Going offline for a few days

New apartment,no DSL. And of course the ISPs got a backlog of DSL orders keeping them busy for the next year ,as it is. We'll see how it goes.

The Economist in/on North Korea

Apparently covering the unrest in Zimbabwe from the middle of things wasnt hard enough case. So this time it's North Korea.
Hard to say what's exactly going on, but something's happening with their economy (Government driven,obviously, in the orthodox Stalinist fashion). But what's interesting is why it's happening. In any case it looks like they're running onto the "glass ceiling" of communism big time: The one thing it doesnt do is to encourage efficiency. Famines tend be bad policies, even in autocratic states already riddled with poverty.

Let's end this one with a Solzhenitsyn quote: "You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power -- he's free again."

US,Bush,Trade Promotion Authority

Washington Post details the compromise reached on the TPA bill. On the plus side, the poison pill amendment dealing with trade remedy laws was dropped, a particularly relevant topic since the anti-dumping measures and legislation worldwide is going to be on the agenda in any major trade negotiations. In any case, it should get US trade agenda moving and gives the administration some credibility, as it's regarded as waste of time to negotiatiate anything with the US if it's going to get picked apart in the congress. TPA obviously helps in getting around the "It may be good for the country but it's not good for my district..." syndrome.

Neverthless,interesting to see how it goes, maneuvering into any kind of position to take charge of trade negotiations is going to take a lot of work and creativity after the steel tariffs and agricultural subsidies (mostly with the third world. EU and Japan massively subsidize their own agriculture and they're significantly better positioned to take care of their own interests with US policies than rest of the world,anyway). And of course there's always overcoming the "Do as I say,not as I do" factor.

Local news: Telecoms

Sonera (and their partner,Telefonica of Spain) pulled back from the 3G mobile network race in Germany. For Sonera, it meant in essence a €4.3 billion writedown, and the UMTS licenses are essentially considered zero-value assets now. -FT

Commentary on Kesher Talk

Some noteworthy commentary on the situation in France on Kesher Talk. A worthwile read, go check it out.

The obligatory snappy soundbyte:
"When a synagogue is firebombed on Yom Kippur, it is absurd to claim that it doesn't constitute a hate crime because the attackers failed to spray paint the words 'Death to the Jews' on the temple's wall." -Nicolas Sarkozy (interior minister of France).

Iran,Poland,Analogies.

Daniel Pipes comes up with an interesting analogy related to the public resignation of Ayatollah Taheri (And his scathing criticism of the hardliners): How well does the influential religious figures turning against the Islamic regime compare to workers turning against the "worker's paradise"(Solidarity movement,etc.)?

Helsinki car bomb,part deux

New tidbits:
- The bomb was triggered by remote, in this case the sort used in battery driven toy cars.
- The remote control used for was found in a car which was sitting next to the blown up car when it went off. Frequency interference is one of the reasons under study.
- The person arrested in the case was driving the car where the police found the remote. Turns out the victim's neighbours had spotted him following the victim around,as well.

Or to sum up, the car bomb was an unusually spectacular murder and a second assassination attempt against the same victim (the previous one in december,a shooting. For his own reasons the victim didn't co-operate with the police) , the technical weaknesses in the bomb led to a situation where the controller was right next to the victim's car to trigger it, or then the bomb triggered on it's from frequency interference. In any case,the location the bomb went off (some 200m from the Helsinki Synagogue) was a coincidence, and the incident on the whole was indeed unconnected to what's happening in rest of the world (aside from potentially drug trade).

Another giant squid washed ashore

Random nature news of the day: A CNN story about another architeutis found in Tasmania. This one weighed roughly 250 kg and was about 18 meters long (mostly tentacles). A mild oddity in the article was the implied comment the squid actually hunt/eat whales.A newborn sperm whale calf weighs four times as much as the recent specimen,a female sperm whale some 40 times,and a male 100+. On the other hand,those squid beaks don't get digested,so they've been found in the stomachs of dead whales. Sounds more plausible explanation that whales hunt them than vice versa. (that said, there's a lot of variety between whale species).

Daddy, I wanna grow up to be an IP addy salesman..

%&#¤* ripoff. 50€/month for a block of 8. Sounds like the career of the future (at least until v6 sinks 'em).

Les woodstockians & Co. IHT details the shifting landscape of European politics

An interesting article by IHT on the emerging consensus in Europe about the need for increased ability to project "hard power" on it's own if need be.

