Russia set to resume European gas supplies after deal by Nick Coleman Nick Coleman – 38 mins ago
A new born baby sleeps next to an electric heater in Sofia's maternity hospital.
MOSCOW, (AFP) – Russia and Ukraine prepared on Sunday to restart gas supplies to the European Union after a deal was signed on deploying international monitors to help adjudicate in Moscow and Kiev's gas conflict.
The stage was set for a resumption of supplies by the EU's largest foreign gas provider Russia after shuttle-diplomacy by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek secured both sides' agreement to the deployment of monitors.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier said supplies to the EU could resume "immediately" after the monitors began work, although he warned Ukraine that Moscow "will not tolerate theft" of its gas.
The Russian broadsheet Kommersant said an end to the cut-off was in sight but predicted EU states would in future unite to lessen dependence on Russian gas, meaning a resurgence of nuclear power and the use of other gas sources in North Africa and Central Asia.
"From tomorrow, Gazprom's gas transit to the European Union could be renewed and the gas war will again become a propaganda one," Kommersant said.
"The EU will undoubtedly try to find ways of reducing dependence on Russian gas supplies and avoiding such crises in future," the paper said, predicting a push to develop a proposed pipeline from Central Asia known as "Nabucco."
After Moscow and Kiev's agreement to a deal, Czech Trade and Industry Minister Martin Riman said it would be possible for Russian gas flows to the EU to resume later on Sunday, although EU officials have said it could take three days to restore gas supplies to full volume.
Topolanek, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said the deployment of the monitors was "a matter of hours."
The gas crisis has taken a heavy toll on a dozen states, notably in central Europe and the Balkans, leaving thousands of homes in several countries without heat and forcing factories, schools and public facilities to close.
The text of the accord signed by Putin, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the EU was not initially made public but was thought to provide for experts from Russia, Ukraine, the EU and European energy companies to monitor the transit network through Ukraine and prevent foul play.
While Ukraine has denied Russian accusations of stealing Russian gas bound for Europe, the system is notorious for a lack of transparency and the involvement of shady middlemen with links in political circles on both sides.
Although the accord was expected to lead to a quick resumption of Russian gas flow to Europe, it did not resolve the bilateral dispute between Russia and Ukraine at the origin of the crisis.
At her press conference, Tymoshenko said: "We will try to continue negotiations with Russia through all possible channels" on a new gas contract.
Russia cut supplies to the domestic Ukrainian market on January 1 after the failure of talks on payment for gas supplies to Ukraine delivered in November and December and on payment of about half a billion dollars in fines for late payment.
Onward supplies to the EU via Ukraine were progressively reduced, with Putin ordering a full stop on January 7.
The crisis has highlighted the EU's dependence on the Soviet-built gas transit network through Ukraine for a large part of the bloc's gas needs, as well as divisions within the EU on how to deal with this.
At issue in the accord between Russia and Ukraine's leaders -- each side negotiating from their separate capitals -- was the composition of the monitoring team and Ukrainian concerns it would have a Russian bias.
Ukrainian officials earlier complained the monitoring team would be dominated by European companies with ties to Russia, such as Germany's E.ON, Italy's ENI and France's Suez.
Tymoshenko said the agreement was "harsher" on Ukraine than a prior EU draft had been.
Kommersant noted that unlike in previous gas disputes with Ukraine, Putin had overtly been in charge of Russian decision-making, with state gas officials clearly doing his bidding and President Dmitry Medvedev in a back-seat role.
Slovaks re-elect their president .. beating Iveta Radicova first female to ..
Ivan Gasparovic, Slovakia's president, has been re-elected in a runoff election, beating opposition favourite Iveta Radicova, the country's first female candidate to reach a second round runoff.
Sunday, 05 April 2009 16:19
Gasparovic won 55.33 per cent of the vote, according to final results published by the country's statistics office and due to be confirmed on Sunday.
"The Slovak citizens respect me and I didn't disappoint them - that's what decided the election," Gasparovic said after the results were announced.
"I am thankful to all the people and I promise I will always work for them."
Turnout in the election for the largely ceremonial position of president exceeded 51 per cent of Slovakia's more than four million registered voters.
'New beginning'
The figures showed that Radicova won 44.47 per cent of the vote.
The former labour, social affairs and family minister, conceded defeat and congratulated Gasparovic, but made it clear she would stay in the political arena.
"Almost one million votes - I view the support of so many people as a challenge, as a responsibility, as a new beginning," she said.
In the last few days, the campaign has centered around nationalist issues.
'Yes we can'
Radicova, who borrowed the "Yes, we can" campaign slogan of Barack Obama, the US president, won several southern regions inhabited mostly by Slovakia's Hungarian minority who make up 10 per cent of the population.
