Obama´s words

Barack Hussein Obama called on Americans to confront “our collective failure to make hard choices.” Watch video and analysis here.

Bad cold

You never understand politics in central europe until you find -30 C, Now Ukraine has to promise not to steal gas. But Russian blackmail will continue. Several lessons: if you are independent to support Georgia, then dont expect gifts in gas. If non EU members heating is not working, yours can stop soon. And third, an agreement may not have a nice smell, but it is always cleaner than a negociation.

Things we watch

Israel is banning foreign correspondents from Gaza, despite a ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court.The Israeli propaganda effort is being directed to achieve two main aims.The first is to justify the air attacks. The second is to show that there is no humanitarian calamity in Gaza. So writes Paul Reynolds World affairs correspondent of the BBC. And he points out what it seems to be an example of propaganda. The video remains on You Tube.

Israel released video of an air attack on 28 December, which appeared to show rockets being loaded onto a lorry. The truck and those close to it were then destroyed by a missile. The YouTube video has a large caption on it saying "Grad missiles being loaded onto the Hamas vehicle." But a 55-year-old Gaza resident named Ahmed Sanur, or Samur, claimed that the truck was his and that he and members of his family and his workers were moving oxygen cylinders from his workshop. Mr Sanur said that eight people, one of them his son, had been killed.

Israeli human rights group B'Tselem put Mr Sanur's account on its website, together with a photograph of burned out oxygen cylinders. According to Sanur’s testimony, he and members of his family were trying to salvage material from a metal workshop he owns, which was next door to a bombed house, in order to prevent looting. He denies any connection to militants, or military activity, and is willing to talk to any journalist, or investigator.



Thanks to Andrius for sending the story.

Some extra analisis, in spanish, here.

Freezing again

Hungary, Poland and Romania said Russian gas deliveries via pipelines in Ukraine began falling on Friday. Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday after talks on a deal for this year collapsed. Both sides have guaranteed supplies to the rest of Europe, which relies on Russian gas via Ukrainian pipelines to meet 20 per cent of its demand. Russia and Ukraine vied for European support on Friday as the European Union struggled vainly to avoid intervening in their gas dispute as it began to affect member states, FT reports. 

Bohdan Sokolovsky, an energy adviser to Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's president, said the European Commission had shown "understanding" during talks. However, Oleksandr Hudyma, energy adviser to Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukrainian prime minister, said unwillingness to confront Russia was "no surprise. Ukraine does not have any misconceptions about the support it would get from [the] European Union, which showed itself during the Georgian conflict."

Russia after de gulag

In 2006 at Lgov prison south of Moscow, more than 300 inmates slashed their bodies with razor blades. Many prisoners cut at their wrists, necks, or stomachs. This was organised self mutilation in protest against alleged abuse by prison officials; its sheer scale shocked many Russians, who are used to hearing appalling tales of life inside Russia's dilapidated and overcrowded prison system.
Theotherrussia.org provides a roundup of news stories coming out of Russia’s prisons and penal colonies, which are notorious for cruel treatment and arbitrariness.
NYT presents an slide show about russian jail that reveals aspects of the country's contradictory penal system. Russia jails a greater proportion of its people than any other major country apart from the US. According to the 2006 figures from the Russian Government, there are 829,000 people serving prison sentences.
As Lev Ponomarev, from the Movement For Human Rights, told the BBC the regime itself is the real issue now, a system he says which can lead to a culture of cruelty.



Some interesting facts about criminal tatoos in russian prisons.

Promises to keep... fighting for

A promise is a psychological contract indicating a transaction between two persons whereby the first person undertakes in the future to render some service or gift to the second person or devotes something valuable now and here to his or her use. A promise may also refer to any kind of vow or guarantee.

On this day nine years and one day ago, Vladimir Putin was sworn into office.

Putin said in the address:

'Freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of the mass media -- these basic freedoms will be reliably protected by the State,'

Thanks to Robert Amsterdam for reminding it.

2009 oh yea(r)!

This time last year Walking Randomly asked the question 'What is interesting about the number 2008?' and it turned out to be rather popular so they thought I would do the same with 2009.

• Both 2009 and its reversal 9002 are multiples of 7.
• The 2009th prime (17471) is palindromic.
• You can express 2009 as the sum of 4 positive cubes in exactly 3 ways.

