Eurostat: One in two immigrants in CR is from Ukraine

11.20.2008 – CzechNews – Prague - In 2006, about three million of foreign immigrants settled in the European Union countries, while the largest "nomads" of today were citizens of Poland, according to Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities. Around 290,000 Poles left Poland to settle in another EU country. The second and third largest immigrant groups that year were Romanians and Moroccans, with 230,000 and 140,000 leaving their homelands respectively, Eurostat reports. Spain was the most frequent destination for foreign immigrants with 803,000 persons settling in, meanwhile Germany and the United Kingdom had almost half a million foreign persons two years ago. Czechs and foreigners: The Czech Republic was surprisingly among the countries welcoming a sizeable number of foreigners too. Around 66,000 of them settled in the country, which is much higher a figure than in Denmark or Portugal. About 60 percent of foreign immigrants in EU member states were non-EU citizens. The highest share of immigrants from non-EU countries were recorded in Slovenia (90 percent), Romania (86 percent) and the Czech Republic (83 percent). Out of this number 46 percent were Ukrainians. In other words, every second foreign immigrant in the Czech Republic is Ukrainian. By immigrant Eurostat means a person who established his or her usual residence in the territory of a country for a period of at least twelve months.

Immigration in EU in 2006
	Foreign immigrants in total	Non-EU citizens
Czech Rep.	66,100	83%
Slovakia	11,300	46%
Denmark	34,300	51%
Poland	1,800	78%
France	182,400	data missing
United Kingdom	451,700	69%
Spain	803,000	62%
Germany	558,500	43%
In total in EU27	3 000 000	60%
Source: Eurostat

Another great flood: time to build an ark?

MOSCOW. (Andrei Kislyakov, scientific commentator, for RIA Novosti) - The world geological community is warning that today's seismic activity on our planet is nothing compared with what's to come. Over the past three years, Pakistan, for example, has been hit by dozens of earthquakes. In March 2005, 80,000 people died under the rubble there. On October 30, the last time nature went on the rampage, there were hundreds of victims. Tens of thousands of people drowned during an overwhelming Asian tsunami at the end of 2004. China and Afghanistan have been rocked by quakes again more recently. These natural disasters, which have swept our planet in recent years, indicate that the world has entered an era not only of a political, but also of climatic instability. Most scientists - biologists and environmentalists - tend to blame the human race for the catastrophic climate change on the Earth. No doubt, the greenhouse effect due to industrial activity plays a considerable role in global warming, but there are other reasons worth considering. The Earth is rotating around its own axis slower. The International Earth Rotation Service has regularly added a second or two to the length of a 24-hour day in recent years. This is the main reason, according to Igor Kopylov, professor at Moscow Energy Institute, why the planet - a gigantic electrical machine - has had its energy balance upset. He expressed this viewpoint in 2004. Kopylov is convinced that the Earth has entered the first phase of a global change. A weakening of the Earth's magnetic field was first registered early in the 20th century, and a consistent drop in the speed of rotation, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It has been established that when the Earth's rotation slows by one second a year, it releases a tremendous amount of heat, hundreds of times the volume of energy released by human industrial activity. If we accept that all processes on Earth run according to cosmic cycles, which, in turn, depend on the Solar System's position in our Galaxy, then humankind may be facing another Great Flood. The Solar System, including the Earth, travels through the Galaxy in spiraling elliptic paths. The cycle time for the larger spiral is 200-210 million years, and for the smaller one, which determines minor galactic cycles, 26,000 years. Correspondingly, half a cycle lasts 130 centuries. This period almost exactly coincides with the date of the last Flood, the occurrence of which was real. The myths and legends of many peoples including that of the Bible recorded the event. The Flood has been dated rather precisely: at 11,100 BC. If we accept that the civilized society on Earth has been developing for 400,000 years, then this period saw 30 great floods, and we are witnessing the beginnings of the thirty-first flood. The cosmic cycles are so gigantically long by human standards that they have little impact on the life of people, but the active initial phase of the galactic cycle is of vital importance for the development of civilization. In the view of Russian scientists, the Earth currently finds itself at precisely this point in the cycle. The transitional process in the electrical machine "planet Earth" can be divided into three phases. During the first - lasting 300 to 500 years - a relatively quick change in the direction of cross current (according to the law of electric machines) will alter the Earth's magnetic field, with the Northern magnetic pole shifting to the eastern part of the Arctic Ocean. This change in the Earth's magnetic field is accompanied by strong magnetic storms, earthquakes and disastrous atmospheric events caused by a change in the circulation of oceanic waters and the atmosphere. The change in the magnetic field leads to changes in the Earth's ozone layer, which cause abrupt leaps in the biosphere's evolution owing to the altered level of radiation. As the average temperature of the planet rises, ice glaciers begin to thaw, raising ocean levels across the world. The first, "warm" phase of the transitional period is the shortest and most active. This period witnesses a relatively fast braking of the planet and the release of tremendous amounts of heat, leading to global warming. In the second phase, the magnetic field will stabilize. The Earth will slowly increase its speed of rotation, and the electrical machine "Earth" will revert to near normal speed. The increased speed of rotation will bring on a cold spell, the ice glaciers will regain their mass, and the oceans will displace their former volumes. In the third phase, the transitional period will end, the speed of Earth rotation will stabilize, and the planet's energy balance will return to the conditions of previous millennia. Following the last Great Flood, people began migrating from East to West. Are we now to see a great exodus to the East? It looks as if we should give serious thought to developing Siberia ...

