 years.

The same yes-but-not-now logic applies to the calls for constitutional reform. Some elements in this crisis can indeed be traced back eventually to defects in Britain’s system, notably the drift of power away from Parliament to the executive. But the heart of the matter was much smaller: a shoddy way of dealing with expenses. You could re-engineer great swathes of Westminster—bring in an elected House of Lords, introduce a Bill of Rights, design open primaries for MPs, scrap the first-past-the-post electoral system—and it would not make a shred of difference if the people elected were left in charge of claiming their own expenses amid a “course-you-can-chum” culture. A pile of swimming-pool-cleaning receipts is not a good starting place for constitutional reform.

So focus on making a misused organisation work. Finding a new speaker is the first task. Michael Martin, the incumbent until June 21st, was inept, but it was his refusal to tackle—or even to air publicly—the laxness of the allowances system that did for him. His successor cannot be found among what Lord Rosebery, a prime minister in Queen Victoria’s time, called “the mediocrities of the House”. He or she will need heft to lead reform and to persuade the public to place its trust in a cleaned-up Commons. It is a mark of how bad the graft is now that some otherwise good candidates have been rendered ineligible by their own incontinence on expenses.

The second task is to deal with the most egregious envelope-pushers. Erring MPs cannot escape punishment by offering grovelling apologies and repaying the unjustified expenses they were caught claiming: that would be like letting off a shoplifter who volunteered to return the dress she swiped from Harrods. A few have been punished. Once the evidence is clear, all the rule-breakers should be chucked out of the parties, all the rule-benders dispatched from the front benches.

The third job is changing the way MPs’ finances are regulated. An independent commission is beavering away to come up with ideas for this. All parties have agreed to interim reforms meanwhile, clamping down on what MPs can claim for. Mr Brown’s main thrust is to replace Parliament’s ancient system of self-governance with an external body that would set and police MPs’ allowances. He is probably right in this: self-regulation is on the run in most walks of life, and recent experience of it in Parliament is dispiriting. But transparency will make much more difference than yet another quango. The reason MPs are likely to stay on the straight and narrow is the fact that their claims will henceforward be published online.

The great accounting to come

Do these three things quickly and much of the sting will be drawn. That still leaves room to begin a broad review of the workings of Parliament and to tackle the constitutional issues.

One reason for Westminster’s longer-run woes is that the job of an MP has become less appealing to capable independent minds. Ever more laws are in effect drafted in Brussels these days. A leaching of authority to the executive has left MPs too dependent for advancement on the goodwill of party higher-ups to hold the government to account. That could be corrected by giving more, not less, power to MPs—for instance by setting up permanent committees with long-serving members, more expert staff and power to compel evidence.

As for an election, one is due within a year. Better to save that great accounting for a time when voters care about something bigger than the dodgy expenses of some errant MPs.

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* OPINION ASIA
* MAY 25, 2009

China's Modern Authoritarianism
The Communist Party's ultimate goal is to stay in power, not to liberalize.

* Article
* Comments (11)

By PERRY LINK and JOSHUA KURLANTZICK From today's Wall Street Journal Asia.

In the wake of the 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party seemed morally bankrupt. Average Chinese complained bitterly about graft and special privileges reserved for the Party's elite, and few believed the Party's sloganeering about socialism when officials practiced ruthless capitalism. The army, too, had lost face: The Tiananmen killings showed that the "people's army" could open fire on the people themselves. The urban economy seemed locked within an inefficient and corrupt iron framework of the old work-unit system. No one either inside or outside China saw the country's authoritarian system as a model to follow.

Twenty years later, the Chinese Communist Party has built a new popularity by delivering staggering economic growth and cultivating a revived -- and potentially dangerous -- Han Chinese nationalism. China's material successes, as seen in its gleaming city skylines and piles of foreign currency holdings, suggest the government's top priority is economic growth. The increasing socioeconomic diversity in Chinese society suggests that the regime seeks liberalization and might one day throw open its political system.

These are dangerous misconceptions. The Party's top priority remains what it has always been: the maintenance of absolute political power. Economic growth has not sparked democratic change, as one-party rule persists. Through a sophisticated adaptation of its system -- including leveraging the market to maintain political control -- China's Communist Party has modernized its authoritarianism to fit the times.

The Party has utilized a sophisticated strategy to maintain control of its populace. While growing the economy, it has kept the majority of wealth in the hands of an elite class of business leaders, many of whom have willingly accepted authoritarian rule in exchange for getting rich. Far from forming a middle class that might challenge authority, these groups now have reason to join their rulers in repressing "instability" among the people. Meanwhile, the Party has also deliberately stoked and shaped Chinese nationalism, and many inside China now feel pride in the government's model of authoritarian development, especially as the model of liberal capitalism staggers in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Despite its tailored suits and suave diplomats, the Party also maintains a key tool in inducing popular obedience that dates to Mao's era, a technique called "thoughtwork." This ideological enforcement today operates more subtly than in the past, but it is still highly effective. It is covert -- accomplished, for example, through confidential telephone calls to newspaper editors, rather than in banner newspaper headlines. And it is targeted: Whereas Mao Zedong-era campaigns aimed to transform society and even human nature, thoughtwork today focuses on political issues that are vital to the Party's rule, and lets the rest go.

The effects of thoughtwork are far reaching. The Party's activities include outright censorship, but much of the rest of thoughtwork entails the active cultivation of views that the government favors among the media, businesspeople and other opinion leaders in Chinese society. This assertive side of thoughtwork has become especially important in recent years. Many Chinese still harbor complaints about the government's management of the economy, the environment and the country's political system. Particularly in rural areas, it is easy to find people furious at corruption, land grabs, worker exploitation, the wealth gap and thuggish repression.

But thoughtwork counters these complaints in two ways. First, the Party encourages the belief that the central leadership remains pure and all of the problems are due to corrupt or uninformed local officials. Second, the Party simply distracts its citizens. Demands for clean air, for instance, are answered with 52 Olympic gold medals and massive propaganda about the Games. Displaced homeowners are encouraged to worry about the Dalai Lama "splitting the motherland."

The Party's adaptive methods of disruption and distraction have helped maintain control during a period of rapid change, suggesting a durable domestic model of authoritarian governance. Even more worryingly, the government is translating its success at home into success abroad, where the "China model" of authoritarian capitalism is gaining currency. Governments from Syria to Vietnam have sung its praises.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Authoritarian elites seek formulas for maintaining their power while also growing their economies. In poor developing countries, average citizens are vulnerable to this propaganda, which China spreads by extending aid and investment with no human rights strings, running training programs in China for foreign officials and students, opening cultural centers such as Confucius Institutes within foreign universities, and offering diplomatic cover to repressive regimes at the United Nations and elsewhere.

China has extended its hand of friendship to many different types of nations, from harsh regimes -- including those of Sudan, Burma, Uzbekistan, North Korea and Zimbabwe -- whose leaders are seeking only financial assistance and protection at the U.N. and other international bodies, to a diverse group of developing countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa that seek economic, political and cultural ties to China. The scale of this effort is difficult to calculate. For example, China trains at least 1,000 Central Asian judicial and police officials annually, most of whom could be classified as working in antidemocratic enterprises. Over the long term, Beijing plans to step up its training programs for African officials. The scope of China's broader aid programs is similarly difficult to quantify, but the World Bank estimates that China is now the largest lender to African nations.

The China model, although a definite threat to democratic values, is no juggernaut. Its appeal abroad will depend in large part on how the Chinese economy weathers the global downturn, and how any stumbles it might encounter are perceived in the developing world. Back at home, the Party is more frightened of its own citizenry than most outside observers realize. Chinese citizens are increasingly aware of their constitutional rights; a phenomenon that does not fit well with authoritarianism. The Party may win the affection of foreign elites, but still faces dissent at home from local nongovernmental organizations, civil society and elements of the media.

Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, China's leadership has modernized the country's economy but also its authoritarianism. And because the system's flaws are as glaring as its resilience, its challenge to democracy is a crisis in the original sense of the word -- the course of events could turn either way.

Mr. Link co-edited "The Tiananmen Papers" (PublicAffairs, 2001) and holds the Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines at the University of California at Riverside. Mr. Kurlantzick is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment's China Program. This article is adapted from a forthcoming essay, "Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians" (Freedom House, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty).

