Russia is on a roll, feeling truly imperial with the "little Russians" next door in Ukraine.  The new president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, has acted more like Ded Moroz, handing out gift after gift to the Kremlin.  First and foremost, there was the quarter century extension to the lease for the Russian Black Sea fleet at the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.  Ukraine's opposition accused Yanukovich of selling out the country's sovereignty for cheap Russian gas.  While maybe not as explosive but more symbolic, Yanukovich assuaged Russian sensibilities again, opining that the 1930s famine was not a genocide as most Ukrainians feel and the country's parliament has ruled.  And now it's Moscow's turn to add to Ukraine's humiliation.  Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants the Russian gas giant Gazprom to swallow up Ukraine's gas transit system.

Yanukovych Says Ukrainian Famine Not Genocide

It's been a good week for Moscow vis-a-vis ties with their Slavic brethren in Ukraine.  First, the Kremlin secured a 25-year extension to the lease for its Black Sea fleet.  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin smirked smugly as Ukrainian lawmakers rocked and socked amid the a haze from smoke bombs to ratify the extension, which opposition gadflies blasted as a sellout of Ukraine's sovereignty.  For Russia, Yanukovich was paying immediate dividends.  But he wasn't finished.  Now, Yanukovich has had a rethink on the Holodomor, the Stalin-era 1930s famine that Ukrainian patriots, as well as more than a dozen countries, have classified as a genocide.Yanukovich said that Holodomor was “a consequence of Stalin’s totalitarian regime,” but cannot be called genocide against any particular nation, since mass famine was a tragedy for all countries in the Soviet Union.

Chernobyl Sarcophagus Cracking Up?

Twenty four years after a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the nightmare is far from over.  As another anniversary ticks by, attention for a moment turned to the former power plant and the threat it still poses.  In particular, the huge concrete sarcophagus that entombed the destroyed the reactor.  The concrete was plastered together pell mell after the accident and the work was roughshod.  Not surprisingly, the concrete tomb hasn't held up well, and needs to be replaced, or else it could all come crumbling down, unleashing radiation still trapped inside.

Ukraine On the Brink?

Fisticuffs, smoke bombs, and a legislator hiding behind an umbrella to avoid the barrage of eggs hurled his way.  Such was the scene Tuesday in Kiev, where Ukraine's law givers convened to ponder whether to allow Russia's Black Sea fleet to stay moored at Ukraine's port of Sevastopol for an addition 25 years.  The decision by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich was a Faustian bargain.  Ukraine, tipped to the economic edge by the global financial crisis, is desperate to save money any way it can.  In return for the Black Sea fleet lease extension, Moscow is dropping gas prices to Ukraine about a third.  However, many Ukrainians, the more patriotic in the Western parts, see the pact as nothing more than a loss of sovereignty and act of treason. 

Bosnia Gets NATO Roadmap

The NATO leviathan wants more prey, and the elites in Bosnia are offering their fractured, internationally supervised state, on the military tray.  At a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Tallinn, Bosnia had the honor of being issued the dazzlingly named Membership Action Plan, or MAP, which spells out the dos and don'ts to joining the globe's preeminent war machine.  Amid a period of warming relations with Russia, NATO is doing its darnedest to piqued Russian paranoia.  Croatia and Albania were lassoed into NATO last year.  Montenegro got its own MAP back in December.  If the statelet of Montenegro and the basket case of Bosnia join, NATO jumps to 30 members. 

Russian Black Sea Fleet To Remain In Ukraine Till 2042

The election of Viktor Yanukovich as president of Ukraine is starting to pay big time benefits to Russia.  In a bit of horse trading to secure lower prices for Russian gas deliveries, Yanukovich has agreed to allow the Russian Black Sea fleet to remain anchored at Ukraine's Black Sea port city of Sevastopol until 2042, tacking on a 25-year extension to a lease that was due to expire in 2017.  Yanukovych made the deal with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the eastern city of Kharkiv on April 22.  Brimming with glee over the deal, Medvedev said it would bring better European security to the Black Sea basin.

