Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 January 2009 11:03:07
It's another New year and some things still remain the same.
Hamas followers have been firing rockets into Israel and the israeli forces are bombing Hamas targets in retaliation. To many outside it is a case of Goliath trying to crush David. Unfortunately what people forget is that the roles are reversed with David hitting back at one of Goliath's limbs. We forget that the minnow is actually Israel - it is still surrounded by countries that would like to see it wiped off the face of the earth. It's just easier for them to use Hamas to do their dirty work.
Then we have Russia, in the form of Gazprom (its state owned gas company) again cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine. This is a repeat of the situation 3 years ago when Gazprom followed the same actions. The latest is that Ukraine has repaid $1.6bn but not $615m in late fees. The payments are not made direct by via a middleman in Switzerland. Therefore the payment won't clear until 11th January.
Now they're haggling over the cost of gas.
Gazprom are an instrument of the Russian state. They are owned by the state and are used as an arm of Russia's foreign policy. Of course this is under the guise of "commercial" disputes and nothing to do with the government at all. Sounds very much like Soviet thinking to me though....