But analysts had mainly predicted that Gasparovic, who presented himself throughout his campaign as a guarantee of stability and continuity amid the global economic crisis, would win the election.
Some saw the polls as a test of support for Robert Fico, the country's prime minister, who had endorsed Gasparovic.
The president has little political power in Slovakia, where a parliamentary democracy was established in 1993, following the break up of Czechoslovakia.
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's center-right opposition GERB party said it would start coalition talks on Monday, after winning a national election that boosted the prospect of reforms in the European Union member to combat corruption and recession.
GERB won on a promise to uproot the deep-seated crime that prompted the EU last year to cut aid, capitalizing on voter anger over the Socialist-led government's failure to stem graft and prevent economic pain.
Party leader Boiko Borisov, 50, a burly Sofia mayor nicknamed Batman after the fictional superhero due to his zeal for action, said he would head the next government and reiterated his campaign promises to move fast on reforms.
"Those who have stolen should be very afraid ... The thieves will go to jail," Borisov, a former bodyguard, told reporters.
A new government must quickly tackle the judiciary and economic policy to avoid new EU sanctions on aid, badly needed to fund Bulgaria's cash-strapped economy, and to attract investors, many of whom fled this year.
This is likely to include starting loan talks with the International Monetary Fund and slashing government spending.
Borisov was quick to reassure investors that "updating the budget was the first thing" his government would do, addressing concerns that Bulgaria might endanger its currency board regime by turning to a public deficit after years of surpluses.
Nearly complete results showed Borisov's GERB -- Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria -- won 39.7 percent of the proportional vote compared with 17.7 percent for the Socialists.
GERB also won 26 additional seats in the 240-member legislature in a vote for a total of 31 mandates distributed separately, the results showed. Exit polls showed GERB might get a total of about 120 seats, one seat short of clear majority.
The ex-communist nation of 7.6 million, which joined the European Union in 2007 and is the bloc's poorest member, last year lost access to over half a billion euros ($700 million) in EU funds as punishment for graft.
CHRONIC PROBLEMS
GERB's better-than-expected election result, which topped opinion surveys by 10 percentage points, alleviates concerns that protracted coalition talks could water down reform plans.
"A swift formation of a new government would undoubtedly be well received by investors," Danske Bank said in a research note.
Observers said GERB was likely to strike a deal with a grouping of rightist parties, the Blue Coalition, which is poised to win about 16 seats.
Some said Borisov lacks a track record of government work and his programme needs concrete policy plans, but they say he appears to have the political will for change. Continued...
"The results showed a complete collapse of the ruling parties," said Rumiana Kolarova from Sofia University.
After 12 years of growth, Bulgaria is in recession and rising unemployment is ending years of voracious private spending that has fueled debt.
The economy is seen shrinking by two percent in 2009 and foreign direct investment vital for the economy is expected to halve this year.
Months of pre-election spending by the Socialists also threaten to create a budget deficit that could deplete the country's hard currency reserves and undermine the lev's peg to the euro.
(Reporting by Sofia bureau, Writing by Justyna Pawlak; editing by Jason Neely)
VILNIUS (Reuters) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a secret prison in Lithuania where al Qaeda suspects may have been held, a parliamentary probe in the Baltic state found on Tuesday.
The head of Lithuania's domestic intelligence agency has already resigned as speculation about secret jails has intensified.
U.S. broadcaster ABC News reported in August that Lithuania was the third European country, after Poland and Romania, believed to host secret CIA jails
Some CIA staff are reported to have said the use of overseas detention centres was designed to circumvent U.S. law.
Arvydas Anusauskas, the head of parliament's national security and defense committee, said the investigation found Lithuanian intelligence opened two detention centres in cooperation with the CIA.
"There were facilities, there were possibilities, there were (CIA) planes, though we can't know what was on board ... Therefore such a possibility exists," he said, when asked whether any CIA detainees were held in Lithuania.
Top officials were not informed about the jails, and there was no political approval, he said.
Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said it was "a matter of great concern" that such infrastructure existed and that it could be possible to detain suspected terrorists without government control.
In a statement, he said he expected good relations with the United States to continue, but that a strategic partnership could not be an excuse for "Soviet methods, ignoring civilian control of the special services and in breach of existing laws."
ABC News said a secret CIA prison operated near Vilnius airport from early 2004 to late 2005 and that CIA planes flew into Lithuania with top level al Qaeda suspects.
Anusauskas told a news conference that CIA flights entered Lithuania but were not inspected, and it had not been possible to determine who had been on board.
The investigation was the second into the secret jail allegations, demanded by President Dalia Grybauskaite after an earlier probe found no evidence.