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Monday, May. 25, 2009
Putin to the West: Hands Off Ukraine
By James Marson / Kiev

Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister and former president, is not renowned for his love of literature. But on Sunday he gave Russian journalists an unexpected reading tip: the diaries of Anton Denikin, a commander in the White Army that fought the Bolsheviks after the Revolution in 1917. (See TIME's photos of last year's war in Georgia)

"He has a discussion there about Big Russia and Little Russia — Ukraine," Russian newswires quoted Putin as saying after laying a wreath in Moscow at the grave of Denikin, who is now portrayed as a Russian patriot. "He says that no one should be allowed to interfere in relations between us; they have always been the business of Russia itself." (See TIME's person of the year: Vladimir Putin)

Putin's words are seen as the latest in an ongoing volley of pointed warnings to the West not to meddle in Ukraine, a country with such close historical and cultural ties to Russia that the Kremlin considers it firmly within its sphere of interests.

"The Russian leadership is very apprehensive about what it sees as Western moves designed to tear Ukraine away from Russia," says Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, an independent think tank in Moscow. "Their central foreign policy goal is to create a power center around Russia. Any move by the West towards the former Soviet republics is seen as damaging Russia's interests."

Moscow has reacted angrily to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's attempts in recent years to gain NATO membership, and to a recent agreement in March for the European Union to help modernize Ukraine's aging gas transport system. "This agreement is Exhibit A in Moscow's collection [of complaints]," says Trenin. "It's evidence that Europe is concluding bilateral deals with Ukraine that undermine Russia's interests."

Russian leaders have also expressed concerns about the E.U.'s Eastern Partnership program, unveiled earlier this month, which aims to deepen economic and political ties with six former Soviet states, including Ukraine. At the E.U.-Russia summit in Khabarovsk over the weekend, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said E.U. officials had "failed to persuade" him that it was not harmful to Russian interests. "What confuses me is that some states... see this partnership as a partnership against Russia," he said.

Putin's reference on Sunday to "Little Russia" — a term used during the Russian Empire to describe parts of modern-day Ukraine that came under Tsarist rule — has raised hackles in Ukraine, where many consider it demeaning and offensive.

"These comments by Putin should be taken very seriously," says Olexandr Paliy, a political analyst with the Institute of Foreign Policy at the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Diplomatic Academy. "Russia is engaged in a propaganda war against Ukraine, designed to convince the West not to support Ukraine. Russia doesn't understand cooperation with equals, only with subordinates."

Putin is not known for his tact when speaking of Russia's western neighbor, which declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In April 2008, a source told Russia's Kommersant newspaper how Putin described Ukraine to George Bush at a NATO meeting in Bucharest: "You don't understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a gift from us."

Such rhetoric led to fears that after its army's foray into South Ossetia in August, Russia would turn its attention to Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, which has a predominantly ethnic Russian population and is home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet. In an article in Ukraine's Den newspaper on Thursday, Yuriy Shcherbak, Ukraine's former ambassador to the U.S., wrote political analysts close to the Russian leadership were keen to portray Ukraine, which has huge economic woes and a political elite riven by in-fighting, as a "failed state."

"Aggressive conversations are taking place concerning Ukraine and the dividing of its territory... at various levels of the Russian political, military and secret service leadership," he wrote. In fact, other experts suggest, such belligerent talk is meant more as a corrective threat than a potential course of action. But even if Moscow has no immediate designs on Crimea, the continued flow of baleful utterances from the Kremlin does reflect a desire for what Medvedev has called Russia's "privileged interests" in the region to be respected — in terms of politics, business and culture.

And the Kremlin certainly has plenty of levers to pull in Ukraine to make its views felt, with its control over gas supplies, alongside the popularity of Russian state-controlled TV in the east and south of the country, where pro-Russian sentiment is strongest. "In certain sections of the Ukrainian political and business elite there are links with Russia stretching back to Soviet times," says Paliy from the Institute of Foreign Policy. "There are also a large number of Russian-sponsored think tanks in Ukraine, which function freely and push the Kremlin's views."

These levers are likely to play a significant role in Ukraine's upcoming presidential elections, set for next January. Last time round in 2004, Russia and Putin threw their weight behind then-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, whose initial victory was overturned after massive protests after massive protests in Kiev against vote-rigging, which turned into the so-called the Orange Revolution. This time, analysts say that the Kremlin is likely to diversify its approach, with support for both Yanukovych and previously hostile Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, President Yushchenko's former Orange ally.

"The Russian leadership learnt one important lesson from 2004 — not to put all their eggs in one basket," says Trenin. Meanwhile Russians and Ukrainians alike will be watching for Putin's next trenchant explanation from literary history.

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Ukrainian gas repayments situation 'very difficult': Gazprom

2 hours ago

MOSCOW (AFP) — The situation regarding Ukrainian payments for Russian gas is "very difficult", the head of Russian gas giant Gazprom, said Monday, Russian news agencies reported.

"We consider the situation concerning the payment for gas deliveries for the month of May very difficult," said Miller, raising fears of a fresh deliveries crisis.

"If a problem comes up for the May deliveries, Gazprom would have every reason to call for (the gas) to be pre-payed 100 percent" in the future, he added.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had already expressed doubts Friday about the ability of the Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz to keep up its payments.

He called on the European Union to lend Ukraine money to pay its bills and thus avoid a fresh gas crisis like the one in January.

That was when a pricing dispute between the two countries led Russia to shut down gas supplies across Europe in January, causing severe shortages in eastern EU states.

Russia Prime Minister Vladimir issued his own warning Friday, accusing Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko of creating gas trade problems.

Ukraine has been one of the countries worst-hit by the financial crisis and its energy giant Naftogaz has sharply reduced purchases of gas from Russia as a result.

But on Thursday, a Nafotgaz spokesman denied suggestions that they were having trouble making their gas payments.

The European Union receives more than a quarter of its gas from Russia.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

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When will Russia re-engage Asia-Pacific?

Siswo Pramono , Jakarta | Mon, 05/25/2009 2:38 PM | Opinion

Russia is a big country with a big "if". If Russia's development plan works, about 70 percent of Russia's 142 million people will attain a middle class living standard by 2020 (see The Plan 2020 at www.kremlin.ru). Russia's GDP per capita will increase from the current US$12,000 to $30,000. If this happens, Russia will likely elevate itself to become the fifth largest economy after the US, China, India, Japan, and hence, regain its old status as Eurasia's preponderant power.

But Russia only strategically matters for us if her regional priority becomes the Asia-Pacific region. Despite the fact that 60 percent of Russian territory extends across northern Asia, Russia's regional priorities remain heavily anchored in Europe.

Geographical proximity matters. Russia has several first strategic circles of foreign policy, the most immediate of which covers the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), where Russia, in the words of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has long developed a "privileged partnership".

It is in with her immediate neighbors that Russia promotes the Eurasian Economic Community (i.e. Russian strategic relations with Belarus and Kazakhstan) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Russia's recent conflicts with the Ukraine over the usage of gas pipelines; and with Georgia, on the sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, have strengthened Russia's grip in her "privileged" areas.

In the next circle out is the European Union (EU), which shares about 50 percent of Russia's foreign trade. Russia is the EU's main supplier of oil and natural gas. Bilaterally, Russia's main trade partners are Germany, the Netherlands and Italy.

The third circle encompasses the Euro-Atlantic Region. Russia wants the Russia-NATO Council to become a strategic forum for political dialogue. The forum is to settle delicate issues such as NATO's plan to admit the Ukraine and Georgia as members; and the US's plan to open military bases in Romania and Bulgaria, as well as to deploy missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russia is challenging these plans as most of the areas potentially encroached on by NATO make up an important web of Russian pipelines that supply natural gas to the EU, which is vital for the Russian economy.

The fourth circle out includes North America, where Russia wants to improve relations with the US and Canada, in a bid to ease, economic reasons aside, its sore relations with NATO.

As such, from the Russian pragmatic perspective, both economic opportunities and immediate security threats come from the other side of her Western borders.

Today, the Asia-Pacific region is "only" located in the fifth circle of Russian foreign policy. Russia will likely pay more attention to the region when her relationship with NATO, and thus her confidence in the security of her Western border, improves.

But Russian elites are fully aware that Russia's future is bound to the Asia Pacific because the region today accounts for 57 percent of the world's GDP, 48 percent of world trade and over 40 percent of direct foreign investments.

Russia is a member of APEC and currently chairs the Special Task Group on Mining and Metallurgy within this organization.

While APEC's share of Russia's foreign trade is "only" about 18 percent (in 2007), far bellow the share of EU, due to its geographical proximity, APEC will be important for the development of Siberia and far eastern Russia, a region rich in oil and gas.

Just like the EU, the Asia-Pacific is a large consumer of energy. And Russia, which is one of the world's main suppliers of gas, is now promoting a gas cartel that, according to Russia, would ensure uninterrupted supplies of energy to the Asia-Pacific region.

Most Russian webs of oil and gas pipelines are located in Europe; the Asia-Pacific lacks such infrastructure. Russia is thus developing the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline.