Obama becomes a 'Renegade' on U.S. secret service list

WASHINGTON, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. president-elect Barack Obama has been assigned Renegade as his secret service codename, the Chicago Tribune reported. Obama's wife is to be known as Renaissance, his daughter Malia has been given the name Radiance and her sister Sasha Rosebud. Although the "secret names" are usually widely known the White House Communications Agency, which assigns the names, has not revealed its selection method, a tradition started after WWII. The only restriction is they should be easily pronounced and clearly understood by those transmitting and receiving radio communications. However, some thought has obviously gone into the names. Vice-president-elect Joe Biden, who has Irish roots, has been assigned Celtic and Dick Cheney, a keen fisherman, is known as Angler. Outgoing-president George Bush is known as Tumbler - his father was assigned Timberwolf. Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood actor who appeared in numerous Westerns, was known as Rawhide, John F. Kennedy Lancer and Bill Clinton Eagle. Pope John Paul II was assigned the codename Halo during a visit to the U.S. and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is known as Kittyhawk or Redfern.

Brezhnev Comes to Washington

October 7, 2008 The St. Petersburg Times by Alexei Bayer - I have repeatedly drawn parallels in this column between President George W. Bush’s United States and the Soviet Union during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev. The similarities between the two regimes are uncanny, ranging from the messianic drive to spread ideology abroad — at the point of a bayonet if need be — to tight surveillance at home. Now comes the U.S. financial debacle to complete the list. It is ironic that the first U.S. president with an MBA presided over the disintegration of the nation’s financial system and the demise of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch — names that are synonymous with modern capitalism. Speaking of capitalism, after having spent eight years lecturing about the virtues of an unbridled free market and the private sector, and even outsourcing his wars to private contractors, Bush has reached for a “socialist” straw of public money to bolster the banking system. This comes straight from Lenin’s dialectic playbook. The founder of the Soviet state also taught his Bolsheviks to shift tactics shamelessly whenever expediency required. But the main similarity with the Soviet Union is not the nationalization of bad banking debt via the $700 billion rescue package signed by Bush on Friday. Rather, it is the nexus between an unnecessary war abroad and economic collapse at home. The foray into Afghanistan proved to be the Soviet Union’s undoing. The old fools in the Kremlin decided in 1979 that their small neighbor was ripe for communism — or at least could be pacified by a limited contingent of Soviet troops. The engagement lasted nearly a decade, cost 15,000 Soviet lives, spread disgust with the government and contributed to the fall of Soviet communism. Bush’s neoconservatives similarly believed that Iraq was ripe for Western-style democracy and that Americans would be met with flowers on the streets of Baghdad. The war’s supporters thought it would be a short victorious campaign — a cakewalk. Now, 5 1/2 years on, open-ended occupation has created cynicism and hypocrisy among Americans who shrug off evidence of torture of “enemy combatants,” ignore massive pilfering and war profiteering going on in Iraq and pay sanctimonious lip service to the wanton deaths of U.S. soldiers. Whether moral turpitude or the economic impact of the war will be more damaging in the long run is for historians to decide. In many ways, the current economic crisis is the result of the Iraq war. Iraq — and more broadly, the misguided war on terror — has cost the United States trillions of dollars in direct and indirect costs. It is the money the country didn’t have and had to borrow from foreign investors. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bush invited the country to go out and shop. He didn’t want his countrymen to analyze the causes of the terrorist attacks or to take a hard look at Washington’s response. He wanted U.S. citizens to keep on living beyond their means and to wander in a daze in the interminable aisles of Wal-Mart and Home Depot. To ease the shopping spree, his administration kept financial oversight lax and taxes low in the face of widening budget deficits. Wall Street then helped Americans squeeze every last dollar of credit from their leverageable assets. Uncle Sam faces the financial crisis bereft of resources and heavily in debt. The congressional debate about the $700 billion bailout package ignored the fact that the country simply doesn’t have this money. The Kremlin faced severe challenges in the 1980s — when oil revenues declined and Ronald Reagan unleashed a costly arms race — with an economy badly weakened by the Afghan misadventure. If Americans emerge from this crisis much poorer and far less secure, they could ask the Russians what it felt like living in the Soviet Union circa 1990. Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.

