Dear Mr Amsterdam,

I think you should be aware that the "editorial" by Dr Gary K Busch that you quote here contains unattributed material copy-pasted from other sources.

Several passages of technical information are taken, with neither attribution nor link, from the US DOE's Energy Information Administration's Ukraine NatGas page at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Ukraine/NaturalGas.html.

They are interwoven with passages lifted from an article first posted by Jérôme Guillet, editor of the European Tribune on Jan 3rd 2009, under the title Ukraine-Russia: some background and context. This article was also posted by Jérôme Guillet on The Oil Drum, of which he is also an editor, and on other sites including DailyKos. A shorter version, which I co-authored with Dr Guillet, was published as an op-ed by the Financial Times on January 6th.

Dr Busch's article cited above draws a considerable part of its argument from Dr Guillet's, as well as substantial textual copies masked by minor word-changes. There is no attribution and it is not made clear that these passages are quotes from another work. Indeed, Dr Busch publishes under his own byline alone, leaving it to be supposed that this is entirely his own work.

Which is sadly not the case.

John Evans
Editor, the European Tribune

There were links at all appropriate places, of course.