EU's small steps towards Ukraine

If only the EU finally woke up. But no, one small step at the time. Meanwhile, Russia is moving much quicker in getting back the Soviet-style influence and domination upon countries like Ukraine.

During his visit to Berlin, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said that he has no doubts that one day his country will join the EU. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the EU's rotating Presidency, said she endorses a close cooperation agreement with Ukraine and when this will be implemented "we'll see how we will go further".
Is it so hard to say "yes, one day you will join, but you first have to meet all the criteria"?
At least NATO should move faster. On Saturday,Yushchenko is to attend the Conference on Security Policy in Munich. He is expected to meet with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. And to be given a perspective for his country to join NATO.

Go Sarkozy!

French Interior Minister and presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy defended "Charlie Hebdo", a French weekly sued for publishing the (in)famous Mohammad cartoons. "I prefer too many caricatures to an absence of caricature" said Sarkozy in a letter read out by "Charlie Hebdo's" lawyer in the Paris court where the case is being heard.

soros funds EU common foreign policy

Great news for the Euro-federalists. Liberal finance-guru George Soros announced on Saturday in Davos that he's planning on spending between $450 and $500 million on civil society projects this year. His new projects aim to promote a "common European foreign policy" and also to study the integration of Muslims in eleven European cities.

It's still a mystery how this common foreign policy will look like, with 27 different member states - the old ones prominently anti-American and fond of Russia, as opposed to most of the new EU members from Eastern Europe.

georgia and the soviet nukes

Remember last week when Georgia announced it arrested a Russian who tried to sell weapons-grade uranium to Georgian government agents?
Well, there's an encouraging follow-up to that.
Yesterday, Georgia and the US have signed an agreement to cooperate in the fight against the smuggling of nuclear and radioactive materials. Under the accord, the US will provide Georgian experts with equipment and training to help combat nuclear smuggling.
Let's see how Moscow will react to that.

Why NATO isn't working properly

When even the NATO Secretary General admits it publicly, why further pretend that the Alliance is working properly? With countries like France or Belgium who fear the "American influence" more than the Muslim terrorists or the energy and political dependency on Russia - where is the EU heading?

"Some deliberately want to keep NATO and the EU at a distance from one another. For this school of thought, a closer relationship between NATO and the EU means excessive influence for the USA. I do not share European instinctive fears about undue influence of the USA in European affairs anyhow. Europe is sufficiently self-aware – and they know it in Washington too," Jaap De Hoop Scheffer.

Irussia

Just a little reminder..who are the 5 permanent members (with veto-right) in the UN Security Council?
USA
UK
France
Russia
China
Ok, now what are the chances of the UN to REALLY take some measures against Iran's obvious nuclear activities? That's right. Zero. Russia, for instance, announced to be interested in a "a gas OPEC". Putin's statement came just days after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly called on a visiting Kremlin official to establish a group of natural-gas producers similar to OPEC. Russia and Iran are the world's largest and second-largest holders of gas reserves. All clear?

good ol' chirac

Hmm...remember France? and all the jokes about their consistency and courage during wartime? This is not a joke. This is for real.

Speaking to the New York Times, IHT and Nouvel Observateur journalists, monsieur Chirac said this: "Having one [atomic bomb], maybe a second one a little later, well, that's not very dangerous. Where will [Iran] drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground." His aides quickly realized their man had committed the gaffe of saying what everyone thought he really believed, and so left out those passages from an official interview transcript. The journalists also got a return call from the president on Tuesday, in which he noted that "I should have paid better attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record."

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 2, 2007, page A18.