What Vladimir Putin has done within the 8 years in office

According to the official site of the President, president.kremlin.ru, Vladimir Putin has worked for 2494 days. He has managed to accomplish 9906 deals (the number of positions mentioned in his schedule), with moving from one destination to another and work with documents excluded. Workdays account for 85% of all days of the year (common people usually have 70% of workdays). The majority of the deals regarded meetings with different people (37%). Every year Russia’s PMs were the leaders in terms of the frequency of meetings with the president – he received them as often as twice a week on average. Visiting various sights, and telephone talks take an important place in the schedule (10-11% each), with participation in ceremonies and sessions accounting for 8-9%.
Public speeches have been part and parcel of the president’s life. Vladimir Putin has delivered speeches 1900 times and said 2.2 mln words within the eight years. Assuming that he pronounced some 160 words per minute, he had to spend 230 hours on giving speeches.
Trips and visits of the President are an indispensable part of his work. Vladimir Putin covered a 1.4 mln km distance (it means that he could travel round the Earth 35 times). His longest journey was the one of 2007 on the route Moscow – Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – Jakarta (Indonesia) – Sydney (Australia) – Abu Dhabi (the UAE) – Moscow (36.500 km in total). During his term in office Vladimir Putin visited 54 countries (Ukraine – 16 times, Germany – 12, Kazakhstan – 11, France – 9, Belorus – 8). The favourite destinations of the President in Russia were St. Petersburg (38 visits) and Sochi (34).
Vladimir Putin paid much attention to his staff: 60 people have managed to work as ministers for the eight years. Three PMs (Mikhail Kasyanov, Mikhail Fradkov and Victor Zubkov) and three Chiefs of the Presidential Administration (Alexander Voloshin, Dmitry Medvedev and Sergey Sobyanin) have been changed. Only five Deputy Prime Ministers and Ministers who were in the government early 2000 are still in office (Alexey Kudrin, Sergey Shoigu, Alexey Gordeyev, Leonid Reyman and Nikolay Patrushev).
Besides, Vladimir Putin has worked much with documents. He has signed 1.853 Federal Laws, 46 Constitutional Laws, rejected 39 bills, issued 13.006 decrees and 5.299 orders. In sum, the President signed 20.243 documents of that kind, that is 8 pieces daily.

Vladimir Putin’s terms in office. The bottom line

May 08, 2008 – Kommersant – The population of the Russian Federation decreased by 4.88 mln people. It amounted to 146.89 mln (January 1, 2000), and dropped to 142.01 (January 1, 2008). Occupying the 6th place in the world 2000, Russia sunk to the 8th position 2008. At that, the natural loss fell from 929.6 to 477.7 people per annum.