Poland Emerges From European Economic Meltdown

The financial tsunami has knocked down one European economy after another.  Greece is one heart beat away from economic ruin, an EU cash catheter keeping it alive.  Greece is part of a new acronym of the economic down-and-outers, including Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain, all mired in high unemployment and low growth.   In Hungary, frustrations over the economy catapulted into power a far-right party equipped with its own Nazi-like guard.  All is not gloom and doom, however.  But the good news can't be found among the sophisticated, and seasoned economies of western Europe.  Rather it is the former East Bloc, Poland, to be exact, that has weathered the storm the best.  Remember the fears of the Polish plumber?

Pentagon Plans To 'Cover' Europe With Missile Shield By 2018

Thought U.S. anti-missile shield mumbo jumbo was jettisoned under the Nobel laureate, Barrack Obama?  Think again.  Far from trashed, U.S. missile plans are stronger than ever under the left-wing Obama.  A Pentagon official has said the U.S. anti-missile shield system will 'cover' the entire of Europe by 2018.  And another Pentagon official says the new START treaty on reducing U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear missiles actually "reduces the constraints" on building such a system.  That is a huge sticking point between the Russians and Americans.  The Russians insist a link between START and anti-missile defense.  U.S. officials, not surprisingly, don't see it that way.

Where To Bury Poland's First Couple Causes Rifts

Maybe the shock is starting to wear off.  Losing many of their elites in a freak plane crash in fog in western Russia united Poles in grief and even had some rethinking views of Russia, so taken have they been by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 'embrace" of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the crash site in Smolensk.  While still numbed from the shock, Poles are pulling into separate camp over where President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, will be buried.  Many are upset the two will be interned at royal palace in Krakow, a site they say should remain only for Polish kings and truly outstanding Poles.  These people don't think Kaczynski and his wife rate for Wawel Castle.2,000 people protested Wednesday evening in Krakow against the decision.

Nord Stream Construction Starts

In Europe's great pipeline sweepstakes, the Russians have taken a crucial step.  The Russians have moved beyond talk to construction.  Amid much pomp and circumstance, construction has started on the Nord Stream pipeline.  When completed, the 1,220-kilometer-long pipeline will be the world's longest to snake under the waves of a sea.  If all goes to plan, the pipeline will transport 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The 11-billion dollar project has been championed as a way of bypassing the political troubles surrounding the current Ukrainian supply route.

Hungary's Far-Right Jobbik Wins Big At Polls

The people have spoken in Hungary in weekend elections.  And their message is sending chills through Europe.  The far-right Jobbik party won a very impressive 16.7 at the polls.  That's just a few points below the lame duck Socialists, who were kicked out of power by the center-right Fidesz.  Bubbly with success, Jobbik leader, Gabor Vona, vows “very distinct and very spectacular politics”. He said that Jobbik would work on “a solution to the problems around Gypsy-Hungarian coexistence. That means eradicating Gypsy crime”.   The Gyspies, or Roma, were a major plank in Jobbik's "patriotic" platform.  A message that strikes a cord with not only Hungarians, but many in Europe where Roma live.

Could Polish Air Tragedy Lead To Better Russian Polish Ties?

In the fog and trees of western Russia, Poland lost many of those who moved and shook that eastern European country.  The Saturday crash in Smolensk took the lives of President Lech Kaczynski, and dozens of other Polish political, military and religious leaders.  Poles are shocked and numbed, noting the bitter irony of the disaster.  Poland's who's who were on their way to commemorate victims of the Katyn massacre.  In 1940, Soviet secret police gunned down more than 20,000 Polish officers and other elites, effectively decapitating the ruling class.  And while completely at different ends of the scale spectrum, the target was the same: Polish elite.  And although one appears to be an accident, the other coldblooded mass murder, the two tragedies took place a stone's throw from the other.  But there is one other big difference.  Katyn painted the Russians as murderers and liars, just another seed of distrust, fear and hatred in these countries' stormy 500 years of ties.  However, the Smolensk plane tragedy has brought the two countries together if briefly, to share their grief and condolences.

Ukraine Officially Ends NATO Bid

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You can stick a fork in Ukraine's bid to join the world's most powerful military pact, NATO, dashing Washington's dream, at least for now, of transforming the Black Sea into one big American lake. Viktor Yanukovich, the newly elected president, who has stated clearly he will steer a more easterly course than his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovich,abolished a few committee's working toward NATO membership.    Although these groups were insignificant, the symbolism of shutting them down is powerful: Moscow can breathe a bit easier, NATO will not deploy in this country of 46 million any time soon.  Yanukovich speaks of Ukraine being a 'bridge' between Europe and Russia, and NATO is not a building block in pursuit of that goal.

