Politics Political Articles

Ambassador Louis ONeill Head of OSCE Mission to Moldova
Institutional Renewal and Creating Effective Mechanisms; Delivered to the Moldovan Parliament on September 19, 2007

Louis ONeill

Tags: moldova, politics, parliament, russia, speeches, government

In a world full of hot political potatoes where simply saying the wrong thing or aligning yourself with the wrong cause can seriously damage a political career it might seem that Gordon Brown the UK Prime Minister has played safe with his critism of disposable plastic bags but the plastic bag issue is just the tip of the iceberg where the big problem for society today is the consumerism that has fed it so well for the last few years. The issue of the disposable plastic bag may simply disappear with a ban on the issue of free disposable bags but the problems of the throwaway society run much deeper.

Michael Cherney the politically active Russian Oligarch who owns the Michael Cherney Foundation is trying to get a multi billion dollar lawsuit heard in Britain. Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the owner of the Russian aluminium giant Rusal is resisting Michael Cherney’s attempts by claiming that Britain has no jurisdiction over him or his company.

In order for Michael Cherney to get his case heard in a British court, his lawyers have got to convince the London judge that Britain is the appropriate forum for the determination of the claim.

This looks like being a serious problem for Michael Cherney - as this court case is rooted in the aluminium wars waged in Russia during the 1990’s. Britain has got nothing to do with this dispute - neither Michael Cherney or Oleg Deripaska live in Britain - the dispute originates thousands of miles away in Russia, and involves a Russian company.

It will be interesting to see why Michael Cherney believes London is a suitable venue for the case.

Also, if the case does proceed, then the size of the deposit that the judge orders from Michael Cherney to cover Oleg Deripaska’s costs, will be a direct indication of how the judge views the strength of Michael’s claim.

From 1941 to 2003 Alistair Cooke was the British voice in America. The most important of his reports are compiled in three volumes of the ‘Letter from America‘, great audio books and time documents.

Many Britons thought that Alistair Cooke was American, but to the Americans he was the quintessential Brit, the man who brought them the best of British television as presenter of Masterpiece Theatre. For his part, he explained, “I feel totally at home in both countries.”

Alistair Cooke impressed both audiences with his high quality work. With his unquenchable curiosity, Alistair Cooke remained for decades the consummate broadcaster, an elegant writer and a man of enormous wit and charm who made sense of the American Century.

‘Broken Ground’ a great audio novel I recently listened to: The story is about Kathe Shalk, who after living in America for many years, returns to Berlin to try to come to terms with the Berlin of her youth.

Her journey from America to the broken ground of contemporary Germany becomes an act of recovery: of lives intertwined by politics and passion, of memory and the invented self, and of Kaethes search for a daughter lost to her, now grown and living in uncompromising isolation from her mothers past and present, somewhere in vast, resurgent Berlin.

This made for highly captivating listening, the audio book - even though it’s fiction - paints a good picture of todays political landscape in Germany, the conflicts between the USA and the old world and shows how people can be caught up in this.

Good listening!

Here’s about Ukraine PM

He was cast by critics as the Russian-backed bad guy during Ukraine’s Orange Revolution two years ago, the burly politician who almost stole the presidential … Ukrainian lawmakers fire foreign and interior ministers Gulf News

Full article at: Ukraine PM 

The day before I was shunted off to boot camp, my dad (who is an ex-serviceman by the way) bid me a tear filled good bye and exhorted me to be the very best I could. I didn’t have the heart to tell him how mortified I was by the prospect of going off to boot camp. With hindsight, I probably should have wailed and begged for mercy and asked him to get me off the hook. But I didn’t have this hindsight then

Because my family and I live in Europe we cannot see all the channels that show footage of the elections going on in the US. An American friend of mine who told me yesterday that he owned a Toledo free dish network satellite TV and he can see every digital satellite channel under the sun. This gave me a great idea. These days many free hd receivers are being given away on the net so why don’t I get a Free satellite dish system myself? I just read something on the net about satellite TV in Europe and how it seems to be a growing market. People are craving for digital channels and hdtv. I just made an order and will have my dish system installed by tomorrow. Now I can finally watch Bush and his republican friends going at it on TV.

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