More about 2009 here
And the 13 most famous numbers, here. (in spanish)

Obama´s never gonna tell a lie and hurt you...

In 2007 Rick Astley became the subject of a viral Internet meme in which an estimated 25 million Internet users were tricked into watching Rick Astley's video "Never Gonna Give You Up" by posting it under the name of other popular video titles. The practice is now known as Rickrolling. The phenomenon became so popular that on April 1, 2008, YouTube pranked its users by making every single featured video on the front page a Rickroll.

Here is Omaba singing. And lyrics here.

By the way. Also McCain dances.

17 killed in Ukraine explosion

At least 17 people have died in an explosion in an apartment building in the south of Ukraine. Another 15 people are still missing. Twenty-one people are known to have survived the blast, which ripped through a five-storey building in the Black Sea resort of Yevpatoria. The cause of the explosion is not yet known but the Ukrainian authorities have said there are no signs of a gas leak.First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov said Sunday that human voices could be heard coming from 700 meters (2,300 feet) below ground, CNN reports. 

No ready for the (b)east?

Lubos Palata writes in Transitions Online about how the EU offers a new deal to the countries on its eastern frontier, and an implicit challenge to Russia .In the eyes of Eastern Europeans, the European Union is a standard measure for quality – the quality of products, of democracy, of housing, of lifestyles. Not America or Japan, but Europe. Millions of Ukrainians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis and Belarusians dream of one day living as people do in the EU. Those who can afford it actually act on those dreams. Cities like Berlin, Vienna, Karlovy Vary and Nice are full of rich Eastern Europeans who have used the millions they made in the east to move west and live the "eurolife."

Lubos Palata is the Central and Eastern European editor for the Czech daily Lidove noviny and a contributor to the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and the German monthly German Times. He thinks that the problem is that the EU doesn't want Eastern Europe. It is already having a hard time digesting the 12 new member-states – including 10 from the post-communist regions of East-Central Europe and the Balkans – that were added to the union in recent years.

"This difficulty is evident in the rejection of the European constitution and the difficulties surrounding the Lisbon agreement"

Bush. Before and after.

It's funny to see this 2 interviews. First is the first one after Omaba´s victory. Second is made before Bush became president, talking about the good economic situation not being involved in any big war. In exit interviews, President Bush sounds reflective, even chastened, while Vice President Dick Cheney is defiant to the end. Historians say presidents, especially those who serve two terms, often grow reflective at the end of their tenure. “They tend to be exhausted, they’re worn out, they’re trying to make some sense of their administrations, and there’s a natural tendency for them to want to give their own perspective,” said Jay Winik, who got to know Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney after they read his book, “April 1865,” an account of the closing month of the Civil War.

"All I can report is it is a size 10"

Quotation of the Day. PRESIDENT BUSH, after an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at him during a news conference in Baghdad.

"All I can report is it is a size 10"

In the baltics people don’t trust banks and banks don’t trust customers

Financial Times published today that Lithuania faces a sharp contraction of economic growth next year, but is determined not to follow the example of Hungary and Latvia and turn to international institutions for emergency help. As Lithuania's incoming prime minister said on Thursday, "The economic and financial situation in the three Baltic states is becoming really quite difficult. Kubilius predicts a 1.5 per cent drop in Lithuania's gross domestic product next year. His government would aim for a budget deficit next year of about 0.6 or 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product.

The global credit crisis is forcing a rapid economic slowdown in the ex-communist states of central and eastern Europe, particularly in countries dependent on international financial flows, says the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The worst performance is expected in the Baltic states, with recession in Estonia and Latvia next year. Bank clients and policymakers remain nervous. "People don't trust banks and banks don't trust customers," said Mr Spredzis, manager of Skandi Auto (which operates four showrooms selling Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Bentley models) to FT. Andrius Kubilius, the Lithuanian premier-elect, said this week that he was "sitting on a ticking time-bomb". In Estonia layoffs have hit white-collars as well, when there was slightly more than 2,500 unemployed in this category a year ago, then today the number has nearly doubled, ERR News reports. Nearly fifth of 25,000 unemployed are highly educated, wrote Marge Tubalkain-Trell in BalticBusinessNews.