Early this year, tankers began carrying Russian gas to Japan under the Sakhalin-2 framework (a joint venture involving Russia, Japan, Great Britain and The Netherlands).

Russia has also shown great interest in building energy and transport links through North Korea to reach the market of its southern neighbor and, perhaps, the Chinese provinces in the east.

Japan and the Koreas aside, Russia is eager to cooperate with China in developing the gas business in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), too, has always been on the Russian radar screen. Southeast Asia (the Indonesian archipelago in particular) hosts the sea-lanes of communications (SLOCs), which are vital for the supply of energy from Russia's Far East to potential Indian Ocean markets.

If energy is the entry point for Russia to re-engage the Asia-Pacific, some footnotes are worth considering. First and foremost, the Asia-Pacific should not be dependent on energy from one country or group of countries.

While developing energy cooperation with Russia would be a good and promising step to take, one nevertheless should remain cautious of the way Russia has combined oil and gas business with force and blackmail, as the experience of Europe, Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, and Georgia reminds us.

Second, while in the long term great improvements are highly possible, Russia's productivity, at least until 2015, will remain low due to her outdated technology, ineffective bureaucracy and poor investment climate. Heavy taxation, corruption, and nationalistic energy policies also bedevil Russia's oil and gas sectors.

The Asia-Pacific region needs to positively welcome Russia's full embrace of the region when the time comes and harness such a move to enhance cooperation for international energy security. Russia's decision to host the 2012 APEC Summit in Vladivostok can be seen as a good sign that such full re-engagement is not far away.

This article reflects the personal views of the writer, who is a researcher at the Policy Planning Agency, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jakarta.

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THE MOTHER OF ALL BRITISH SCANDALS
By JOHN O'SULLIVAN

Last updated: 3:14 am
May 25, 2009
Posted: 1:23 am
May 25, 2009

'DEMOCRACY," said Winston Churchill, "is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried from time to time." Well, the Mother of Parliaments in London -- where Churchill experienced historic victories and defeats -- is testing his theory to the limits.

Britain's biggest-ever political scandal began when The Daily Telegraph acquired a disk listing the expense-allowance claims of all "honorable members" (as they used to be called) of Parliament.

Details of what every MP had spent and claimed back from the taxpayer have been released day by day over the last two weeks -- and they are far more explosive than the gunpowder Guy Fawkes smuggled into the cellars under Parliament in 1605. In fact, they may cause something of a revolution in the way Parliament is run.

Sometimes, the sums were large, the benefits luxurious. A government minister, one of the richest men in the House of Commons, claimed $150,000 from the taxpayer to finance the mortgage on a "second home." (He already had seven.) A leading Tory repaired the moat around his stately home on expenses.

Sometimes, the claims were trivial and comically embarrassing: tampons, diapers, the repair of leaky pipes, ice-cube trays ($2.50), hair straighteners ($150) and Scotch eggs ($1.25). Taxpayers unknowingly rented two pornographic movies for the husband of another Cabinet minister. A Tory spokesman on "skills and education" hired an electrician to change his light bulbs. (Cost to the taxpayer? About $225.)

The worst claims bordered on the fraudulent -- and some stepped over that border. One MP claimed mortgage-interest payments of about $17,000 on a house that had no mortgage. Another took $55,000 in expenses on a necessary "second home" near Parliament, when his primary home was only a few hundred yards away.

Many MPs "flipped" -- i.e., changed their homes from primary to secondary in order to receive second-home allowances. One MP flipped three times and got more than $150,000 of public money.

Maybe the scandal's worst feature was how high and wide it went. Dubious or dodgy claims were made by Cabinet members, backbenchers and members of parties large and small.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed $8,000 to pay for his brother to clean his London apartment. My favorite example, though, is the case of Sinn Fein MPs from Northern Ireland who claimed about $750,000 in expenses to attend a Parliament that they refuse to attend on principle.

All of this represents a major crisis for British democracy. Will the Mother of Parliaments pass Churchill's test and prove less worse than all the other forms of government?

Well, MPs have taken some steps toward reforming the situation, forcing out the speaker -- the single most important parliamentary official -- for the first time in 300 years on the grounds that he and his colleagues connived in the greediness by approving the dodgy claims.

MPs also talk about placing Parliament under some external regulator. Brown says the body can't be run any more like "a gentleman's club." That's a pretty obvious attempt to suggest the scandal is really the fault of stuffy, old-fashioned, establishment, well, Tory types.

In fact, the problem is the lack of MPs with gentlemanly standards -- and the idea of an external regulator is bad and unconstitutional. A sovereign Parliament can't be run by some overmighty civil servant. But it can be "transparent." If MPs are compelled to disclose all income, the media will compel them to act like gentlemen.

What MPs haven't yet faced up to is that the voters want more than reform; they want the wholesale sacking of MPs found with their hands in the till -- and prison for those in up to their armpits.

If the main party leaders, Labor's Brown and the Conservative Party's David Cameron, don't respond to this bitter public mood by forcing many resignations, the voters will either vote for other parties or for independent "reformers" -- or not vote at all. So the party leaders will respond.

The result will be parties with many new MPs -- almost new parties, in fact -- committed to reforming not only Parliament but also the wider political system. In the least worst system of government, scandal equals reform.

John O'Sullivan, a former Post editorial- page editor, is a Hudson Institute fellow.

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From The Times
May 26, 2009
PKK leader offers Turkey an olive branch to end war

Anthony Loyd, Qandil Mountains

Pictures of PKK fighters, by Times photographer Jack Hill

The Kurdish leader proposing to end a 25-year-long conflict with Turkey that has cost 30,000 lives believes his peace offer is a once in a generation opportunity that must be grasped by both sides.

In a unilateral gesture that has prompted a re-examination of strategy in Ankara, Baghdad and Washington, the guerrilla leadership of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has extended an olive branch, offering to drop its aim of an independent state in return for a negotiated settlement to end its war with Turkey.

“We are at a turning point,” said Murad Karayilan, acting head of the PKK, in an interview with The Times at a secret location in the mountains of northern Iraq.
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“Kurds do not want to continue the war. We believe we can solve the Kurdish question without spilling more blood. We are ready for a peaceful and democratic solution in Turkey — to be solved within Turkey’s borders.”

The potential breakthrough in the conflict came this month when Mr Karayilan, 52, deputy to the PKK’s imprisoned supremo, Abdullah Ocalan, agreed to meet a Turkish journalist in northern Iraq. During the meeting he highlighted the PKK’s willingness to drop its central demand for an independent state for Turkey’s 12 million Kurds, and proposed key steps towards peace, including an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the war.

“Britain accepted the will of the Scots by giving them a parliament of their own, and that’s what the Turks have to do with us,” Mr Karayilan said at the meeting with The Times in a wooded valley near the Qandil mountains, an important PKK area. “I’ve studied Irish history and talked with people who participated in it. I know the development and stages of that struggle. Turkey needs to solve our problem in the way that the British solved that problem.”

The PKK’s overture comes at a key point in the region’s history. President Obama knows that it will help to smooth the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq if Ankara’s relations with Baghdad and Iraq’s Kurdish regional government in Erbil are stabilised. The PKK, from its position on the Iraq-Turkey border, has awoken to the political opportunities afforded by the situation.

The PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 under the leadership of Ocalan, “Apo”, who was captured in 1999 and is in prison on Imrali in the Sea of Marmara. Attacks by the PKK, originally a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist group, drew a savage reaction from the Turkish Army in the late 1980s, when more than 4,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed. The rebel group combined conventional guerrilla tactics with bombing campaigns, and was listed as a terrorist organisation by the US and European Union in 2004.

Mr Karayilan has ordered his 6,000 PKK fighters into a position of “passive defence” until June 1 to give Turkey time to consider his proposition.

He approached the issue of a Turkish amnesty for PKK fighters and the release of Ocalan with carefully chosen words. “There has been a war,” he said. “Both Turkish and Kurdish societies have been damaged. Both sides have to forgive one another. Everyone should participate in that, including Abdullah Ocalan. Forgiveness is necessary for peace. Kurds and Turks must open a new white page.”

The deadline he has set for a response from Turkey is less than a week away. Nonetheless intense political debate is under way in Turkey over the unsolved Kurdish issue, which President Gül has called “Turkey’s biggest problem”.

Nationalist parties in Turkey have denounced the PKK offer and the Army has continued operations in southeastern Turkey. The political leadership, however, has described the overture as a “historic opportunity”.

“We are at a fork in a pathway,” said Mr Karayilan. “Turkey must choose one of them. If Turkey doesn’t accept our overtures and continues to attack us then of course we will use all means to defend ourselves, and that includes retaliation. They can call us ‘terrorists’ for as long as they wish but Turkey has to accept that the PKK is part of the reality of the solution to its Kurdish problem.”

