Russia and Serbia have signed a controversial energy deal that will hand Russian gas giant Gazprom control of NIS, Serbia's oil monopoly. Under the deal, Gazprom is to build a gas pipeline through Serbia and an underground gas storage facility there. Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and his Serbian counterpart Boris Tadic signed the agreement in Moscow. The plan is for Serbia to host part of a new pipeline called South Stream, to deliver Russian gas to southern Europe. Gazprom is taking a 51% stake in NIS for 400m euros (£380m; $560m), officials say.
Russia and Serbia have signed a controversial energy deal that will hand Russian gas giant Gazprom control of NIS, Serbia's oil monopoly.
Under the deal, Gazprom is to build a gas pipeline through Serbia and an underground gas storage facility there.
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and his Serbian counterpart Boris Tadic signed the agreement in Moscow.
The plan is for Serbia to host part of a new pipeline called South Stream, to deliver Russian gas to southern Europe.
Gazprom is taking a 51% stake in NIS for 400m euros (£380m; $560m), officials say.
The news, if confirmed, may irk Germany's neighbors in Europe. Newspapers are claiming the second economic stimulus package due to be unveiled next month will total just €25 billion rather than the originally planned €40 billion because Germany doesn't want to give other nations an excuse to breach deficit rules. Clouds loom over the port of Hamburg: Germany's giant economy is expected to fall into recession next year. Germany's second economic stimulus package due to be unveiled in January will be far smaller than initially discussed because the government doesn't want to give other European Union countries an excuse to break EU deficit rules, two German newspapers reported on Wednesday. Reports in Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau said the new program to avert recession would amount to €25 billion ($34.9 billion) compared with the figure of €40 billion initially discussed. The finance minister of the regional state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Ingolf Deubel, confirmed the figure of €25 billion in an interview with the Rhein-Zeitung newspaper following a meeting of regional government representatives with Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Thomas de Mazière, in Berlin on Tuesday.
The news, if confirmed, may irk Germany's neighbors in Europe. Newspapers are claiming the second economic stimulus package due to be unveiled next month will total just €25 billion rather than the originally planned €40 billion because Germany doesn't want to give other nations an excuse to breach deficit rules.
Clouds loom over the port of Hamburg: Germany's giant economy is expected to fall into recession next year.
Germany's second economic stimulus package due to be unveiled in January will be far smaller than initially discussed because the government doesn't want to give other European Union countries an excuse to break EU deficit rules, two German newspapers reported on Wednesday.
Reports in Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau said the new program to avert recession would amount to €25 billion ($34.9 billion) compared with the figure of €40 billion initially discussed.
The finance minister of the regional state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Ingolf Deubel, confirmed the figure of €25 billion in an interview with the Rhein-Zeitung newspaper following a meeting of regional government representatives with Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Thomas de Mazière, in Berlin on Tuesday.
Clouds loom over the port of Hamburg
don't worry, Crazy Horse isn't far way. keep to the Fen Causeway
Advertisement A village in Germany is pioneering a method of saving energy and reducing carbon emissions by switching off the street lights at night. But local residents can use their mobile phones to turn the street lights back on again for 15-minute periods whenever they want. Steve Rosenberg visited Doerentrup in north-west Germany to see how it works.
A village in Germany is pioneering a method of saving energy and reducing carbon emissions by switching off the street lights at night.
But local residents can use their mobile phones to turn the street lights back on again for 15-minute periods whenever they want.
Steve Rosenberg visited Doerentrup in north-west Germany to see how it works.
The era of cheap gas is coming to an end, Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has told ministers from the world's major gas-exporting countries. Mr Putin said the cost of extracting gas was rising sharply, therefore "the era of cheap energy resources, of cheap gas, is of course coming to an end". The Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) meeting in Moscow has agreed a charter and plans for a permanent base. Some observers say the GECF may develop into an Opec-style producers' cartel. This speculation increased with the news that the charter had been adopted and that GECF leaders had agreed to establish permanent offices in Doha, Qatar.
The era of cheap gas is coming to an end, Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has told ministers from the world's major gas-exporting countries.
Mr Putin said the cost of extracting gas was rising sharply, therefore "the era of cheap energy resources, of cheap gas, is of course coming to an end".
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) meeting in Moscow has agreed a charter and plans for a permanent base.
Some observers say the GECF may develop into an Opec-style producers' cartel.
This speculation increased with the news that the charter had been adopted and that GECF leaders had agreed to establish permanent offices in Doha, Qatar.