Central Europe and the Baltic states as a whole are predicted to see growth almost halve from 4.3 per cent in 2008 to 2.2 per cent. In south-east Europe the forecast fall is even greater, from 6.5 per cent to 3.1 per cent. In Poland, the second biggest economy after Russia, the EBRD predicts a decline from 5.3 per cent to 2.8 per cent.

Российских женщин (Russian women)

Today I read that Russian women are completely different from Western or American women. 

This is due to the environment they live in, what they see from a young age, and what they are taught by their families. They have a completely different set of values and things that are important to them. What they value and hold high in importance, they will most likely never compromise. Here are some ways in which Russian women differ from most women.They don't care about age. As explained above, Russian women would much rather be with a well established and kind older man than a young man who is quick to get angry or lose his temper and who is not financially secure. Age is simply not as important as the quality of the relationship.

I think this is too much a simplification. And really sounds a bit stupid to me, even if it can be true in some cases.

And what about the image above?

Anyway, according to the latest data, in Russia there are only 88 males for 100 females (87 in Ukraine, 88 in Belarus, 92 in Kazakhstan, 92 in Moldova) - Pocket World in Figures: 2004 edition, The Economist, 2003.

So, less men. Still, russian women say that there are some very good ones. The problem is Russian family model. Sexism is a natural part of it, writes Elena Petrova - the creator of Russian Brides Cyber Guide.

In capitals (Moscow and St. Petersburg) the situation is better, they are more westernized, but in regions it's still very chauvinistic. If you are a single woman, you're worth nothing. Any man can offend you. You must have a strong boyfriend (or lover - even if he is married) to protect you. So a woman is not considered as somebody respectable unless she is married, and even then, she will be considered in regard at to who is her husband. A widow / ex-wife of a person with high social status (who can be a high-level criminal as well) is still considered according to his social status and gains respect according to it. Even being married to a guy who has many lovers a woman gains higher respect that if she were single.

If it was not clear: 

This leads to the situation when single men have a choice of available women, and worthy men quickly get spoilt. You probably will not believe me but in Russia it's women that are cherishing men, and not the other way around.

She thinks that society considers women looking for a husband abroad as looking for a better life and money - "selling themselves for money"; in some extent it can be viewed like this, but mostly Russian women's search abroad is the result of absence of suitable men in Russia.

So lets think twice next time.

Autumn in Sapiega hospital, Vilnius

Autumn in Sapiega hospital, Vilnius, originalmente cargada por karinga.

and Vilnius can be yelow too

(Thanks Inga, always on time)

Not so rich. But still oligarchs.

The Guadian published an article titled Twilight of the oligarchs. Communism's collapse made Ambramovic and others multi-billionaires, but now Russian capitalism is in trouble. Can their colossal fortunes survive the downturn, or is this the end of an era?

Something strange is happening in Russia — the country that invented the word oligarch back in the 1990s to define a new kind of state-connected entrepreneur. In the new post-credit-crisis world everyone can concur on one thing — that Russia's oligarchs are in trouble.

Over the past five months, according to the financial news agency Bloomb erg, Russia's wealthiest 25 individuals have collectively lost $230bn (£146bn). Tycoons like Oleg Deripaska — Russia's richest man and friend, we now know, of British politicians — have seen their fortunes vaporised. On paper, Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea FC owner, has suffered a $20.3bn wipeout. Alisher Usmanov, the Arsenal shareholder-tycoon has lost $11.7bn, Bloomberg estimates.

Analysts say that private jets could soon be going for bargain basement prices, while some super-rich are scrambling to sell off their villas in Sardinia and Surrey. In Moscow, elite nightclubs have relaxed their strict entry rules — there aren't enough customers. The capital's top restaurants, meanwhile, have stopped accepting credit cards.

Not that Russia's oligarchs are in the mood for entertaining. Since hosting Peter Mandelson and George Osborne on his yacht in Corfu this August, Deripaska has slithered into a classic Westminster political scandal. The aluminium magnate's British-related woes do not stop there: a former business partner, Michael Cherney, is suing him for $4bn in the high court. Rumours suggest he's even been forced to lay off his servants. A spokesman said Deripaska does not comment on private matters.

Is, then, the era of the oligarch now over?

For a few, then, Russia's wild capitalist party isn't quite over yet. "I'm not worried about it. I have my husband to worry about that," said Tatyana Nekrasova, 24, her blond hair tied into a neat bun, as she emerged from Gucci clutching an 11,000-rouble shirt. She admitted, however: "I have a lot of friends who have investments. They've lost them. They're in a state of shock."

