Posted on 10/03/2008 11:26:24 AM PDT by AKSurprise
Poland has claimed that it has assembled enough votes to block a landmark EU climate change agreement after spearheading a revolt by Eastern European states that fear the package would increase their dependence on Russian natural gas supplies.
A six nation bloc on the EU's eastern fringes signed a pact to fight a proposal designed to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by a fifth by 2020.
The target represents the EU's landmark initiative to address the pressures of climate change and would return the continent's output of CO2 to 1990 levels.
Poland has led efforts to fend off adoption of the package. An aide to the country's environment minister, Maciej Nowicki said Greece had joined the opposition, alongside Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, "Poland's Environment Minister signed in Greece an agreement referring to the climate package," Joanna Mackowiak, a ministry spokeswoman said. "We have the blocking minority."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
If the EU keeps going the way they are, they won’t need a plan to cut CO2 emssions.
The drop in economic activity should do it.
I wish we had more Poles here in the US.
(page 180 section 116 and 117)
Putin accuses Ukraine of having assisted Georgia in conflict
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 2, 2008
NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia on Thursday accused Ukraine of having sent weapons and military personnel to assist Georgia during its war with Russia.
The accusation came as Russia announced a memorandum of understanding for handling natural gas sales to Ukraine after Putin met with the Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko.
The timing of the Russian prime minister’s statements underscores a drive in Moscow to increase its leverage in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic.
Without referring to the Ukrainian president by name, Putin suggested that President Viktor Yushchenko had authorized weapons supplies to Georgia before and during Russia’s war there in August. He also said that Ukrainian military personnel had fought on Georgia’s side during the conflict.
“When people and military systems are used to kill Russian soldiers, it’s a crime,” Putin told reporters after meeting with Tymoshenko at his residence outside Moscow.
“Only a few years ago, it could not even come to mind, even in a nightmare, that Russians and Ukrainians would be fighting each other. But that happened, and it is a crime.”
Russian officials and some Ukrainian lawmakers have said that Ukraine helped arm the pro-Western Georgia before the war. The Russian military has said that antiaircraft missiles supplied by Ukraine shot down four Russian warplanes during the conflict.
Putin said that arms sales may have continued even after the war began, and that some of the weapons had been operated by Ukrainians during the fighting. “The weapons could have been supplied during the military action, and it was operated by Ukrainian specialists,” he said.
“That is a crime. That’s an attempt to set Russian and Ukrainian people against each other.”
Tymoshenko, who is vying for power with Yushchenko, said that a parliamentary panel in Ukraine would investigate the allegations of the arms sales. She said that under Ukrainian law, the president and his Security Council were in charge of arms sales abroad and that her Cabinet had no say.
Russia’s use of force in Georgia has deepened nervousness among many Ukrainians about their larger neighbor, whose leaders are vehemently opposing efforts by Yushchenko to bring Ukraine into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Kremlin has warned NATO against granting membership to Ukraine or Georgia.
Moscow could use natural gas as a bargaining chip in its effort to stem Ukraine’s strengthening of ties with the West. The natural gas cooperation memorandum signed Thursday leaves ample room for wrangling over prices in actual contracts. But Tymoshenko said she won a Russian commitment that prices would rise only gradually.
“The parties confirmed their desire to gradually move to free-market prices over the next three years,” Tymoshenko said. “We have reached an agreement that our countries don’t need shock therapy.”
The dealings with Putin are something of a turnaround for Tymoshenko, who has strongly criticized Russia in the past.
Tymoshenko was an ally of Yushchenko during the Orange Revolution that brought him to the presidency in 2004 over a pro-Russia candidate, and she said last year that the West should thwart Moscow’s ambition to regain influence over countries that were once part of its empire.
But Yushchenko and Tymoshenko have been feuding bitterly recently- the governing coalition of their political parties collapsed last month, raising the prospect of new elections - and she has increasingly talked about the need to improve ties with Russia.
“For Ukraine, Russia is an absolute strategic partner,” Tymoshenko said as she sat down with Putin. “We are very much interested in our relations being friendly and mutually beneficial.”
OK. I’m moving to Poland! They seem have a lot of sense and the women are beautiful.
Whose with me?
I agree with you about the women of my paternal ancestral homeland. You also have to be able to put up with insularity and clannishness, political corruption, a stark contrast between the cities and the countryside, and the fact that all Polish women want is marriage.
Poland has claimed that it has assembled enough votes to block a landmark EU climate change agreement after spearheading a revolt by Eastern European states that fear the package would increase their dependence on Russian natural gas supplies. ...An aide to the country's environment minister, Maciej Nowicki said Greece had joined... Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria...
“...You also have to be able to put up with insularity and clannishness, political corruption, a stark contrast between the cities and the countryside,...”
Sounds like home to me. I’m too old for the good looking ones to want me and too vain to settle for anything less than perfect. Celibacy builds character. Not a problem.
Oh, yeah, I’m nearly deaf so the language won’t be a problem either. It all sounds alike now.
My son-in-law immigrated from Poland and he has some acreage over there. I want him to get a house built there so I can have a place to escape to.
Poland stands tall!
We should support them even if it means tweaking the nose of the tyrant.
Good news.
Surprising - or maybe it ISN’T surprising - that the recently-freed nations are most fearing the dominance of Russia and other “Western” Europe socialist states of their economies through the (false) AGW claims of trillions of dollars?
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