"Pascal Lamy, the European Union trade commissioner, thinks Kagan has it right: "Stop pretending that the United States and Europe share a common view of the world, recognize we have different world views and interests, and then manage our relations." (referring to Robert Kagan's article "Power and Weakness").

From the good news dept:

No more Error 503's from Blogger. Just resaved both the normal and the archive templates and published. Worked like it should.

Taiwan,submarines

It's a rocky road to acquire any advanced weaponry if you have a major power pressuring potential sellers: Financial Times details the saga of the submarines for Taiwan (Basicly a case of US pledging to deliver Taiwan submarines it didn't manufacture without bothering asking about it from anyone who does, and what happened then).

Steel tariff exemptions,part n+1

And here we go again. The commission deadline on those sanctions was approaching, and so the Bush administration exempted another 76,000 tonnes of steel products from the tariffs. Sayeth Pascal Lamy: "Right now, the EU interest is best served by maintaining maximum pressure on the US to deliver a meaningful rebalancing package. The US has taken useful steps in that direction and has told us there is more to come". If I had to make a bet those exemptions will flood in after the elections (at least if GOP gains), more beneficial to both sides, there's already enough on the table to sink the Doha round a couple times over without adding to it (like one Australian study put it, both EU and US know perfectly well no WTO round is going to go anywhere without them supporting it,and it shows).

In any case, like the Financial Times puts it: "A definitive settlement will hinge on whether the US can exempt by its August 31 deadline enough further imports to satisfy the EU."

Random Quote: French on Immigration

"Don't forget, an official of the Quai d'Orsay said this week, that we were the ones who created the Statue of Liberty, which embodies freedom and the call to all the hungry and oppressed of the world - and we installed it in America, not here."

Random Quote

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain of its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old condition and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new..."

- Niccolo Machiavelli.

Transatlantic business experiments: DaimlerChrysler finally turning around

Chrysler's back in black, says Detroit News. Expected operating profits for 2002 for all of DaimlerChrysler are in the 4 billion USD range, revised upwards from 2.7.

And from the "couldnt resist" department, a joke that's been making rounds here: "How do you pronounce DaimlerChrysler in German? - Daimler. The Chrysler is silent."

Steel Tariffs: Exemptions

Washington Post: Too little,too late says the EU commission. So far those exemptions affect only 10% of the EU exports,which just won't do according to the commission. The trade commissioner Pascal Lamy will recommend whether to proceed with sanctions on August 1st. All in all, makes for an interesting balancing act for Bush administration, juggling between interests of local steel producers and the already verified EU sanction list which is the proverbial shot across the bow of the GOP (seeing as how it's tailored to put maximum hurt on republicans for smallest amount of actual economic damage. Countering steel tariffs with tariffs on fountain pens, pool tables,citrus fruit and whatnot). Additionally, WTO issued a ruling against the US legislation for handing out anti-dumping duties to the companies affected (And yet again,it's the steel industry's fingerprints all over that particular law as well).

Realpolitik: No state for Iraqi Kurds, says Paul Wolfowitz

Washington Post reports on the results of Wolfowitz's support rallying tour in Turkey, among them the snippet about US stance towards keeping Iraq in one piece. I suppose that'd be part of the price for Turkey's cooperation,they don't want to see a Kurdish state on their southeastern border in the worst way, and their territory is rather important as a launching pad for any invasion into Iraq. Not something unexpected, in any case.

When things could get really interesting would be if Kurds tried to create their state regardless in the ensuing confusion of the campaign working on breaking down Iraqi infrastructure, both physical and administrative, particularly in terms of how Turkey would react (like,would it turn them from "liberators of Iraqis into conqueror of Kurds"? And what would be the US take on it. Particularly if it happens they got sizable formations inland, supplied through Turkey and more so, Kurdish territory in southern Turkey and northern Iraq.).

A car bomb in Helsinki city center

The car blew up at 6:50 am this morning, killing it's driver and wrecking the car. The preliminary information indicates the driver was a Finnish citizen of Finnish descent,says Helsingin Sanomat (in finnish). Ha'aretz also notes the location was approximately 200 meters away from the Helsinki synagogue (though not on the same street, with several blocks in between). The police reports that the incident is investigated as a murder initially (with the driver being the victim,obviously),as well as that the police were "familiar with" the victim from an unrelated case.
The photo from Helsingin Sanomat,taken by an Italian tourist from her hotel room

Update (16:23, July 17th). Turns out the victim of the bomb attack was also the target of an assassination attempt in early December, got shot up pretty badly. Looking increasingly unlikely there was any kind of political motivation behind the bombing.