First person: The woman soldier

Dilsha left her home in Syria at 17 and killed her first soldier in Turkey at 19.

“It was an ambush just after midnight,” she said. “A column of Turkish soldiers left their base at the start of an operation. They were about 25 meters away when we hit them. I gave them some fire from my Kalashnikov and threw grenades among them. We killed about 30 in all. When it was over I scrambled forward and took a dead soldier’s weapon. I can’t say I was afraid. I was psychologically prepared and had already received my ideological training. Kill them or they kill you — and that’s what they come to do.”

Now 31 and deputy commander of a platoon of women guerrillas, Dilsha has total dedication to the PKK, which includes an obligatory 40 per cent quota of women among its 6,000-strong ranks, and is typical of its members. Fanatically loyal to her imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, she claims nothing of her own. “My trainers, watch, uniform, whatever you see on me belongs to the Kurdish people, even my body and soul.”

She estimates that few of the 150 Kurdish people with whom she had crossed from Syria in 1995 are still alive. The assumption seems likely, given the 15,000 guerrillas killed during their 25-year campaign for an independent Kurdistan.

She has been wounded in action twice. On the first occasion she dug shrapnel from her leg using the cleaning rod of her assault rifle. The second time, hit in the back by fragments from a rocket, she was dragged by comrades. They cut the metal from her back and tended her for 15 days until she could walk again.

An end to the war would allow her to contact her family. She has spoken to her parents once, during a phone call in 2005, since leaving home 14 years ago.

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* MAY 26, 2009

Russia Faces Budget Cuts Amid Crisis
By LIDIA KELLY

MOSCOW -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev painted a gloomy picture of the economy, warning that the deepening global crisis will necessitate deep budget cuts over the next three years.

At a Kremlin meeting, the president instructed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's cabinet to economize, as Russia's commodity-driven economy deteriorates faster than expected.

"We all understand what a difficult situation the country and the economy are in," Mr. Medvedev said.

Low oil prices, capital outflows, a record drop in industrial production and a two-digit decline in investment have dragged Russia's economy to its worst crisis in a decade.

Gross domestic product shrank 9.5% in the first quarter, though this year's budget is still based on a contraction of 2.2% for the year. The Ministry for Economic Development's new forecast envisages the economy shrinking 6% to 8% in 2009.

Unemployment has reached its highest level this decade, data released Friday showed. The number of unemployed rose to 7.7 million in April, or 10.2% of the total labor force of 75.2 million, according to Rosstat, the Federal Statistics Service. Around three million workers have lost their jobs since late summer.

Kremlin economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich said Monday that the government should have a better idea of which areas can be cut in the next two to three months. Officials emphasized that spending would have to be reduced next year to help control the deficit -- the first year of reduced expenditures in almost a decade.

Mr. Medvedev called on the government to base the 2010-2012 budget on a conservative assessment of the price of oil -- the chief contributor to government revenue. The conservative scenario is based on prices of $50 a barrel in 2010, $52 in 2011 and $53 in 2012, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said.

"The budget deficit will reach at least 7% of gross domestic product" in 2009, Mr. Medvedev said. It would be Russia's first budget deficit in a decade marked by surpluses.

Write to Lidia Kelly at Lidia.Kelly@dowjones.com

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NATO says Georgia will join as maneuvers are held

By DAVID NOWAK – 8 hours ago

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — NATO said Monday that Georgia will eventually become a member — reaffirming its support for the country with which it is hosting joint military exercises, to Russia's dismay.

Robert Simmons, NATO's special envoy to the Caucasus and Central Asia, refused to set a date for Georgia's entry into the military alliance, saying that would be futile. Georgia, a former Soviet republic that borders Russia, has been embroiled in domestic political infighting.

Russia has sharply criticized the war games being held near South Ossetia, a rebel-held separatist province that was at the center of the war last summer between Russia and Georgia. And confirmation of NATO's intent to accept Georgia will probably anger Russia.

NATO has said before that Georgia and Ukraine can eventually join the alliance despite Russia's opposition, but has stopped short of granting them a formal roadmap to membership.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, criticized by the opposition for failing to avert the disastrous war, attended Monday's military exercises on a wind-blown hilltop base just outside the capital, Tbilisi.

Saakashvili has faced daily protests by thousands of opposition activists urging him to step down. He has said he will not leave office before his term ends in 2013.

Simmons said the way Saakashvili has allowed the opposition to protest virtually unhindered was a positive sign.

During Monday's training, American, Spanish, Italian and Greek soldiers walked Georgian military through various battlefield attack techniques. The Georgian soldiers trained with Russian-made weapons and fired at silhouette targets dotted around the field as NATO troops observed, occasionally intervening.

A helicopter landed just yards (meters) from the field in which the live-fire exercise was being conducted, drawing gasps from British personnel. The helicopter later whisked Saakashvili away.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Posted by Stonewall71

Brazil and China cooperate in Carrier Training
original text in Portuguese, interview with Brazilian defense minister here:
http://www.defesanet.com.br/md1/jobim_11.htm

interesting part:
Quote:
Defesa@Net - Há uma série de aproximações militares com a China. Como o Senhor vê essa aproximações com a China no âmbito do Ministério da Defesa?
Min Jobim - A aproximação com a China está mais voltada para a Marinha. Eles (os chineses) querem que a Marinha do Brasil seja o elemento de ligação para a criação da Marinha Chinesa. A China não tem uma marinha. Inclusive nós vamos trazer oficiais chineses para cá. Eles farão estágio. Lógico que terão de aprender português.

Eles farão estágio no porta-aviões São Paulo. Os chineses já estão adquirindo porta-aviões para projeção de poder na região, que é uma situação completamente diferente da nossa. Estou indo à China entre setembro ou outubro.

free google translation:

Quote:
Defense @ Net - A range of military approaches to China. As you see this approach with China under the Ministry of Defense?
Min Jobim - The rapprochement with China is more directed toward the Navy. They (the Chinese) want the Navy of Brazil is the point of connection for the creation of the Chinese Navy. China has no navy. Also we will bring Chinese official here. They will stage. Of course they have to learn Portuguese.

They will stage the aircraft carrier São Paulo. The Chinese are acquiring aircraft carriers to project power in the region, a situation completely different from ours. I am going to China from September or October.

Housecarl said:

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jP2D8x8sewXXkJKXEJQT0gNpjMhwD98DCHJG0

NATO says Georgia will join as maneuvers are held

By DAVID NOWAK – 8 hours ago

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — NATO said Monday that Georgia will eventually become a member — reaffirming its support for the country with which it is hosting joint military exercises, to Russia's dismay.

Robert Simmons, NATO's special envoy to the Caucasus and Central Asia, refused to set a date for Georgia's entry into the military alliance, saying that would be futile. Georgia, a former Soviet republic that borders Russia, has been embroiled in domestic political infighting.

Russia has sharply criticized the war games being held near South Ossetia, a rebel-held separatist province that was at the center of the war last summer between Russia and Georgia. And confirmation of NATO's intent to accept Georgia will probably anger Russia.

NATO has said before that Georgia and Ukraine can eventually join the alliance despite Russia's opposition, but has stopped short of granting them a formal roadmap to membership.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, criticized by the opposition for failing to avert the disastrous war, attended Monday's military exercises on a wind-blown hilltop base just outside the capital, Tbilisi.

Saakashvili has faced daily protests by thousands of opposition activists urging him to step down. He has said he will not leave office before his term ends in 2013.

Simmons said the way Saakashvili has allowed the opposition to protest virtually unhindered was a positive sign.

During Monday's training, American, Spanish, Italian and Greek soldiers walked Georgian military through various battlefield attack techniques. The Georgian soldiers trained with Russian-made weapons and fired at silhouette targets dotted around the field as NATO troops observed, occasionally intervening.

A helicopter landed just yards (meters) from the field in which the live-fire exercise was being conducted, drawing gasps from British personnel. The helicopter later whisked Saakashvili away.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Wow, Russia's not going to like that. Not ONE bit.

Posted for fair use....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/opinion/26bolton.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Op-Ed Contributor
A Fast Way to Lose the Arms Race
By JOHN R. BOLTON
Published: May 25, 2009

Washington

PRESIDENT OBAMA has called for a world without nuclear weapons, not as a distant goal, but as something imminently achievable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed up, saying that American and Russian “leadership” in arms control and nonproliferation was “at the top of the list” of her priorities. Although the administration may be counting on the eyelid-lowering effect of arms-control terminology to minimize Congressional and public scrutiny, its plans are deeply troubling for America.