"It (the investigation) only proves suspicions she had for some time that there were premises designed for detention and there were flights which could have been used for transporting prisoners," said the president's spokesman, Linas Balsys.
"The president has no doubts that bilateral Lithuania-U.S. relationship cannot be overshadowed by these conclusions."
Last week, Grybauskaite said she had ordered the recall of Lithuania's ambassador to Georgia, Mecys Llaurinkus, who led the state security department from June 1998 until April 2004.
The investigation found that five planes linked to the CIA landed in Lithuania in 2003-2006, and that domestic intelligence officials prevented customs and border guards inspecting them.
The U.S. Embassy in Vilnius declined to comment, saying it was U.S. policy not to comment on intelligence matters.
For those interested in more see 'blueness', Daily Kos .. here is a little ..
Adamkus, the denier, served as Lithuania’s president during the period that his nation cooperated with the CIA, from 1998 through 2003, and again from 2004 to 2009.
Adamkus exiled himself from Lithuania for 54 years, from 1944 until 1998. During most of that time he lived in the United States, where he served in military intelligence in the US Army, and was later appointed to a high position in the Environmental Protection Agency by President Ronald Reagan. Adamkus was long a Republican Party activist.
When he returned to Lithuania, in order to run for president, there was some question as to whether Adamkus was even eligible for the office, since his 50-plus years abroad didn’t seem to fulfill the necessary residency requirements. However, a compliant court swept such objections aside, Adamkus trotted down to the US embassy in Vilnius to renounce his US citizenship, and the job was his.
Adamkus’ year away from the presidency was occasioned by the victory of former Communist and unreconstructed lefty Rolandas Paksas, who unexpectedly defeated Adamkus when the latter sought re-election in 2003. Paksas spent but a year as president before he was impeached and removed from office, after having been accused of being too cozy with the Russians. In the subsequent election to replace him, Adamkus returned to the presidency.
In the wake of the Seimas report, Paksas now asserts that his impeachment was orchestrated by the US, because he balked at the notion of siting secret CIA prisons in his country.
“When I was president, I knew that there were people who wanted to bring terror suspects to Lithuania. I think that my principal disagreement to do this led to the subsequent anti-presidential campaign and impeachment,” Paksas says.
Paksas said that in spring 2003, the then-head of Lithuania’s State Security Department, Megys Laurinkus, asked him if it were possible to bring some US terror suspects to the country unofficially, Kommersant newspaper reports. In doing so, Laurinkus hinted that a positive answer would help foreign partners.
Paksas said he refused to agree. Half a year later, he was accused of a tight connection with a Russian entrepreneur, Yury Borisov, and illegally granting him Lithuanian citizenship in exchange for sponsorship of his presidential campaign. In April 2004 the country’s parliament voted for President Paksas’ impeachment.
Megys Laurinkus confirms the fact of his conversation with Rolandas Paksas.
“I informed Mr. Paksas about the present situation and about the possibility of such a request which could be received by Lithuania,” he said.
However, Laurinkus now claims his request was “hypothetical.”
Lithuania had previously opened two inquiries into the prison allegations, but both times legislators concluded there was no evidence.
However, this past August, ABC News filed an unusually detailed report asserting that the prisons were fact, and that Lithuania had agreed to host them “because it wanted better relations with the US.” George II in 2004 was supporting Lithuania’s bid to join NATO; “[t]he new members of NATO were so grateful for the US role in getting them into that organization,” says former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, “that they would do anything the US asked for during that period.”
Then, in October of last year, President Grybauskaite said she had “indirect suspicions” that the ABC report might be true, and urged parliament to investigate more thoroughly.
Former president Adamkus, today a denier, stated last November that “if this actually did occur, and it is grounded with proof, we have to apologize to the international community that something like this went down in Lithuania. And those who did it in my eyes are criminals.”
Dainius Zalimas, a legal adviser to the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, said the existence of a covert prison would violate both Lithuanian statutes and international human rights conventions that the government signed. If firm evidence is gathered by the Parliament, he said, prosecutors would be obliged to open a case and could target both Lithuanian and US officials. ”From a legal point of view, it would mean that Lithuania, along with the United States, was contributing to quite serious violations of human rights,” said Zalimas.
It is this sort of prosecution that President Grybauskaite seemed Wednesday to urge upon her nation’s prosecutors.
The Seimas inquiry, perhaps taking its cue from various feckless US Congressional investigations, did not possess subpoena power, and was not empowered to pursue any mendacious witnesses on perjury charges. Nonetheless, it interviewed some 50 people, including former presidents Adamkus and Paksas, and concluded that both the black sites and “a logistics system for secret detention existed.” http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/17/825688/-This-Never-Happened
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