Russia And Slovakia Energy Pact Partners

Before he whisks into the locked-down Czech capital of Prague to sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty with U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has made a mostly overlooked, but important visit to neighboring Slovakia.  In Bratislava, Medvedev will attend ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the Slovak's capital's liberation from Nazi rule. He will also sign eight bilateral political and trade deals, including ones in the nuclear energy field where Russia has established profitable ties with Slovakia.  Medvedev has also used his visit to Bratislava to call for a new European security equation which factors in Moscow more. 

Obama To Meet East European Leaders In Prague

All attention in Prague later this week will laser in on the scripted signing ceremony by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of a much buzzed about strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty.  It was in Prague a year ago when Obama set out his vision for a world with no such weapons for the weak, fewer for the strong, like Washington and Moscow.  So, the selection of Prague for the signing of the treaty to replace the 1991 START makes sense.  It makes sense on another level too.  The Czech Republic is one of Eastern Europe's Russophobe nations, which see any thawing of relations between Washington and Moscow as a potential softening of U.S. commitment to protect them from the Kremlin.  To allay those, many would say, unfound fears, Obama will also hold a summit with Eastern Europe leaders.  heads of state from eastern and central Europe in the city of spires.

Rising Rightwing Extremism In Eastern Europe?

Is eastern Europe threatened by a rising wave of rightwing extremism?  Human rights activists in the region think so, and point to violent attacks on Roma namely in Hungary, but the Czech Republic and Slovakia as well to back up their point.  A disturbing poll in Hungary shows more and more Hungarians turning to extremist solutions to solve society's problems, compounded now by the global financial mess.  In the Czech Republic, a rightwing extremist party has been banned for propagating hate.  But is eastern Europe any worse than the richer West?  Holland, the land of tulips, wooden clogs and windmills, also has a newfound affinity for rightwing extremism, as does Switzerland which has banned the building of mosques.

Belgian Protest Puts Spotlight On US Tactical Nukes In Europe

Amid all the hullabaloo over the signing by Russia and the United States of a new strategic nuclear arms treaty, scant attention has been paid to Europe's other weapon problem: tactical nuclear weapons, a Cold War-era relic.  On April 3, anti-nuke protesters in countries where U.S. nukes are based staged protests.  The biggest demo rocked Belgium, where police detained hundreds of protesters who tried to break into a military base where missiles are believed to be stored.

Hungary's Economy Still In Free Fall

As talk of Europe's economic collapse focuses on the so-called PIIGS countries -- Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain -- less attention is turned to the hardship gripping most of eastern Europe.  Hardest-hit Latvia has lost more than 25 percent of GDP since their recession began, making it the second longest cyclical downturn on record -- and, as Mark Weisbrot writes, if IMF projections prove correct, it will soon pass the 1929-33 decline of the U.S. Great Depression.  The latest data shows Hungary is far from getting out of the trough.  But it's not alone.  A think tank is predicting at least 10% unemployment for eastern Europe. 

Germany To Hunt Down Another Ukrainian Octogenarian

Not satisfied with putting on trial one infirm ethnic Ukrainian octogenarian for alleged Nazi-era war crimes, Germany wants to put another one in the dock.  Germany, which razed much of the country and killed wantonly there during World War II, has opened a formal criminal investigation against an 88-year-old Ukrainian-born man living in the United States on suspicion that he committed murder while serving the Nazis, a prosecutor in Munich confirmed on March 27.  The man, whose name has not been divulged, would join another Ukrainian-born man, John Demjanjuk, 89, accused of being an accessory to 27,900 Nazi death camp murders while working as a guard for the Nazi SS.

China Flashes The Cash In Belarus

The economic juggernaut that is China is rolling into eastern Europe.  Belarus, Europe's great dictatorial backwater under President Alexander Lukashenko, is the unlikely target of the latest Chinese largesse.   The amounts are filled with lots of zeros.  A billion dollar loan, on favorable terms.  Ten billion in potential projects, spanning several industrial sectors, including cars, electricity and sugar.  It's the latest proof China is sniffing out economic opportunities in other former Soviet republics after conquering with its bulging checkpoint Central Asia.    