Update (01:52, July 18th). More in Helsingin Sanomat. Turns out the victim had also a track record of "minor drug conviction" as well as assault/battery/etc. conviction. Right now the investigation is focusing on connection with illegal drugs and possible drug debts. Also one suspect has been arrested.

Finally..

Blogger was out of contact for a couple of days for me, probably due to the KPNQwest core shutting down or something. But here we are again, alive & posting. Now.. if only I got rid of that Error 503 from Blogger, things would be downright good.

Liquefied natural gas: A Shell-led group still planning to build a LNG plant on Sakhalin

An article in the Moscow Times details the recent developments in the plans to build the world's largest liquefied natural gas plant on Sakhalin in the Russian Far East. While the project still lacks commitments from buyers,the group believes the demand in the region will materialize (in the Pacific Rim. US West Coast, Japan,Coastal China,etc.). Among the more obvious advantages of the project is it's location: the distance to Tokyo is less than 2000 kilometers, one sixth of the distance to Persian Gulf.

Espionage: William Safire hands out "Golden Cloak and Dagger Awards"

Go read it out,a modestly entertaining article on the various intellegence agencies.

Synthetic polio viruses

An article in IHT details the results of an interesting experiment: A group of New York researchers created functional polio viruses from "off the shelf" components. What's remarkable in the project is that they did not use any pre-existing original polio viruses, rather their versions of it were assembled from "off the shelf" snippets of DNA ordered from an Iowa company which were merged to create the complete genome in DNA form,and then that was turned into the RNA of the virus. And finally, the whole thing was tossed into a soup of required ingredients and the RNA did what it does in nature,encodes proteins which form the structure of the virus,among other things. And the result was synthetic viruses which were experimented with and proven to cause the disease in mice.
Among the implications the article points out is that if the process turns out to work with other viruses, it means they will never be truly extinct as only their sequenced genome is needed (that is,information you can,say,mail out as an e-mail attachment) to recreate them. (Unsurprisingly,smallpox was referred to, though it is a more complex virus).

More on Iran: Spent nuclear fuel will not stay in Iran,say the Russians

"The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said work is under way on a supplementary agreement that will ensure in writing Iran's commitment to return spent fuel from the Bushehr civilian nuclear power plant. They added that Teheran has consented to these terms.", says the Moscow Times. That said,even if the Bushehr reactor turned out to be used for civilian purposes,the knowledge about nuclear fuel cycles will still get transferred,as the article points out.

Iran bond launched

Says Financial Times. 53% of the issue went to middle-east , 42% into Europe and rest into Asia. The planned €500 million was raised.

Iran,bond offering

a Financial Times article dated july 5th says Iran plans to proceed with it's eurobond offering this week, with the aim of raising at least €500 million. The governor of the central bank of Iran who is interviewed in the article notes that the bond is mostly intended to serve as an introduction and pave way for corporate offerings (Iran turns in a budget surplus and has more reserves than outstanding debt).

New blog links

This time, Vegard Valberg, a Norwegian blogger. Among his better posts: Diplomacy 101 , and others (go see). You might also want to notice this one's a fellow who's complaining about nobody flaming him yet,despite his best efforts to spread insults around.

New angles on old news: Russians find solace in Enron,says The Moscow Times

"After the U.S. financial scandals surrounding Enron, WorldCom and Xerox, a number of Russians are feeling a sense of affirmation that their graft-riddled corporate culture is no worse than that in the West." ...
"I have already heard a lot of people saying: "Look how bad America is, why do we need to improve ourselves?'" said William Browder, head of Hermitage Capital Management"
Among other interesting notions are complaints about "US overregulation" and "overly complicated" rules concerning running businesses.

And then there's the more realistic view, among points made:
- Russian accounting standards arent yet high enough it'd be much of a fall to land from there to Enron level.
- Stock prices are valued accordingly,the fraud risk built into the prices is keeping them low. Ie. in US companies for the most part are valued as if everything is clean until proven otherwise, in Russia they're not even assumed to be clean (by US or EU standards),and dont have much in the way of opportunities to prove otherwise.

Russian oil shipment arrives in Texas

The Moscow Times reports on a new development in Russian oil exports: A tanker on contract with the Yukos delivered it's cargo of 200 000 metric tons of oil to Houston port. The shipment is the first one directly from Russia to the United States,and first of the 5 or 6 planned for this year. Yukos annonced the plan for oil shipments into US after a summit where Bush and Putin signed an energy cooperation statement, and the plan is now moving into execution.

