European News Headlines - FT.com

European News Headlines - FT.com: "Gazprom’s offer to take control of Serbia’s state-owned petroleum monopoly has divided the Serbian government and sounded alarm bells about the cost of Moscow’s political support"

"Better life for ordinary Russians..."

Medvedev, in his first big speech (November 2005), promised a better life for ordinary Russians. A year on, when he spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he was favoured by 35% of Russians for president. “Here was born the future president of Russia,” somebody scratched in the doorway of Mr Medvedev's old apartment block in St Petersburg. The Economist

Yulia Tymoshenko is bact to office

In a 226-224 vote, the minimum required majority, the Orange Coalition on tuesday confirmed Yulia Tymoshenko's nomination for the post of Prime Minister of Ukraine. The opposition refused to participate. The Party of Regions will be in the opposition, and will stand on guard "against populism and efforts to destroy the economy", Yanukovych said.
More in Ukrainiana

Not bad for an spy

While he is diminutive (about 1.7 m) he projects steely confidence and strength. Putin is unmistakably Russian, with chiseled facial features and those penetrating eyes. Charm is not part of his presentation of self—he makes no effort to be ingratiating. One senses that he pays constant obeisance to a determined inner discipline. The successor to the boozy and ultimately tragic Boris Yeltsin, Putin is temperate, sipping his wine only when the protocol of toasts and greetings requires it; mostly he just twirls the Montrachet in his glass. He eats little, though he twitchily picks the crusts off the bread rolls on his plate. So writes Time.

He is not a boy scout. And not a 'tedy bear'. He killed some people. But he is the Person of the Year for this magazine.

Putin won the title for taking Russia from chaos to a position of importance in the world today choosing order before freedom. Being Time´s Person of the Year is not necessarily an honor, in Putin’s case.

"Sometimes we get the impression that America does not need friends", complains Putin. But Putin is the fourth Russian leader to be chosen Person of the Year. Joseph Stalin was named twice, in 1939 for signing the alliance that opened the doors for Hitler’s war on Europe and in 1942 for joining the Allies in World War II. In 1957, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader at the height of the Cold War, won for leading the effort to put the first satellite in space. And in 1989, was Gorbachev.

In his youth he was eager to emulate the intelligence officer characters played on the Soviet screen by actors such as Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Georgiy Zhzhonov. Now is frontpage in EEUU.

Not bad for an spy.

Unable to agree on the present, EU looks to the future

The former Spanish Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez, has been chosen by European leaders to head a review of the long-term issues faced by the EU.

Former Latvian President, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, and Jorma Ollila, ex-chairman of mobile phone company Nokia, have been selected as vice presidents of the group.

But the celebrations were marred by leaders' inability to reach a unanimous position on the future status of Kosovo, the predominantly ethnic-Albanian province that is seeking independence from Serbia.

As EarthTimes said, "Unable to agree on the present, EU looks to the future"

A creation of Putin will rule Russia

President Vladimir V. Putin has endorsed as his successor today Dmitri A. Medvedev, a young protégé with no background in the state security services and virtually no power base in the Kremlin. Yes, everything that Medvedev has is owed to Putin. There is no Medvedev without Putin.

The president endorsed Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister, at a meeting with party leaders today. This declaration is virtually guaranteeing that he will win a landslide victory in the March 2 election.
Medvedev is more liberal and less hawkish towards the west than Sergei Ivanov, the other contender.

Yevgeny Badovsky, of the Institute of Social Systems thinktank, said: "Medvedev is in a way a more liberal choice, who is not associated with the part of the elite rooted in the security services."

The speculation about Putin's future has included the possibility that he could try to return as president. That possibility seemed potentially strengthened by the announcement about Medvedev, said to Pravda Vladimir Ryzhkov, a prominent liberal politician.