Russia and US To Sign New Arms Control Deal

To much fanfare, the United States and Russia have announced they have hammered out all the details of what is being billed as the most comprehensive nuclear arms treaty in nearly two decades.  The "New START Treaty" demands each side cut their strategic nuclear arsenals by about a third.  The agreement is due to be signed in Prague on April 8th, just days before U.S. President gathers powerbrokers in Washington to talk nuclear disarmament, a 'cause' of his outlined in a Prague speech last April.  However, the treaty still must be ratified by both countries' legislatures, and the Russian State Duma will likely be skeptical if the treaty is not linked to U.S. pledges not to expand its 'missile defense' program, something Washington categorically rejects.  And as the two sides were backslapping over the no-nuke pact, reports leaked of fresh Pentagon plans to boost 'military assistance' to several former Soviet republics.Yes, START is a step forward, but just one in a race whose finishing line at times seems to fade further into the distance.   

EU-Balkan Summit A Bust

It was supposed to be the biggest gathering of Balkan leaders in nearly two decades to show the world the Balkan states aren't, well, Balkanized.  But the EU-Balkan summit in Slovenia didn't live up to the billing to highlight regional cooperation and ended with a whimper.  The air was taken out of the meeting in Brdo pri Kranju when Serb President Boris Tadic refused to show up.  He didn't like the fact Kosovo would be there not as a UN-run protectorate but rather as an independent state.  The EU's new so-called president also skipped the meeting, sensing a fiasco was awaiting.  Not all were disappointed.  Kosovo was pleased to have their independence status at least winked at.

Pipeline Puzzle: Italians Proving Dubious Kremlin Partners

So much for cooperation. Russia has been chided for using its energy riches to hold a trembling Europe hostage with a gas nozzle at its head.  Bent on proving its friendly intentions, however, Russia has reached out to European partners to share in the hoped for riches of two ambitious pipeline projects.  Now, one of them, Italy's Eni, is giving the Russians headaches, by proposing the rival Nabucco project and Russian-led South Stream pipeline could somehow be fused.  The Russians are apopletic over the Italians crooning for Nabucco meant to cut the Russians down in the energy sweepstakes.  "We are not discussing such things at all," Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said in comments carried by Russian news agencies. "For European consumers, the more gas the better."

US General Blames Dutch Gay Soldiers for Srebrenica

Blame it on the gays.  That's the way at least one retired U.S. general sees it.  Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander John Sheehan says the fall of Srebrenica in 1995 was partly due to gays in the ranks of the Dutch military, which was tasked with guarding the so-called 'safe haven.'   Sheehan wasn't gabbing to close friends in some dank drinking hole after whiskey unlocked his lips.  Sheehan was speaking under oath before a dour Congressional committee.  The Dutch, gay and other sundry groups were left mouths agape, reacting with outrage.  Beyond that, however, the scandal opens a tiny window to again ask what really happened at Srebrenica some fifteen years ago. The author, Diana Johnstone, tells the Informant the Dutch were in a no-win situation. 

Kosovo Police To 'Guard' Serb Monument

The humiliations never seem to stop for what remains of the Serbs in Kosovo.  In the latest blow to the national solar plexus, NATO has handed over to Kosovo's mainly ethnic Albanian police force security at one of Serbia's most sacred sites: Kosovo Pole.   The handover came a day after another grim anniversary for Kosovo's Serbs: the sixth anniversary of the ethnic Albanian community's ransacking of churches and killing of a dozen or so Serbs.  As this travesty unfolded, Slovenia was scrabbling to stop a much ballyhooed confab of Balkan and EU leaders from imploding.  All the while, Serbia thanked the majority of the world's community that have not recognized Kosovo as an independent state.

Fake Georgian TV War Report Sends People Into Panic

It was Orson Welles War of the World all over again Saturday in the Caucasus state of Georgia.  For those not in the know, a radio broadcast in the 1930s about a supposed UFO landing in New Jersey caused a panic in the United States as many took the hoax for the truth, running and screaming in the streets or taking up guns to fight the invading martians.  Orson Welles was the man behind the mike on that grim day of human gullibility.   Now, Georgia media have pulled off a similar stunt with a similar reaction.