In local news: A base of the Greek terrorist organization November 17th found

Helsingin Sanomat reports(an AP wire news) the Greek police have found an arms cache and a safe house of the November 17th terrorist organization, the location is believed to be the HQ of the organization. Among the finds were "a significant amount" of weapons used by the organization,documents related to it's operation and the organization's flag. 22 people have died in the attacks organized by the group since 1975.

Moscow Times,Reuters: Statistics and Oil Exports to Cuba

The article explains the backgrounds of the counterintuitive 150 000 barrels per day export drop indicated by Russian ministry statistics. Turns out the Russian government discreetly ignored the 200 000 barrels per day allocation (to state oil companies Rosneft and Zarubezhneft) for funding the shutting down of the cold war era Lourdes base in Cuba, and in fact the exports increased in June (the period covered in the statistics) setting the total export shipments at 2.74 million bpd.

In local news: EU, genetically modified organisms,labeling

Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat reports (in finnish. link for reference and for those brave souls who actually found a translation engine capable of doing finnish somewhere) on an european parliament vote in Strasbourg earlier today (3.7.2002). The result being 305 for,207 against and 40 abstains in the vote to require GMO foodstuffs to carry a label if GMO ingredients were used in the manufacturing, including ones like vegetable oils which dont contain GMO traces even if the original ingredients contained them.

The current proposal which just got approved will still need to endure a couple rounds through the bureucratic grind: first with the ministers of EU countries,and then another round in the parliament. The issue is also noteworthy for being one of the more longerstanding and economically important ones in the trade spats between US and EU, with US opposing the labeling.

Russian economy: "Bush's legs" ,small business and the Kursk

Russia will not compromise on safety and hygiene stands on poultry, says agriculture minister Alexei Gordeyev. What this means in practice is that if no middle ground is found, Russia will renew it's ban on poultry impors from the US on August 1st , hitting a sector of trade which amounted to 640 million USD in 2001 (from US alone, making Russia the biggest importer of US poultry products). -The Moscow Times

In other news: the number of small businesses in Russia is increasing, though both their relative numbers and efficiency are still behind European numbers. Also, the Duma passed new legislation easing up the taxation on small businesses with revenues less than 477 thousand USD. The study was authored by EU commission,a Russian ministry and TACIS (the EU aid program for former CIS countries). -The Moscow Times

And finally: on the Kursk incident. According to the Moscow Times (yes,again), the commission investigating the disaster has published it's findings: What sank Kursk was an explosion of torpedo fuel. So no collisions with sinister US submarines (unlike the early navy knee-jerk reaction went),no WW2 mines, just plain old fashioned technical malfunction causing a chain reaction.

EU presidency switch,Israel

Denmark takes over the EU presidency on July 1st. So far it looks like the biggest items on the agenda are related mostly to the EU expansion, including taking a harder stance with the expansion schedule: Basicly, the countries which can't conclude their negotiations by the Copenhagen summit in December need not bother until 2007. Mostly this seems to be understood as directed to Poland who are still in the process of haggling over their membership conditions. In other news, the Danish PM who will be in charge of the circus for next six months seems to support the Arafat ouster, according to the Jerusalem Post. The quote sums it up nicely: "Rasmussen, in an interview with a Danish newspaper, said that since Arafat either can't or won't put an end to suicide bombings, there is a need for a Palestinian leadership that will."

G-8 Summit from a Russian angle

Interestingly,the summit nominally supposed to handle the question of Africa ended up with Russia being the big winner,scoring up a 20 billion USD package to handle their decaying weapons stockpiles, both to secure existing ones and get rid of some potential hazards like the decaying northern fleet with it's collection of obsolete nuclear subs and the like. On the whole, Russian media seems to have greeted the results as an overall success: G-7 became G-8, and Russia secured it's place at the table in addition to the aforementioned aid package. A mildly triumphalist article by Russia Journal analyses the results.
In other news from the summit, a comment attributed to Gerhard Schröder, the Chancellor of Germany, handled the issue of Arafat and Palestine reforms. The substance of the comment was that while it may turn out Arafat gets re-elected, there's a wide base of support for democratization of the regime in the real sense (that is, even a re-elected Arafat is expected to behave like he was elected).

Cesium Flavored Berries

More than half a ton of berries contaminated by radioactivity have been seized at markets in Moscow this month, says Russia Journal. What's significant is the origin of the berries: Western part of Belarus , an area heavily contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (Some 16 years ago,in other words.And still going strong).