From 1999-2007 an average monthly salary grew 9 times (from 1522.6 roubles to 13.518 roubles), pensions – 7 times (from 521.5 roubles to 3682.3 roubles). The number of Russians on the bboks of labor registry offices remained the same (1.791.800 and 1.774.500 correspondingly).

According to the IMF data, the Russian GDP boosted 6 times in current terms (from $195.91 bln 1999 – the 23th place in the world, – to $1289.58 bln 2007 – the 11th place). Russia is now the world leader in producing oil. The mining increased from 305 mln tons to 490.7 tons annually, and as to gas, – from 592 bln to 651 bln m2. The volume of agricultural production grew 3 times (from 611.9 bln roubles to 2017.2 roubles), the volume of house-building got twice as high (from 32 mln m2 to 60.4 mln m2). Exports grew 5 times (from $75.6 bln to $355.5 bln), and imports – 6 times (from $39.5 bln to $223.4).

The state budget surged 10 times becoming a surplus one, incomes went up from 615.53 bln roubles to 6644.45 bln roubles, and public spending – from 666.93 bln roubles to 6570.3 bln roubles. The oil and gas sector used to account for 5.6% of the GDP, whereas now it amounts to 6.8%. Gold and exchange currency reserves soared 40 times (from $12.456 bln on January 1, 2000 to $534,422 bln on May 1, 2008), which allowed Russia to occupy the 3rd place in the world. A Stability Fund was set up in Russia ($162.52 on May 1, 2008). The state foreign debt decreased 3 times (from $158.4 bln to $44,1 bln). Overall inflation from 2000-2007 was 131% (the 22nd place in the world).

The bureaucratic apparatus grew 150%: 1999 there were 397.240 executive officials in Russia, and 2007 – 655.790. At the same time Russia lost 30 positions in the Heritage Foundation economic liberty rating (it fell from the 104th place to the 134th one), and 61 positions in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (dropping from the 82nd place to the 143rd one).

The number of registered crimes grew from 3 mln 1999 to 3.58 mln 2007. Though there are less people in jail now (1.06 mln on January 1, 2000 compared with 891.7 on April 1, 2008). The incarceration rate in Russia is only lower than that in the United States, occupying the 1st place.

No Munich in Bucharest

04–04–2008 – MOSCOW - RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev - Those who followed the NATO summit in Bucharest had every reason to expect a "second Munich," that is, one more address in which President Vladimir Putin would tell the global audience what Russia thinks of the West's attitude to it. But there was no Munich in Bucharest, and it had not been planned. Drafting his last presidential speech before a major world forum, Putin intended from the very start to balance out Russia's discontent with NATO's actions with its proposals on future relations between the two sides. The Munich conference was a relatively open forum unlike the Bucharest meeting. This time, Putin did not deliver a public speech. He addressed the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, which his presence turned into a summit. The media were groping for information about Putin's speech. One of the sources was NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer; others were from the Russian delegation. So, what did the Russian president talk about? Here is the first half of his speech about Moscow's grievances. He called the extension of the alliance a "direct threat" to Russia - a very serious warning. Russia does not have the right of veto, and it is not seeking it. States should be able to hear each other's concerns without any vetoes. NATO should not ensure its security at the expense of the security of other countries, Russia included. NATO is a military alliance, and as such it should display restraint it the military sphere. If NATO continues approaching the Russian borders, Moscow will take "necessary measures." Russia has seen repeated violations of international law - it is enough to mention the bombing of Yugoslavia, or Kosovo's unilateral recognition. As we see, there are no sensations, everything is obvious. Now let's turn to the second half of the speech, where Putin voiced Russia's proposals for cooperation with NATO. Having suspended the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) last December, Russia is ready to resume it on the basis of reciprocity. The Iranian problem should be resolved on the basis of transparency - hardly anyone can imagine Iran attacking the United States. Instead of cornering the Iranians, the world community should find another approach. NATO and Russia could cooperate on Afghanistan. He spoke highly about the participation of warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean, and pointed out that for Moscow cooperation with NATO is an informed choice. This is about all, or at least the main points. Not a single sensation - Russia has been telling NATO about these things for many years, but NATO has turned a deaf ear to them, and has been implacably moving towards the Russian borders. Moscow should not feel any triumph about the Bucharest summit's previous decisions - to suspend the Membership Action Plan for Ukraine and Georgia. This is a trifle because in December this process will be resumed. But Scheffer's words about NATO's inevitable expansion are important, and NATO's decision to regard the missile defense system as its own brainchild rather than an American idea imposed on Europe is a serious symptom. The Bucharest summit has shown that NATO and Europe or the West in general, have even more problems than it seems at first sight. Muslim Albania's NATO entry is part of the conflict between the West and the Muslim world, and its solution is nowhere in sight. The well-concealed contradictions about NATO's participation in missions in Afghanistan point to Alliance's military insolvency, and its ambiguous position of an accessory for the American war machine. The Bucharest summit is the hardest of all. NATO is beset with problems - Paris and Berlin feel Iraq-related mistrust of Washington (despite the change of leaders in France and Germany), Polish-German and Greek-Macedonian relations remain complicated; NATO is reluctant to aggravate relations with President-Elect Dmitry Medvedev; and Ukraine and Georgia do not fit NATO's criteria in a whole number of parameters. It is hard to be an American or European today. For several centuries, the Western civilization nurtured illusions about its eternal leadership and supremacy over all other cultures. But this era is coming to a close, and it is time for the West to adapt to a new reality. But for the time being this adaptation is more in the nature of panic in front of the imminent invasion of a poorly reinforced fortress - "All those who can bear arms should come inside, and the bridge should be lifted. There is no point in reacting to the signals from the aliens, no matter what they suggest." This is how NATO behaved with Russia under Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. No internal NATO problems matter when it comes to relations with Russia. NATO has never listened to Russia. Nor does it heed Russia's concerns now. This was the argument of those in Moscow who opposed Putin's visit to Bucharest, but the other view prevailed despite all skepticism. This is why there was no "new Munich" in Bucharest - one was enough.

