Wu Wei

The end of a blog

The end of one of the few blogs on Kosovo is a shame. There seems no way to put a comment on Kosovo Khronicles except by joining aol, which I have no desire to do.

So a trackback wll have to suffice. A year's account of a soldier's life in Kosovo has been interesting, especially for the photos and the practical things (mostly bridges built). Thank you Major Samuel whoever you are.

Off to Kiev!!

Off to Kiev on Tuesday for 5 days including the weekend.

Spent all day on email and phone trying to sort out who I can see, but quite hard to pin anyone down as usual. Will have to start each morning with the usual routine: go to work and phone people each day about the possibilities.

Hotels still the usual rip off so have booked an apartment. They claim to be "up to 4 time less than a hotel" and still cost $100. So we shall see.

Have ordered some warmer weather. Hopefully Putin will not be blowing up the pipelines in Ukraine.

Slow start to 2006

Kosovo
Not much to report after Christmas. Two rather quiet weeks in Pristina, from the blogging point of view, and work went better than usual. One of the sillier things I did was try to explain the EU (treaties and all) in one hour, as requested, for the officials in the Ministry. We were all brain dead afterwards.

Still have to see how Rugova's death affects things. Mostly the effect seems to be a panic at the airport about having enough kerosene for the planes to refuel, so many people are coming in non-scheduled flights.

Plus the obligatory rant about about whether the Serbs can come: coming to pay their respects must seem rather hypocritical at best.

Big freeze
Missed the big freeze in Eastern Europe, though here in Oxford, where it's round zero, it feels much worse than Pristina. Actually there are no reports of disasters with the heating now. In the 70s, there were reports from Warsaw and Moscow about the heating being cut off in parts of the city and everyone migrating to the other parts to get warm again. In my trip in 1979, I spent time in the power plant in Moscow which had failed just at the same time as the New Year Holiday, when everyone went away leaving their "fortochka" open, making their internal pipes freeze.

It was pretty bad in Athens in the winter of 2003/4 when they last had snow. Some left their water pipes running so they didn't freeze (no insulation and pipes running everywhere across roofs and balconies) and the rest froze, then leaked when they thawed. Either way, too much water flowed and the city water supply couldn't cope, so people were cut off.

Off to Kiev!!
Now suffering from the obligatory flu/sore throat/cold that is going round Oxford. Revived just enough to do some planning for the trip to Kiev, which seems to be on for next week. Can't decide whether to fit in Vilnius as well, though the leg from Kiev to Vilnius will cost more than London Kiev and Vilnius London put together. Have a stack of airmiles from Lithuania, so perhaps they are not yet dead.

For some reason I feel really excited about going back to Kiev for a few days. In the longer term it is bound to lead to disappointment. My life was so different 10 years ago. Now I am older, have a happier life at home and am wiser in the ways of Eastern Europe, so little excitement to be had from novelty. Plus the elections in Kiev in March may well turn back the Orange Revolution, which in any case has not much to show for itself.

Still it is really my old friends that I am looking forward to seeing, though most are far-flung, having escaped to Canada, the US or Holland.

And there is an up to date Kiev In Your Pocket to help with the planning. It seems that helping with inyour pocket is my new hobby. Much more fun that being on school boards. I'm really glad to escape that.

And curiously several bloggers are moving to Kiev too: MoldovAnn and now Carpetblogger.

Ice removal Kosovo style

In summer Kosovo is a pretty dusty place and so a regular household chore seems to be to hose down the dust outside your house. Plus down every street is an autolarje which either fixes cars or washes them, hosing them down onto the street. So it is a normal sight to see a stream of water running down the side of the road. I don't suppose anyone pays a water bill, even if they get them. It's not possible to trace leaks from water running down by the side of the road, as it could be half a mile away.

As autumn progressed, my local car wash developed a side line of hosing carpets down, and hanging them to dry. Presumably this gets rid of the dust accumulated over the summer.

By December we were remarking that this household dustlaying and car washing was going to prove treacherous when it froze, especially where we live, at the top of a hill with quite a few tight bends. So presumably it would stop.

But recently we saw otherwise, when the temperature reached -5 at noon. Sheets of ice had formed on the path of running water down hill, and no attempt was being made to stop car washing or leaks of water. We all minced over the ice, trying to pick a path the water had avoided, and not be caught by two cars trying to pass, which might slide and hit us.