NATO Head Says Missile Shield Essential

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NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen just can't understand why Russia doesn't see NATO action the same way NATO does.  At an international conference in Warsaw, the capital of one of Europe's more accomplished Russophobe nations, Rasmussen said Russian thinking was "outdated."  NATO is not Russia's enemy he said, and had no plans to invade its great land mass.  In fact, Rasmussen said, NATO seeks "partnership" with the Kremlin.  In the next breath, Rasmussen said NATO will keep nuclear weapons in Europe, keep its doors open to new members, (hint hint Georgia and Ukraine) expand its "mission", and support US "missile defense" in Europe.  But, Rasmussen continued, if any nation was stirring things up in Europe, it is, you got it, Russia. 

Kosovo Takes Two Steps Forward, One Back

For those keeping score out there, Europe's new sort-of midget state Kosovo has made some progress in the realm of legitimacy over the past few days.  Of course, with a state allegedly run by underworld figures there will be bumps along the way.  One of those bumps is the Kosovo Security Force, which was created to supposedly do away with all traces of the once feared, or feted -- depending if you are a Serb or Albania -- Kosovo Liberation Army.  But as recent events show, the KSF sometimes forgets the charade, revealing the KLA lurking beneath.

Slovak Authorities Force Fealty To The State

Listen to the pledge or else.  That sums up proposed legislation aimed at stirring up patriotic fervor in the central European state of Slovakia.  However, many in Slovakia, used to such arm-twisting under decades of now discredited communism, don't like the idea of patriotism by diktat.  Some 1,000 students and teachers protested outside of the presidential palace on Wednesday to appeal to President Ivan Gasparovic not to sign the legislation, already passed by parliament, into law.  The protest comes amid percolating tensions between ethnic Slovaks and the country's main ethnic minority, Hungarians. 

Ganic Case Resurrects Old Ghosts Of Bosnia

Protesters were out in big numbers on Friday in front of the British and Serb embassies in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.  They were demanding London release Ejup Ganic.  He's a former Bosnian president and Muslim leader who was detained after landing at Heathrow airport on Monday.  For Bosnia's Muslims and much of the West, he's a hero and respected statesman.  For the Serbs, he's a war criminal and they want London to hand him over to face justice.  The tug-of-war over Ganic comes as Radovan Karadzic has made eye-raising remarks to the UN war crimes tribunal, including a claim that a picture purporting to show a Serb concentration camp in Bosnia is a fabrication.  For the Western media, Karadzic is mad, and the Serbs wanting to try Ganic are trying to duck sole culpability for all the bloodletting as Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s.

Yanukovich Goes To Moscow

Viktor Yanukovich travels to Moscow today on his first official visit to Russia as the president of Ukraine.  The Kremlin has to be pleased with the election of Yanukovych who has already ruled out NATO membership for his country, talked about letting Russian warships stay docked at a Ukrainian Black Sea port, and suggested the Russians could buy into the country's rusting pipeline network.  But the visit may prove relations even under Yanukovych may not be all backslapping and smiles.

Central European States Huddle For Energy Security

The European Union has talked lots, acted little, on coordinating energy policy for the 500-million, 27-nation, mega bloc.  The specter of the Russian bear grinning as its grips Europe's energy spigot gives EU bureaucrats the heebie jeebies.  But that fear, largely unfounded the Informant believes, has not translated into action.  Until now, possibly.  Leaders from eleven central and eastern Europe, where Russophobia is an art form, have met for a first ever energy summit, to chart a course of energy security.  The big news to come out of the Feb. 24th meeting in Budapest was the signing of a declaration to create a north-south-east gas supply network. 

NATO Exercises In The Baltics As Russia Seeks More French Warships

NATO is looking to limber up in the Baltic Sea region later this month.  No push-ups here.  Soldiers for the globe's dominant military pact will be playing war games with lots of expensive toys to show, as a NATO spokesman put it, "solidarity with NATO's Baltic members."  US naval forces are already 'training' in the Black Sea with Georgian troops. The military maneuvers come with Russia negotiation with France for four more high-tech warships.  That has Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia sweating a bit.

Romania And US Start Talks On Missile Deployment

The more things change......  Well, you know the rest of it.  Nobel peace prize winner Barack Obama promises peace and pie in the sky.  On the foreign policy front, hardliners in the U.S. worried the 'liberal' Obama would sell out the U.S. to all its enemies.  As proof, they pointed warily at his 'reset' intentions with Russia.  But reality is often at odds with rhetoric.  In eastern Europe, the Obama administration continues to pursue an essentially expansionist policy not much different than the bumbling, footloose cowboy Bush Junior.  Despite the flowery rhetoric, however, the essentials of the two U.S. leaders are almost indistinguishable.  The latest proof?  Romania has announced talks are now underway with Washington on deploying some 20 interceptor rockets on that eastern European country's territory. 