First, the administration’s bilateral objectives with Russia play almost entirely to Moscow’s advantage, as in arms-control days of yore. Hurrying to negotiate a successor to the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by year’s end, which Secretary Clinton has committed to, reflects a “zeal for the deal” approach that benefits only Russia.

We need not be rushed, since simply extending the existing treaty’s verification provisions would preserve the status quo. Fortunately, Russia seems likely to save us from the dangerously low warhead levels proposed by Senator John Kerry and others, but the risks of foolish, unnecessary concessions remain high.

Paradoxically, the administration itself might put the entire negotiating process into gridlock by reaching much farther than the Russians are willing to go, such as by trying to negotiate numerical limits on tactical nuclear weapons. More seriously, the administration has pre-emptively conceded to Russia on strategic defensive issues: first by linking the general subject of missile defense with offensive issues, long a Russian goal; and secondly by signaling that specific projects, like the defense system intended for Poland and the Czech Republic, might be abandoned or bargained away.

Second, the Obama administration is seriously weakening both our strategic offensive and defensive capacity. The Defense Department budget proposes major cuts in missile defense programs, returning to an emphasis both in operational and diplomatic terms on “theater” missile defense (mainly for defending deployed military forces), rather than “national” missile defense (for shielding America’s population from missile attack). Protecting our forces abroad must remain a top priority, but it need not be at the expense of homeland defense. President Ronald Reagan refused to bargain on missile defense, and President Obama isn’t bargaining either. He is simply giving it away.

The Pentagon also proposes ending financing for the Reliable Replacement Warhead, a key to substituting safe, dependable warheads for the ones now aging. For the last two years, Congress refused President George W. Bush’s requests to pay for the program, but dropping it from the Obama budget altogether is another diplomatic freebie for Moscow. Even worse, in his public statements, President Obama’s seeming indifference to the beneficent effects of the United States’ nuclear deterrent has to worry our friends and allies, most notably Japan.

Third, the president is resurrecting President Bill Clinton’s unfinished multilateral arms-control agenda, committing, for example, to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would effectively make permanent the current moratorium on underground testing. Vice President Joe Biden is leading the administration’s effort to reverse the Senate’s 1999 rejection of the test-ban treaty, the first major treaty to fail on the Senate floor since the Treaty of Versailles after World War I.

The administration is also putting new emphasis on negotiating conventions against the “arms race” in outer space, which would undercut America’s current substantial advantage above the earth, and on resuscitating a proposed treaty that would prohibit the production of uranium and plutonium for weapons.

Unhappily, the administration is pushing Israel to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a “non-nuclear-weapons state,” meaning Israel would have to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. Iran and others will welcome this, given their repeated demands for the same result. Today’s real proliferation threat, however, is not Israel, but states like Iran and North Korea that become parties to the alphabet soup of arms control treaties and then violate them with abandon. Without robust American reactions to these violations — not apparent in administration thinking — more will follow.

The Senate, which must approve any treaty with a two-thirds supermajority, is now the only obstacle to Obama administration policies that will seriously weaken the United States. Voters should remind their representatives on Capitol Hill that they have a responsibility to keep us safe.

John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “Surrender Is Not an Option.”

Posted for fair use....
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/200...sts_grow_again

Georgia: Protests Grow Again

May 26, 2009 | 1432 GMT

VANO SHLAMOV/AFP/Getty Images
Georgian protesters in Tbilisi on May 21


Protests in Georgia spun back up May 26, with approximately 55,000 people packing the national stadium for an opposition rally. This is the largest turnout since April 9, when 60,000 protesters took to the streets in Georgia to demand President Mikhail Saakashvili’s resignation. Over the past two months, the protests have continued almost daily, though with low turnouts. And Saakashvili has met with the opposition once to try to reach an understanding.

In the past, Georgian protest organizers have struggled to get more than 10,000 people on the streets — so the April 9 and May 26 protests are notable for their size (though May 26 is a holiday celebrating the anniversary of Georgia’s independence proclamation of 1918). But the turnout on April 9 and May 26 is still nowhere near the 100,000 people that stormed the streets during the 2003 Rose Revolution that changed the government.

At the May 26 rally, the opposition is supposed to be figuring out its plan for the next protests. But the opposition’s problem is that it has not consolidated behind a personality that can challenge Saakashvili for his office. Until the opposition coalesces, Saakashvili will continue viewing the protests and demands for his resignation as nothing more than a nuisance. The president currently has a tight grip on the security apparatus in the country — something he has kept a close watch on to ensure he heads off any dissent that could give the opposition new leverage.

Saakashvili is much more concerned with other things brewing in and around his country, such as Russian troop movements in Georgia’s secessionist regions and a shift in regional dynamics that could alter Georgia’s importance in the future.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE54P4S220090526?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Russia breaks "wall" into U.S. nuclear market
Tue May 26, 2009 1:15pm EDT

By Simon Shuster

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia signed a landmark deal to supply nuclear fuel directly to U.S. companies on Tuesday, setting itself up to control 20 percent of the U.S. uranium market and extending its global reach in the nuclear sector.

At a ceremony in the Russian capital, U.S. electricity firms PG&E, Ameren Corp and Luminant signed deals to get more than $1 billion in uranium supplies from Russia's state nuclear fuel exporter Tenex between 2014 and 2020.

"This is a revolutionary breakthrough," Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia's state atomic energy firm, Rosatom, which controls Tenex, told reporters.

Until last year, U.S. anti-dumping laws had only allowed Russia to sell the United States uranium recovered from dismantled Soviet nuclear weapons. These sales are carried out through U.S. uranium trader USEC Inc.

"We have broken through the wall forbidding us to sell Russian fuel to the American market. After the contracts signed today, we will start new contracts," a jubilant Kiriyenko said after drinking toasts of champagne with the Americans. "This is only the beginning."

Bruce Hamilton, the president of Fuelco, the intermediary set up by the three U.S. companies for the deal with Russia, said Tuesday's agreements open the door for Russia to directly take 20 percent of the U.S. uranium market between 2014 and 2020.

"The Russians do it all. They mine it, they convert it and they enrich it," Hamilton told Reuters after the deals were signed. "And after 2020, it's just wide open (for Russia)."

The Russian fuel would be used initially to provide power to 5 million U.S. homes in California, Texas and Missouri, he added.

NUCLEAR STORAGE IN THE U.S.

Russia, one of the world's biggest nuclear players, has long been seeking to expand its clout in the sector by moving into developed markets such as the United States, European Union and Japan.

Earlier this year, it signed deals to cooperate with Japan's Toshiba and Germany's Siemens, putting Russia in the center of a nuclear alliance stretching from Western Europe to East Asia.

Tuesday's deals extended its reach further into the United States, where Russia is now discussing access to nuclear infrastructure, such as uranium storage facilities, Kiriyenko said.

"The directors of the U.S. energy companies discussed this with us. For them it would be more convenient if these facilities were located right in the United States. This is a logical step for us," Kiriyenko told reporters.

He added that these facilities would be jointly owned.

Hamilton declined to comment on this project.

U.S. anti-dumping laws were eased last year in a deal between Moscow and Washington to allow direct sales of uranium to other U.S. firms aside from USEC.

Analysts expect the increased access for Russian uranium to lead to lower prices in the United States.

The head of Tenex, which is also known as Techsnabexport, said his company expects to get as much as 25 percent of the U.S. uranium market through the deals signed on Tuesday.

"I am confident other similar deals will follow," Tenex CEO Anatoly Grigoryev, who signed all the contracts on behalf of the Russian side, told reporters.

(Editing by Anthony Barker)

© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.

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http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/11370


North Korea, underground test of a nuclear weapon
Obama’s shrinking deterrent
By Editor Tuesday, May 26, 2009

North Korea celebrated Memorial Day with an underground test of a nuclear weapon reportedly the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. When combined with a series of missile launches that day and subsequently, the regime in Pyongyang has sent an unmistakable signal: The Hermit Kingdom has nothing but contempt for the so-called “international community” and the empty rhetoric and diplomatic posturing that usually precedes new rewards for the North’s bad behavior.

The seismic waves precipitated by the latest detonation seem likely to rattle more than the windows and members of the UN Security Council. Even as that body huffs and puffs about Kim Jong-il’s belligerence, Japan and South Korea are coming to grips with an unhappy reality: They are increasingly on their own in contending with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Until now, both countries have nestled under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. This posture has been made possible by what is known in the national security community as “extended deterrence.” Thanks to the credibility of U.S. security guarantees backed by America’s massive arsenal, both countries have been able safely to forego the option their respective nuclear power programs long afforded them, namely becoming nuclear weapon states in their own right.