After a couple of days, ruts appeared in the ice, when the warmer running water has streamed over the ice and cut a track, or collected in the side of the road, melting the ice and forming a slush. Now the tactic is to walk on the non-icy road, or failing that, in the rut or the slush so you can keep your feet.

So we can now see that car washes fulfil a third function: ice removal, though this works only during the day. Since the car washes don't run at night, and the water still seems to, the hot water degrades to a lethally thin and invisible layer of ice to trap you next morning.

Service disruptions (2)

The Ministry internet has now practically ground to a halt. Usually first thing in the morning not even Skype will work. The good news is that the Ministry canteen is apparently now working again. So we descend to the garage for coffee. We find that in fact the canteen has only two tables stuck at one end of the room and is only serving coffee and tea, but what the hell, it’s better than nothing. Yesterday I got a bad headache possibly from frustration at the internet, but also possibly from caffeine withdrawal. When U (my excellent IT assistant) and I have our ritual fight to pay less than a Euro for two coffees, we both lose: today it is on the house!

However later in the morning my computer shows Skype on but no internet explorer, so no email and no google. Impossible to work with our website; impossible to check my email as the Ministry IT people have never managed to give me a proper set of instructions to use Outlook, so I am dependent on webmail.

Even worse, I can’t check my email to find out where my lunch date is, or a phone number to call the ex US senator who is teaching management at the university. If I have a number I forgot to transfer it to Outlook so it was accessible offline.

And email from within the Ministry from senior officials is not reaching me, which makes me look stupid, reminding them to do something when they have already done it. And I look negligent when I don’t respond.

What are you supposed to do for work when much of your project is internet based?

I offered to provide Ministry staff with a one hour “workshop” on the Treaty, which somehow when we discussed it turned into 4 hours worth of material, particularly as we have to have an interpreter (which doubles the time).

Now I am committed to prepare a talk on the EU, its institutions and the process of enlargement by Monday, without any basic material prepared as usual: we are supposed to know it all. But never having taken the Commission exam to become a functionnaire and get a job for life, I have only acquired a working knowledge of the Commission and not much knowledge about the rest of the EU. And without the internet, what to do?

I spent some time one summer in Athens when things were quiet reading up on the Coal and Steel Community to see what the similarities are between it and our Energy Community but never took any notes, so it is back to square one.

And in any case I need the internet to check the latest status for all the countries in terms of the EU entry process since it changes every year after the Annual Progress Report in the autumn.

While I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to the satellite connection, U predicts that the same problem will occur when we move downtown, where presumably we will have some proper fibre optic cable link. None of us have much faith in the ministry support staff. The ministry is not able to pay proper salaries so all the well qualified people, like U, work privately.

A minor diversion while we decide whether the ticking coming from the corner is a bomb, (unlikely as cars are the usual target and the top floor is not where the Minister sits). Eventually we trace its source to the speakers on a computer but beyond that is not clear. What the hell.

Go back home to drop briefcase and quick scan of email to find out where to meet. Some confusion over the location: I proposed the “new” Boss café, without making clear I mean the “new new” Boss café, which has appeared over the road from the old Boss café which was demolished overnight. Ex-senator is not quite up to speed with developments so says he will come to the new one by the cinema. I rush down the hill avoiding the ice, left by the incessant car washing (see next post) and make it just in time. New Boss cafe is full so we go to new new Boss after all.

Ex-senator is in a fix: the ProCredit Bank’s internet is down so no cash as no other bank seems to work with Mastercard. Also he was hiring a car to go to Thessaloniki and Hertz has run out of green card insurances, so he can’t leave Kosovo. That last is a first for me: surely this is just a bit of printed paper?

Despite this, we find a place in new new Boss, order Boss risotto (3 Euros) and settle down to explain the reasons why we are both here. He is teaching politics and policy at the new American University. The University was set up by the Kosovars at the end of the war, when they found they had not spent all the cash collected by Kosovars in America. It was intended as a thank you to America for its help in the war.

Another reason for our chat is he is interested in doing some energy consulting, and wants to find out what USAID are doing. We have already established that his ex-state is where the US consultants already in Kosovo are from, which makes a small coincidence. However we are unexpectedly joined for lunch by one of the US consultants, and they both do the usual search amongst expats for common friends and acquaintances, which surprisingly never takes that long. This time, as they have business in common, it takes only a couple of minutes to find overlapping friends.

Finally we are served with coffee and a free piece of cake, for reasons not clear but welcome. The ex-senator goes off with 6 Euros in his pocket, heading for a cashless weekend stuck in Kosovo.