Fears of recession hang over Davos

January 23, 2008 - Russia Today - Sliding stock markets and fears of a global recession are likely to dominate talks at the annual economic forum, which opens in the Swiss city of Davos on Wednesday. Also on the agenda are the legacies of Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush, the outgoing presidents of Russia and the U.S. respectively. Although the Davos forum hasn't officially started, several meetings have already taken place on the sidelines. Later, delegates will hear opening remarks by the Afghan president Hamid Karzai and a welcoming speech by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The main subjects of the forum will then be discussed at a plenary session. The corridors at the Congress Centre will be swarming with the great and the good, including about 27 heads of state or government, 113 cabinet ministers, hundreds of chief executives and bankers. Altogether, about 2,500 participants will attend. The Russian delegation includes the Russian Finance Minister, Aleksey Kudrin, the head of Sberbank German Gref and representatives of large Russian businesses. This year’s theme sounds, as usual, somewhat blurred - ‘The Power of Collaborative Innovation’. To put it simply, it’s global tensions - both political and economic. Business leaders will focus on private equity investors and the growing power of India, China and oil-rich nations, including Russia. Lee Howell, Senior Director, Head of Asia and Head of Global Agenda at the forum says Russia has an important role to play on the key issues. Among those under discussion in Switzerland include climate change, energy security, arms non-proliferation, the war on terrorism, and sovereign wealth funds. “The assumption is that if the U.S. economy slows down, then it will have an adverse impact on global growth. The hope is that there will be a decoupling and that it will come from the BRIC economies, and the R in BRIC is Russia,” Lee Howell added. But with turmoil on the world's stock markets, Russia is unlikely to top the agenda.

Total Faces Budget Problems on its LNG Project

24.01.2008 - [Neftegaz.RU] - The French oil company Total said Tuesday that it was facing budget problems on a major liquefied natural gas project in Iran and that it was reviewing plans with the Iranian government. "We are reviewing the project with the Iranian government, and it could take some time," said Philippe Boisseau, president of gas and power at Total. He declined to give an estimate on the latest cost of Pars LNG, which will be the Islamic Republic's first liquefied natural gas export terminal or say when Total might make an investment decision. Pars LNG would be fed by developing part of the giant South Pars gas field in a project, but construction costs have spiraled throughout the energy sector. The terminal was due to start in 2009 but has been pushed back to at least 2011.