A blue-ribbon, bipartisan panel recently warned the Obama administration that extended deterrence cannot be taken for granted. In its final report, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States unanimously concluded that: “Our military capabilities, both nuclear and conventional, underwrite U.S. security guarantees to our allies, without which many of them would feel enormous pressures to create their own nuclear arsenals....The U.S. deterrent must be both visible and credible, not only to our possible adversaries, but to our allies as well.”

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is moving in exactly the opposite direction. Far from taking the myriad steps needed to assure both the visibility and credibility of the U.S. deterrent, Mr. Obama has embraced the idea of eliminating that arsenal as part of a bid for “a nuclear-free world.”

The practical effect of such a policy direction is to eschew the steps called for by the Strategic Posture Commission and, indeed, the recommendations of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the commander of Strategic Command, General Kevin Chilton and the director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Thomas D’Agostino. Each has recognized the need for modernization of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, enhanced “stewardship” of the obsolescent weapons that will likely continue to comprise the bulk of the arsenal for years to come and sustained investment in the infrastructure - both human and industrial - needed to perform such tasks.

The Obama administration is, nonetheless, seeking no funds for replacing existing weapons with designs that include modern safety features, let alone ones that are more suited to the deterrent missions of today - against states like North Korea and Iran, rather than the hardened silos of the Soviet Union. It is allowing the steady atrophying of the work force and facilities of the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex.

Arguably worst of all, Team Obama is pursuing an arms control agenda that risks making matters substantially worse. Using the pretext of the years’ end expiration of the U.S.-Soviet START Treaty, the President has dispatched an inveterate denuclearizer, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, to negotiate in haste a new bilateral agreement with the Russians. By all accounts, she is seeking a deal that will: reduce by perhaps as much as a third what is left of our arsenal (leaving as few as 1500 nuclear weapons); preserve the Kremlin’s unilateral and vast advantage in modern tactical and theater nuclear weapons; and limit U.S. ballistic missile defenses.

The administration is equally fixated on another non-solution to today’s threats: ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) rejected by a majority of the U.S. Senate a decade ago. That accord would permanently preclude this country from assuring the viability of its arsenal through the one means absolutely proven to be effective - underground nuclear testing. Meanwhile, non-party North Korea and its partner in nuclear crime, Iran (which has signed but not ratified the treaty), would not be hindered from developing their arsenals. And Republican members of the Strategic Posture Commission, who all opposed CTBT ratification, believe the Russians are continuing to do valuable underground testing, as well.

The Obama agenda will not make the United States safer. If anything, it will increase international perceptions of an America that is ever less willing to provide for its own security. States like Russia and China that are actual or prospective “peer competitors” are building up their respective nuclear arsenals. They and even smaller powers like North Korea and Iran increasingly feel they can assert themselves with impunity.

In such a strategic environment, America’s allies will go their own way. Some may seek a more independent stance or try to strike a separate peace with emerging powers like China. Others may exercise their option to “go nuclear,” contributing to regional arms build-ups and proliferation.

If President Obama wishes to avoid such outcomes, he would be well-advised to heed the advice of the Strategic Posture Commission: “The conditions that might make the elimination of nuclear weapons possible are not present today and establishing such conditions would require a fundamental transformation of the world political order.” Until then, we better do all that is needed to maintain a safe, reliable, effective and, yes, extended deterrent.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502184.html

Discontent Rises Sharply Among Russian Troops
Military Overhaul Brings Layoffs, Lost Apartments
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 26, 2009

USSURIYSK, Russia -- As a young officer fresh out of a Soviet military academy, Alexander Primak was assigned to serve in this frontier city in the Russian Far East, eight time zones away from his home town in Ukraine.

He spent the next quarter-century in the region, moving from garrison to garrison, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. But he always dreamed of moving back west, counting on the government's promise to reward officers with apartments upon retirement.

Now, as the Russian government pushes ahead with an overhaul of the military that eliminates the positions of more than half the army's officers, Primak is jobless at age 46 and stuck in Ussuriysk waiting for an apartment he may never get.

"They're finding any excuse not to keep their promises," the gray-haired colonel said coolly, maintaining ramrod posture as he sighed over a plastic cup of coffee in a roadside eatery. "When we were young, we put the motherland first. We were ready to tolerate discomfort and wait for something better. . . . Of course I'm disappointed."

Low morale over pay and housing has afflicted the Russian military since the fall of the Soviet Union, but grumbling in the ranks is rising sharply as President Dmitry Medvedev attempts to carry out the most ambitious restructuring of the nation's armed forces since World War II in the face of a severe economic downturn.

The plan seeks to transform an impoverished, unwieldy conscript army built to fight a protracted war in Europe into a more nimble, battle-ready force that can respond quickly to regional conflicts. Key to the overhaul is a drastic reduction in the number of officers, who now account for nearly one in three Russian servicemen.

By eliminating thousands of officer-only units that were designed to call up draftees in wartime, and moving to a leaner, brigade-based structure, Medvedev intends to cut Russia's officer corps from 355,000 to 150,000, dismissing more than 200 generals, 15,000 colonels and 70,000 majors.

The plan has run into stiff resistance, with some top military officials resigning in protest and the Kremlin firing others. Retired generals and nationalist politicians have accused Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of scaling back Russia's military ambitions by essentially giving up on trying to maintain an army capable of confronting NATO.

Officers and troops have staged scattered demonstrations across the country against the reform plan, which would also shut dozens of military hospitals, schools and research institutes. A top complaint is the government's failure to provide apartments to all officers who are discharged after more than a decade of service -- a benefit that dates to the Soviet era and is written into Russian law.

The apartments are important because military pay has lagged far behind the cost of living and few officers have enough savings to buy homes. But the army has suffered a severe housing shortage since the fall of the Soviet Union, when a wave of servicemen in need of lodging returned to Russia. The military's construction efforts have been plagued by corruption and inefficiency, and hundreds of thousands of active-duty officers as well as retirees are on waiting lists for accommodations.

"Our military organization, our fleet, has cheated me with housing," said Vyacheslav Zaytsev, a former submarine officer who was interviewed on television during a protest in the arctic city of Murmansk. "A homeless officer is a shame for a nation," read one demonstrator's sign.

Here in the coastal province of Primorye, tucked between China, North Korea and the Sea of Japan, as many as 8,000 officers are expected to be discharged in the restructuring, local activists said.

"In our region, over 3,000 officers will be fired from the navy alone. . . . Where will these people go? How will they live?" said Boris Prikhodko, a retired vice admiral, before a protest last month in nearby Vladivostok, the provincial capital and headquarters of the Pacific Fleet.

Under the law, retiring officers can request apartments anywhere in Russia or ask to keep the quarters assigned to them by the military. But in practice, most who have been sent to the Far East have little chance of getting housing anywhere else when they are discharged.

When Primak became eligible for retirement, for example, he asked for an apartment in Kursk, a city near the border with Ukraine, where his parents still live. But he was released without being given any apartment. "I realized then that in Russia there are laws that are enforced, and other laws that are maybe for the future," he said. "What they say on television and do in reality are completely different."

He and other officers in this city of 150,000 say local authorities have fallen behind in housing construction and have begun using loopholes to discharge officers without giving them apartments.

Some have been given certificates that aren't worth enough to buy adequate homes. Others have been relieved of duty but formally remain registered with their units with minimal pay so commanders can keep them on waiting lists.

The worst off are officers stationed in the scores of military garrisons scattered across the countryside here, isolated outposts that have fallen into severe disrepair and are set to be closed as part of the shift to a brigade structure. Many of these officers have been told to just keep their current quarters, which often lack running water.

"These poor guys have to stay the rest of their lives in these ruined garrisons, without even minimal sanitation conditions," said Vladimir Kaplyuk, a retired colonel who heads an aid organization for veterans in Ussuriysk. "But after the units are shut down, there won't be anything left but these officers there. No troops, no jobs, nothing."

Technically, Kaplyuk said, the officers will be on waiting lists for housing. "But for how long?" he said. "Some officers here have been waiting 12 years already."

One 48-year-old lieutenant colonel assigned to a garrison near the Chinese border said he was offered a certificate that would have allowed him to buy only a tiny studio apartment on the outskirts of Ussuriysk or a rural house without a sewer system or running water. When he refused to take it, he was discharged without an apartment and had to sue his commanders to get reinstated.

"I felt like they seized me by the scruff of my neck and threw me away as if I was something useless," said the colonel, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who asked to be identified only by his first name, Viktor, because he feared reprisals. "I'm upset with everyone -- the state, the commanders -- and there are many people like me facing similar problems."

Officers said it would be difficult for them to unite and pose a serious challenge because they are forbidden from engaging in political activities. They said local authorities have been effective at containing dissent, recently quashing an attempt by discharged officers to stage a protest and arranging for them to gather in a room outside the city instead.