CIA Black Site Update: Records Confirm CIA Flights

It's a story the media would seem to want to get its clacking fingers into.  Spies, secret torture bases, alleged terrorists.  Very sexy stuff.  There's only one problem.  The side alleged to have been engaged in this cloak-and-dagger stuff is the United States.  Exposure of such inconvenient facts would belie the United States reputation as an upholder of law and order.  That's why you won't find the Western press digging into the stories and rumors of CIA black sites in eastern Europe.  It just doesn't jive with the accepted narrative.  Despite that, bits and pieces of information do get out there, adding pieces to the puzzle.  The latest being official records confirming that CIA flights did land in Poland, despite previous government denials in Warsaw.

Informant Exclusive: The Mysterious US WW II Bombing Of Prague

On February 14, 1945,the bomb raid sirens pierced the air of Prague, then the capital of the Nazi protectorate of Bohemia.  Few paid any attention on that afternoon.  After all, allied warplanes had flown over the city numerous times in the past on their way to drop their bombs in Germany.  This time, however, things would be different.  The first warning was the humming of the warplanes close over the city.  Then the bombs began to drop, some 700 in total.  Destruction was slashed across a good swathe of the city.  Under the rumble of homes, churches and businesses, lay the corpses of 700.  Oddly, 65 years after that tragic day, no one has explained why American bombers unloaded their payload on one of Europe's most beautiful cities.

Kosovo 'Celebrates' Two Years Of Independence

February 17 marked two years to the day when Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership unilaterally declared independence from Serbia.  Since then, 65 countries, including the U.S. and most of its EU allies, have recognized Kosovo.  Serbia, obviously, and a majority of the world's countries have not, including UN Security Council members, Russia and China, keeping Kosovo out of the UN.  Regardless, Kosovo's Albanian majority partied Wednesday on the anniversary.  But a closer look at the state of Kosovo begs the question what exactly were they celebrating?

Groups Call For Romanian Minister To Resign Over Gypsy Remarks

Romania's foreign minister let go of a major gaffe that could cost him his job.  On a visit to Paris, Teodor Baconschi let loose with a few choice comments not particularly complementary of his country's Roma community.  His suggestion that some Gypsies are born criminals got the civil rights groups going ballistic.  That Baconschi made his remark in France is no accident.  The Gauls are handling their own Roma problem, like elsewhere in Europe. 

Bulgaria and Transdniester Want In On Missile Shield Sweepstakes

Seems everyone in eastern Europe wants a piece of the anti-missile shield pie.  Bulgaria is the latest former Warsaw Pact nation to voice its eagerness to President Barack Obama's slimmed-down, vague plan.  But it's not only the Americans who are in demands.  Now the Russians are finding eager parties as well to house their military hardware.  Yes, it is only the sliver of a territory, the Moldovan breakaway region of Transdniester.  But the news shows this U.S. project is stirring things up in the region, and could possibly lead to a new arms race.

Pipeline Puzzles: Finland Approves North Stream Construction

The paperwork appears in order, let the construction begin.  That's the message coming out of the Russian-led consortium to build the Nord Stream pipeline to ship Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Europe.  On February 12, 2010 -- Finland approved construction of the pipeline under their territorial waters, 374-kilometers worth of tubing.  Now, the Nord Stream consortium says construction on the 1,200-kilometer pipeline will begin in April. 

Washington In Reality Denial

If only the world worked the way Washington wished it would.  The United States could then do whatever it wanted and then spin it as either benign, or inconsequential.  In that fantasy world, what Washington did would comport with what it said it was doing.  Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.  Though more and more of the world's countries are voluntarily entangling themselves in Washington's mega-military pact, NATO, there are still a few holdouts, among them, Russia.  Moscow has been incorrectly interpreting U.S. actions, prompting Washington to set the record straight.   