The rail industry, the Government and regulators were engaged in a farcical blame game last night over who is responsible for Britain's annual 58-hour Christmas railway shut down, which begins tonight. Train operating companies said yesterday that they would be ready to introduce services from next year but blamed the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) for not co-ordinating an agreement. Atoc, however, said it was prepared to take part in meetings with Network Rail and the Government to discuss a new Christmas timetable, but it blamed the Government for failing to co-ordinate talks. Meanwhile, the Government has laid the blame at the door of individual operators, which it says are the only ones who can act to introduce the services. The failure to act has led to another Christmas in which anyone wanting to travel on Boxing Day will be stranded. It comes a year after pledges from Iain Coucher, the chief executive of Network Rail, that action would be taken after an identical closure last year. "We now need to run railways every single day of the week. We need to run them on Christmas Days and Boxing Days," he said in January. Major train services will stop running at 8pm this evening and will not begin again until 6am on Saturday, despite a full programme of football fixtures on Boxing Day, as well as the high street sales. Football supporters alone will add tens of thousands of cars to the nation's roads on Boxing Day. However, the Government had been aiming to cut emissions from traffic severely to meet its target of cutting carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
The rail industry, the Government and regulators were engaged in a farcical blame game last night over who is responsible for Britain's annual 58-hour Christmas railway shut down, which begins tonight.
Train operating companies said yesterday that they would be ready to introduce services from next year but blamed the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) for not co-ordinating an agreement. Atoc, however, said it was prepared to take part in meetings with Network Rail and the Government to discuss a new Christmas timetable, but it blamed the Government for failing to co-ordinate talks. Meanwhile, the Government has laid the blame at the door of individual operators, which it says are the only ones who can act to introduce the services.
The failure to act has led to another Christmas in which anyone wanting to travel on Boxing Day will be stranded. It comes a year after pledges from Iain Coucher, the chief executive of Network Rail, that action would be taken after an identical closure last year. "We now need to run railways every single day of the week. We need to run them on Christmas Days and Boxing Days," he said in January. Major train services will stop running at 8pm this evening and will not begin again until 6am on Saturday, despite a full programme of football fixtures on Boxing Day, as well as the high street sales. Football supporters alone will add tens of thousands of cars to the nation's roads on Boxing Day. However, the Government had been aiming to cut emissions from traffic severely to meet its target of cutting carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
Of course, the question as to why there are no trains over this period is a differnet thing entirely. The fact is that trains are not regarded as infrastructure, not regarded as an essential service. Government here is in the business of abdication of responsibility, so trains are run for profit and they don't run when profit is hard to realise. keep to the Fen Causeway
What's farcical here is the lack of responsibility for this. In the wonderful free market privatised railway no one is responsible for anything, least of all a NuLab government which promised renationalisation, or a civil service which doesn't like trains much.
Bad PR for rail is good news for Whitehall, if only because of default passive aggression.
Travellers barely count in this soap opera.
The German government whipped its €480 billion bank bailout package through parliament in record time, but now the program has run into trouble. The banks are still fighting for survival, the money market isn't functioning properly, and taxpayers' money is being burned. Who knows Claudia Hillenherms? Almost no one, and yet, for some time now, she has been one of the most powerful women in Germany. To reach Ms. Hillenherms, one has to pass through a thick, heavy steel door. The painters have left their paint buckets standing in the stairwell of the historic building that belongs to Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank. Everything there smells new and seems temporary.
The German government whipped its €480 billion bank bailout package through parliament in record time, but now the program has run into trouble. The banks are still fighting for survival, the money market isn't functioning properly, and taxpayers' money is being burned.
Who knows Claudia Hillenherms? Almost no one, and yet, for some time now, she has been one of the most powerful women in Germany.
To reach Ms. Hillenherms, one has to pass through a thick, heavy steel door. The painters have left their paint buckets standing in the stairwell of the historic building that belongs to Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank. Everything there smells new and seems temporary.
A growing number of European Union countries are reportedly interested in helping US President-elect Obama meet his promises to close Guantanamo Bay by taking in inmates from the controversial detention camp. Throughout his campaign, US President-elect Barack Obama promised to shutter the controversial military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And as his inauguration day draws nearer, European countries are trying to find ways to help him keep that promise. One especially difficult question Obama faces is what to do with those inmates who have been determined to pose no threat but who would face persecution and possibly torture if returned to their home country. That's where a half-dozen EU nations would now like to step in, according to a new report in The Washington Post.
Throughout his campaign, US President-elect Barack Obama promised to shutter the controversial military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And as his inauguration day draws nearer, European countries are trying to find ways to help him keep that promise.
One especially difficult question Obama faces is what to do with those inmates who have been determined to pose no threat but who would face persecution and possibly torture if returned to their home country. That's where a half-dozen EU nations would now like to step in, according to a new report in The Washington Post.
As an independent state emerged here after 47 years of Soviet rule, a jovial, meticulous police official named Herman Simm was promoted again and again. By 2001, he occupied a post that satisfied his fascination with secrets: As chief of the National Security Authority, his job was to secure all classified communication between Estonia and its allies.
Helsinki has always had a generous allocation of spies of all sorts: military, industrial, political - witness the size of the Russian and US Embassies and staffs. Nobel peace man, former President Ahtisaari, could not have functioned without associating with all kinds of of them. You can't be me, I'm taken
Nordlund's interest in self-sufficiency arose in the mid-1980s. He noticed that he was unable to define his place in society after finishing school. He lived in Germany at the time. An issue of conscience became a problem: "Can I be involved in developing a society if I feel that it is built with no foundation?" He found the answer in self-sufficiency. "When a person produces everything he needs himself, he reaches a state in which it is possible to choose how to target his labour input, free from the monetary economy."