The Kremlin has also pledged to upgrade equipment and weapons and to sharply increase wages for the officers who are not dismissed -- promises that have helped it win support in the military for the reform plan, analysts said.

But most of the planned cuts and dismissals have yet to be completed, and discontent could rise further if the economy worsens, they said.

Alexander Ovechkin, 50, a lieutenant colonel in Ussuriysk who retired without receiving an apartment, said officers are frustrated in part because Medvedev and Putin have raised expectations, repeatedly pledging to build enough housing for all discharged and active-duty officers by next year.

"You can feel the social tension and uncertainty," he said. "They have promised a lot. . . . I'd like to believe it, but my experience is too sad."

Posted for fair use....
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,626815,00.html


05/26/2009 08:52 AM
GERMANY'S MARTIN SCHULZ ON THE EU'S DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT
'Europe Has Become an Over-Intellectualized Affair for Specialists'

Martin Schulz, the chairman of the Socialist group in the European Parliament, talks to SPIEGEL about the forthcoming European elections, why the EU needs more democracy and his infamous spat with Silvio Berlusconi.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Schulz, do we need to introduce you to our readers?

Martin Schulz: According to surveys, a quarter of all Germans know who I am. There are some cabinet ministers or prime ministers who would be pleased with a figure like that.


REUTERS
Eurosceptic members of the European Parliament demonstrate after the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

SPIEGEL: Why did you become head of the Socialist group in the European Parliament and not a federal minister in Berlin?

Schulz: It has to do with my background. I grew up in the Aachen area, one of the most Europeanized regions on the continent. My parents were staunch pro-Europeans from the war generation. They were very proud when I went to France in 1971 on a student exchange program. In those days, the concept of Europe was mainly about values. Today, unfortunately, personal benefit has taken center stage. People ask: What can Europe do for me?

SPIEGEL: Not very much, is the answer of more and more people. According to opinion polls, only 35 percent of eligible voters plan to exercise their right to vote on June 4-7. How do you, as the leading candidate for Germany's Social Democratic Party, explain to citizens why they should go and vote?

Schulz: I can point out how much influence the European Parliament has on the European Union and the lives of its citizens.

SPIEGEL: That'll certainly impress people.

Schulz: Exactly. It's a powerful parliamentary chamber.

SPIEGEL: Let's discuss the power of this chamber. Who would become president of the European Commission if your Social Democrats won the election?

Schulz: I admit that you are addressing a democratic deficit. The election outcome ought to determine the makeup of the Commission, but in actual fact, the heads of state and government determine who the Commission president will be. We should start by resisting the efforts to approve a second term for current Commission President José Manuel Barroso.

SPIEGEL: So your goal is to get rid of Barroso?

Schulz: Unfortunately, at this point we can only try to obstruct Barroso, but we cannot elect our own candidate. For this reason, we should at least dictate political criteria by which we would judge the next president. Together with the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB), we have compiled a set of requirements for strengthening employee rights in Europe.

SPIEGEL: Wait a minute. Are you saying that it's possible for a majority of citizens to vote for social democrats on June 4-7, and yet a conservative will become president of the commission?

Schulz: Yes, in theory. Practically speaking, it would be difficult, of course. The heads of state and government will have to think very carefully about whom they propose, if the Party of European Socialists form the strongest parliamentary group. That's why neither (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel nor (French President) Nicolas Sarkozy has commented officially on Barroso to date.

SPIEGEL: Do the two of them fear the power of the European Parliament?

Schulz: Yes, because their power is also at stake. Until now, the heads of state and government have constituted an informal steering committee within the EU which operates on the basis of behind-the-scenes diplomacy. In effect, Europe is run by a sort of permanent Congress of Vienna. The Lisbon Treaty is supposed to change this, by stipulating that the election of the Commission president reflect the outcome of the European election. But the treaty is not yet in force…

SPIEGEL: …because the Czech Republic and Ireland haven't ratified it yet. That's why the rules of the Nice Treaty apply.

Schulz: Exactly. The heads of state and government want to appoint the president swiftly, before the Parliament acquires more power. On the other hand, they want to appoint the other commissioners in accordance with the new version of the Lisbon Treaty, under which each country will continue to have its own commissioner. Under the old version of the treaty, some countries would have had to do without a commissioner. The governments are currently playing fast and loose with the rules, so to speak.

SPIEGEL: Now you've made it clear why a citizen ought to be upset about Europe. He or she has a right, after all, to know what the basis for his vote is.

Schulz: Oh, come on. Before a parliamentary election, voters in Germany don't discuss the details of how the chancellor will assume office. They want to know whether Merkel or (chancellor candidate Frank-Walter) Steinmeier will lead Germany through the crisis more effectively.

SPIEGEL: The rules for Bundestag elections are undisputed. The German constitution is not amended during the election.

Schulz: That's true. But it's not me who is responsible for this unfortunate state of affairs, rather Ms Merkel and her officials, who are playing these games behind the scenes.

SPIEGEL: The European Parliament doesn't seem to be all that powerful. What does it lack?

Schulz: Essentially, a proper government that answers to the Parliament. The separation of powers we are familiar with from the nation state doesn't exist yet. If we had a European head of government who had to assemble a parliamentary majority, there would now be two candidates running for the office. I admit that if that were the case, it would be easier to motivate citizens to vote.

SPIEGEL: How do you feel in the European Parliament, what with these Italian models and over-the-hill Greens?

Schulz: There are stubborn prejudices, because the European Parliament has an image of being a place for old people. But German Green Party co-chair Claudia Roth and the Christian Democratic politician Friedrich Merz began, rather than ended, their careers in Europe.

SPIEGEL: And the models?

Schulz: That has to do with Italy's shady prime minister, not Europe. What Silvio Berlusconi practices is only funny at first glance. This amalgamation of economic, media and political power in a single person is a threat to democracy. It isn't surprising that Italy has fallen behind on the Worldwide Press Freedom Index.

SPIEGEL: Models as a threat to the freedom of the press? Please explain what you mean.

Schulz: Berlusconi is systematically turning Italian domestic policy into tabloid news. To do so, he uses his entire media empire, which hypes issues at his orders. He uses the media to mobilize voters by placing his TV starlets on candidate lists.

'People Often Find the Commission Incredibly Irritating'

SPIEGEL: Your dispute with Berlusconi made you famous in July 2003. In the European Parliament, he suggested you would be perfect for the role of a "kapo," a guard chosen from among the prisoners, in a film about the Nazi concentration camps. Is that the way to become famous in Europe, with as much commotion as possible?

Schulz: I didn't ask him to insult me. Berlusconi went off the deep end at the time because I had asked him critical questions. I pressed him on whether he would support cross-border crime fighting. Spanish tax investigators were on his trail at the time. He would have had to say: "No, because it isn't in my interest." I forced him into a corner, but to this day the media write: He's the one who made you famous.

SPIEGEL: What does the media do wrong?

Schulz: It sees everything that happens in Europe through a national lens.

SPIEGEL: But a European audience doesn't even exist. All we have are national audiences.

Schulz: Let's put it this way: The European audience is divided into 27 national audiences. After a successful summit, Merkel, Sarkozy, (British Prime Minister Gordon) Brown or (Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez) Zapatero say to the journalists from their respective countries: "I scored a victory here." But when things go wrong, they say: "Brussels is so bureaucratic and sluggish." In the EU, success is nationalized and failure is Europeanized.

SPIEGEL: Why is it so difficult to get citizens enthusiastic about the EU?

Schulz: Much of it has to do with a democratic deficit. People, myself included, often find the Commission incredibly irritating. I think some of the administrative decisions that are made in Brussels are unspeakable. This executive branch is not sufficiently monitored by the parliament. The resulting displeasure has led to a general grumbling about Europe.

SPIEGEL: In other words, just a bad atmosphere?

Schulz: Not just. When it comes to economic and currency policy, the EU acts virtually like a country, and it is very successful in doing so. The domestic market creates Europe-wide freedoms for companies, but the social rights of employees are neglected. The equal footing of capital and labor, as we know it in nation states, doesn't exist at the European level. That's why the central theme of my campaign is that we must impose a social framework on a Europe that is an economic and currency union.

SPIEGEL: Perhaps citizens simply lack an emotional connection to Europe. The EU has no official flag, hymn or football team.

Schulz: Unfortunately, Europe has become an over-intellectualized affair for specialists. In the past, Europe was a gut feeling. Europe's opponents made a smart move when they blocked the creation of such symbols.

SPIEGEL: How far does integration have to go to guarantee peace? To the point of a European nation state?