Informant Follow-up: French Confirm Warship Sale To Russia

Over and over again, NATO, read Washington and its tag-along European 'allies", repeat the same boilerplate: the alliance is not Russia's enemy, and therefore any of its military maneuvers and plans should not spark suspicion in the Kremlin.  So Moscow's purchase of a state-of-the-art warship from NATO member France shouldn't raise anyone's blood pressure inside the military pact, right?  Afterall, NATO and Russia are friends.  Yeah, right.

Yanukovych Wins Ukrainian Presidential Election

A former member of the Communist party, a two-time felon, and a mechanic by trade.  That is the short bio of Ukraine's new president Viktor Yanukovych.  On Sunday, the 59-year-old got his revenge for his 2004 ignominy, when his election to the same post was snatched away by the "Orange Revolution."  This time not only did Yanukovych win, but he defeated one of the main heroines of that 'revolution', Yulia Tymoshenko.  For Moscow, the result is sweet as well.  The Black Sea Fleet, Ukraine's energy pipelines are now on the block prepped for Moscow's bidding.  For many, the biggest disappointment five years after the Revolution has been choosing between Yanukovych and Tymoshenko, two overly familiar figures both tainted by scandal.  Anyway, out with Orange in with Blue.

Bosnian Police Launch Raid On Islamic Terrorists

Police in the fractured Balkan state of Bosnia have launched what is being called the largest raid against followers of the radicial Wahhabi branch of Islam since the end of the country's 1992-1995 war.  Some 600 police from Bosnia's Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation took part in the Feb. 2 operation, codenamed "Light."  Arrests were made and guns and explosives seized in the raid in Gornja Maoca, in the north.  What are Islamic terrorists doing in Europe?  You can thank Washington's and Brussel's Balkans policy for that.

Romania Eager To 'Host' U.S. Missile Shield

Another piece in Washington's global military puzzle has been placed in a forgotten, poor country on Europe's eastern edges, Romania. That country's president, Traian Basescu has announced his country will host Washington's leaner, and meaner, missile 'defense shield.' Moscow, naturally, is angered by the move, which comes as Russia's military establishment has labeled NATO enlargement as one of the country's main threats. Astonishingly, NATO, which has expanded up to Russia's borders, can't understand why.

Houston Oil Firm Frontera Drilling In Georgia

The standard boilerplate on Georgia is that the Caucasus country may be small but strategically important.  Straddling the Black and Caspian Seas, Georgia is seen by Washington and Brussels as a key fossil fuel transit country.  The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline attests to that.  It's all part of the grand strategy to tug the region out of Moscow's orbit.  Less know is the fact that Georgia has a little oil of its own and a Houston-based drilling firm is doing its darnedest to suck it out of the ground. 

Georgia's Saakashvili Offers Up Country For Afghan War

Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian leader who rarely shies away from prostituting his country to Western institutions, is up to it again.  This time, Saakashvili is eager to see his tiny, impoverished country in the Caucasus, transformed into a "hub" for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.  His offer comes as Washington ponders how to get more guns and boots into the quagmire that is Afghanistan.

Pipeline Puzzle Update: Russia Scores

The great pipeline game across the Eurasian landmass continues.  The latest moves put the Russians ahead with their South Stream pipeline project gaining more traction, while Europe's hopes to build the Nabucco pipeline seem stuck in the mud. 

Yushchenko Honors Ukrainian Hero, Or Nazi Collaborator?

With his days as Ukrainian president quickly coming to a close, Viktor Yushchenko has made one of his most controversial decisions yet.  Yushchenko has awarded posthumously the "Hero of Ukraine" title to Stepan Bandera, a Ukranian nationalist leader.  Bandera is a hot-button issue for sure.  For many Ukrainians, he was a brave fighter who struggled for their country's independence during World War Two and years after until he was assassinated by the KGB in Munich in 1959.  For others, Bandera was a Nazi collaborator and murderer, and needs to be pilloried not praised.  Beyond that debate is another issue rarely examined in the West.  Many of those within the Soviet Union who fought Soviet troops also had embarrassing ties to the Nazis.

Russia Going Loonie

It's was the type of story that flies under the radar of most world media, but has global impact potential.  On January 20, Russia's central bank announced it had started buying Canadian dollars and securities in a bid to diversify its foreign exchange reserves.  Anticipating the move months in advance, a respected analyst said the Russian action could spell the start of a global trend to diversify.  That's good news for some of the world's other currencies, like, in this case, the Canadian dollar, but bad news, for the world's uber currency, the U.S. dollar.