Paradoxically, Russia's often-surreal ride from communism to capitalism appears to be going full circle. Under Boris Yeltsin a small, favoured group of businessmen was allowed to acquire the country's newly privatised assets at auctions for a fraction of their real value. Last week Putin offered a $50bn state loan to Deripaska, and other cash-strapped oligarchs, struggling to pay back debts to the west. In effect, the Kremlin is poised to renationalise many of Russia's strategic industries.

Nobody is in any doubt as to what befalls oligarchs who disobey the Kremlin. In 2003 Putin arrested Russia's then richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and broke up his Yukos oil empire. Khodorkovsky was convicted of tax evasion; his real crime was to seek to influence politics and to challenge the president. The former tycoon is serving eight years in a Siberian jail and was recently placed in solitary for not sewing properly.

New accounts about South Ossetia

Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression, writes C. J. Chivers and Ellen Barry in the Herald Tribune.
The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia's insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

Yes they can

Democrat Barack Obama has defeated Republican John McCain to make history as the first black to be elected U.S. president.

The next president will inherit horrendous economic problems that will limit the scope of his ambitions. Obama, in his final rallies, was already tempering his early promise of change with warnings about how he would have to curb some of his more ambitious plans, trying to lower expectations that he would be able to move quickly on healthcare and education reform, The Guardian says.

Is Russia celebrating? Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili said the victory of either Barack Obama or John McCain would satisfy him, Interfax reported.

But The friendship of John McCain and Mikheil Saakashvili is no news. Two policymakers even water-skied in 2006.

Who did the Kremlin favor to be the next U.S. President? Was it John McCain, the hard-nosed hawk who grew to maturity during the Cold War? Or was it Hillary Clinton - the militarily well-studied Senator from New York? Nope - it seems that, according to this op-ed article from Russia’s Kommersant newpaper, Barack Obama was the best bet for Russia - although only marginally so. Konstantin Kosachev who is chairman of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, writes, ‘Barack Obama looks like the candidate that can be expected to take the greatest strides toward Russia, since unlike McCain, he’s not infected with any Cold War phobias, and unlike Clinton, he won’t be tied down by the old habits of his advisors’, wrote Konstantin Kosachev in The Kommersant before the election.

Wliliam Kern thinks that For Russia, Obama’s the Best of a Bad Lot

But McCain has long criticized Russia, particularly for what he sees as its backsliding on democratic reforms and human rights. "For many years, I have warned against Russian actions that undermine the sovereignty of its neighbors," he said. "Unfortunately, we have seen in recent days Russia demonstrate that these concerns were well-founded."

Worst day in the life of a geek: no internet connection

Can you be proud to be a geek? Is it cool to be a freak? Enjuto Mojamuto is a low cost cartoon and one of the stars of Muchachada Nui, a humor program made for/by people in his 30`s. Enjuto can be translated like "dry" or "without muscles". He has not many friens and spends 100% of his free time in front of computer. When internet is not working he feels anxiety and fear. He is really freak but... is so easy to understand him!

Cold war on TV

Here is a clip from Fox News i found at Freaknomics.  An interview with a 12-year-old American who, along with her aunt, was in South Ossetia when the fighting broke out in Georgia. Both are supporters of the Russians and blame everything on the Georgian government.

In the next clip we seee the Russian TV version.  

Russians journalist say how "American media is engaging in information warfare against Russia". They provide an example of [how] one American interview went wrong. The voice-over in Russian makes it seem as if — when the aunt starts blaming Georgia — the interviewer starts coughing loudly to cover her comments, becomes extremely rude, and cuts her off without giving her a chance to continue. 

As we can tell by watching the original clip all of this is completely fabricated.

The Kremlin seized upon the interview as evidence that the United States was censoring criticism of Mr. Saakashvili. A Russian anchor said the guests’ treatment indicated that the United States would use “any means available” for a disinformation campaign against Russia

NYT pointed out that the man who dubs Mr. Smith’s voice in Russian not only exaggerates the anchor’s tone, but even coughs and groans loudly when Ms. Tedeeva-Korewicki blames Mr. Saakashvili for causing the conflict — something that did not happen in the original.