Schulz: I don't think there will be a European nation state in the foreseeable future. Most nations want to preserve their individual statehoods.

SPIEGEL: In other words, when the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified, it will be the end of reforms?

Schulz: No. We need even more reforms to correct the EU's democratic deficit. We need complete parliamentarization, which means that the Parliament would elect the Commission and would also have the power to remove it from office. But this meets with resistance from the heads of state and government. They are the true obstacles to reform in Europe.

SPIEGEL: What percentage of the vote do you and the SPD hope to win in this election?

Schulz: We want to make significant gains and become the strongest group in the European Parliament.

SPIEGEL: What will you do then? Do you want to become an EU commissioner?

Schulz: Yes, for industrial policy. Germany needs a strong industrial policy representative.

SPIEGEL: And if your party leader, Franz Müntefering, asked you to serve as a cabinet minister in Berlin?

Schulz: Then I would say: "No, Franz." If we Social Democrats receive this commissioner position, I could not simply give it up for a cabinet post.

Interview conducted by Ralf Beste and Dirk Kurbjuweit

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Posted for fair use....
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1016/42/377426.htm

Updated at 26 May 2009 1:41 Moscow Time.
The Moscow Times » Issue 4153 » Opinion

Slippery Slope to Autocracy
26 May 2009
By Vladimir Ryzhkov

Authoritarianism is like a rock. Once it is dropped, it can only go in one direction -- down. Russia's path toward democracy was paved during former President Boris Yeltsin's presidency, but it has been steadily destroyed since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000.

Over the past eight years, the state has been gradually taking away the constitutional rights of Russians. First, the state crushed freedom of speech on television. Then, it deprived citizens of their elected representatives in the Federation Council. Next, it installed seven federal presidential envoys around the country to control governors because at that time they were still elected by the people. But in September 2004, after the Beslan terrorist attack, Putin used the tragedy as a pretext to cancel the elections of governors. From that point on, the notion of Russian federalism became fiction.

In 2007, the Kremlin then turned its sights on the parliament. Using the "fight against terrorism" as its justification, the state deprived voters of the right to elect individual deputies to the State Duma in single-seat electoral districts, replacing them with proportional representation for all Duma seats.

In addition, the Kremlin created United Russia, its own pocket political party. United Russia has established a monopoly over the country's political and legislative machine, creating a modern-day version of the Soviet Communist Party in Moscow and in the regions.

The Constitution also became a target for attack. President Dmitry Medvedev has already made major amendments to it, extending the term for president to six years and for Duma deputies to five years. Putin, who is anxious to return to the Kremlin in 2012, if not sooner, to rule the country as president for another 12 years, is clearly the chief beneficiary of this term increase.

What's more, Medvedev has made the servile Constitutional Court even more complaisant by giving the Kremlin the authority to essentially appoint the court's chairman and his deputies.

During all of these Putin and Medvedev years, the government has been methodically destroying its real enemies -- freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, parliament, opposition parties and nongovernmental organizations.

It also thrust its way into Russians' minds, forcing a pro-Kremlin and anti-Western ideology on them. This was necessary because the authoritarianism and the dismantling of the Constitution required a compelling ideological foundation. This was most vividly articulated during Putin's speech immediately after the Beslan siege ended, when he referred to "enemies" who have encircled Russia and who are craving to seize parts of its territory and rich resources.

One of the first attacks in this new ideological campaign was the revision of teaching manuals to correct passages in textbooks that had tarnished the country's "glorious past." Schoolchildren were told that Soviet leader Josef Stalin was an "effective manager" whose mass murders, forced hunger and state terror were "justified."

Medvedev's latest move, on May 19, was the creation of a presidential commission "for counteracting attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russia's interests." This opens the door to deprive Russians the freedom to know the truth about their own history. Now, state bureaucrats will decide which interpretation of history should be considered "falsified" and which is "true."

Playing with history is frightfully familiar. Under Stalin, the regime's mistakes and crimes were whitewashed or completely expunged from the public record.

During Leonid Brezhnev's years, history books were revised to turn a relatively small military operation in 1943 at Cape Myskhako, near Novorossiisk, into a epochal battle of Stalingrad-like proportions. The Cape Myskhako battle became the subject of Brezhnev's bombastic autobiographical novel, "Malaya Zemlya," which was an attempt to inflate Brezhnev's role in World War II and to help improve his public image.

Now, it seems that the Kremlin is determined to distort global affairs and rewrite history to fit the Kremlin's paranoid worldview. It will be filled with enemies and Russophobes, plots and secret operations against Russia requiring that the new dictator mobilize all of his forces in the fight against internal and external enemies.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy.

Posted for fair use....
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/29/britains-new-revolution/

Friday, May 29, 2009
RAHN: Britain's new revolution

Richard W. Rahn

COMMENTARY:

LONDON -- Imagine reading a news report that "U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi resigned this morning, and it is expected that more than half of the members of Congress will either resign, choose not to run again or be defeated in next year's election."

This statement might seem to be a fantasy or a dream come true, but it is equivalent to the headlines the British public was treated to this past week. Effective June 21, Michael Martin will become the first speaker of the British House of Commons to resign since 1695 (a mere 314 years ago). The Times of London reports the expected "departure of 325 [out of 646] members of Parliament as a result of forced resignations, retirement, and defeat at the polls would represent the biggest clear-out of Parliament since 1945."

The trigger to wholesale slaughter of the British political class was a series of revelations by the London Daily Telegraph about the abuse of expense accounts by more than 170 members of Parliament (MPs). One wealthy member charged the taxpayers for cleaning a moat around his country estate. Another charged more than $50,000 for his extensive gardens, which included $3,000 for a floating "duck island." Yet another charged more than $120,000 for his second home, including tree work. And it goes on and on.

The Telegraph "has established that many MPs - more than 200 in total - who employ relatives have been able to claim extra expenses as a result of the arrangement."

At a time when Britain is in an even deeper recession than is the United States (gross domestic product dropped at an annual rate of 7.4 percent last quarter), citizens are outraged by their high-living politicians and civil servants. Until recently, members of the British Parliament were paid very modestly by U.S. and European Union standards and had small allowances for staff and expenses.

However, since the Labor Party took control 12 years ago,many MPs have begun to look at their job as an entitlement (as do many in the civil service) rather than an honor and a duty. The just-disposed speaker, a former union leader, is famously quoted as saying, "I only took what I was entitled to" (ah, but by his definition).

Unfortunately for British Conservatives, the scandal has not involved just members of the Labor Party, but also some prominent Conservative MPs. A friend who was a conservative MP during the years of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher related to me how appalled and angry - like the British public - he was about the rise in double standards by the political class over the past couple of decades. Unfortunately, this is true on both sides of the Atlantic.

The following quote comes from a Brit (Robert Colvile), but could not the same comments be made about what is happening in the United States? "It is the general feeling that there are people who are using our money to fund lifestyles far beyond the average voter's - and using their position to exempt themselves from the rules. Ordinary citizens are fined for sorting their rubbish incorrectly, or making an error on their tax return. MPs reconfigure the tax system to their own advantage. ... We are hemmed in by laws and regulations they are free to ignore."

The revolution taking place in the United Kingdom has occurred because people have the Internet and a new Freedom of Information Act that give them the ability both to acquire information about how the politicos spend their money and to spread that information to others. The British press also seems to have been a lot more aggressive than much of the mainstream media in the United States in ferreting out information about official wrongdoing and abuse.

Should not U.S. taxpayers have the right to know the details of the spending by each member of Congress, including each's office allowance, expense account and nonchargeable use of government aircraft, limos, etc.?

Congress has just voted to require that we ordinary citizens use smaller and less safe cars in the name of combating global warming, but do you really think the leaders in Washington will give up their large limos? Mrs. Pelosi claims she needs a private jet to go back and forth to her district in California because of "national security." Have you noticed that the blanket national-security claim is often nothing more than a cover to provide privileges and lack of transparency for the political elite?

Have you wondered why the average federal employee in the United States makes about 50 percent more per year ($75,000 versus $50,000) than the average private-sector worker yet has almost zero chance of getting fired and has a very rich pension and medical insurance program?

It is unlikely that Americans would enjoy the freedoms they have today if the British had not led the way with the Magna Carta (1215) and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The day the British forced their speaker to resign was the same day (May 19) that the voters of California said no (by a 2-1 margin) to proposed propositions that would have led to more government spending and increased taxes but yes (by a 3-1 margin) to a proposition that prohibits elected officials from getting a pay raise when the government was running a deficit. (Is there any doubt that U.S. voters, if given a chance, would vote for the same pay freeze for Congress?)

Will a new American revolution follow the British one in dethroning much of the political class?

Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.