Service disruptions

Back in Kosovo, the electricity supply seems rather regular in my part of town. Apparently the ABC policy of categorising quality of supply by no of paying customers is directing power cuts to the villages, partly because they are poorer and don't pay for that reason. It seems the power company is working with the ministry and KTA to identify who should be on social security, so they get some income support, but the support does not yet include any fuel poverty addition. Fuel poverty is defined usually as paying more than 10% of your income on fuel, or in this case, electricity. In the countryside though they don't need electricity for heating as they mostly use wood. Nonetheless the market in Prisitina is full of stoves for sale for providing heating.

Meanwhile in Armenia, although they are supposed to have solved their payment problems some time ago, all is not still well with supply, as this item via Neeka's Backlog shows:

Armenian Culture Minister Quits After Reported Assault

Armenia’s controversial Culture Minister Hovik Hoveyan was forced to step down late Thursday over reports that he attacked and pistol-whipped electricity workers after a brief cut-off in power supplies to his apartment.

[...]

According to the Electricity Networks of Armenia (ENA), Hoveyan, his son and several other men visited an a power distribution station in Yerevan on Wednesday to express their fury with the disruption which the national power utility says occurred on New Year’s Eve and lasted for about 20 minutes.

“They used force against our workers,” ENA spokeswoman Margarit Grigorian told RFE/RL. “Two of them were hit by pistol butts and taken to hospital with injuries. Their condition is satisfactory now.”

I also love the comments on Blogrel. This one:

Hoveyan’s predecessor was consdired an idiot until she resigned, but nobody suspected that Hoveyan could make even better copy. [...]

On the other hand, anyone who has tried to talk to the electricity or gas people on the phone only to have them lie or be rude to you, assuming they actually pick up the phone, will privately be applauding his actions.

One can only say that Armenia's need for a Culture Minister like that corresponds to the need for a Czech navy.

Meanwhile in Britain my experiences with BT over a failed internet connection were little better in terms of frustration or results. Long hours battling with voice mail and untrained people in call centres (at least they were still in the UK, unlike banks) reading fault-finding scripts which were irrelevant. Plus an unwillingness to report the fault to the real villains the engineers, now labelled "wholesale" for some reason. Finally we got through after several days, to find the fault had not been logged previously. The only major difference was that BT rang back after the fault had been cleared, to ask if they could do anything. Hardly more helpful than refusing to do anything in the first place. Rant over.

Must be something about networks.

Blog awards

The bloggies are here again: nominations to http://2006.bloggies.com/

Russia's "gas attack" on Ukraine

A friend from Ukraine sent me this article by Anders Aslund, well respected academic.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN GAS WAR: MONUMENTAL RUSSIAN MISTAKE

ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY: By Anders Åslund
Senior Fellow, Institute for International Economics (IIE) Washington, D.C., Thursday, January 5, 2006

Early on January 4, Gazprom and Ukrainian gas officials reached an agreement on gas deliveries to Ukraine in Moscow. This was in many ways an excellent agreement, but most of all so for Ukraine.

First, it is a five-year agreement lasting till the end of 2009, which means that stable conditions for gas deliveries should have been accomplished. Amazingly, Russia is offering Ukraine five years of stable natural gas prices at a time of rising gas prices and increased gas scarcity, while most countries face annual price revisions.

Second, a consortium is being set up that involves gas deliveries from four producers, Russia and Turkmenistan, but also Kazakhstan (whose production of associate gas is rising fast) and Uzbekistan (a marginal exporter), and at least one consumer, Ukraine. To Ukraine, this means that it obtains access to gas also from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It appears as if Russia is reinforcing its control over gas deliveries from Central Asia. The formation of such a consortium, though not concluded, should stabilize gas trade relations.

Third, the price agreed - $95 per 1,000 cubic meters (mcm) seems perfectly sensible. It is almost twice what Ukraine paid last year, but less than the $110 per mcm that Georgia and Armenia are to pay, and the Baltics are supposed to pay slightly more, and far from the 230 per mcm that Gazprom originally demanded. The Russian claim that Gazprom would be paid $230 per mcm seems nothing but a face-saving devise. Possibly, the portion of Russian gas delivered to Ukraine will decline so much that this becomes true.

Fourth, the transit fee situation is improving considerably. Ukraine will now be paid its transit fee in cash from Gazprom rather than through barter. The transit fee through Ukraine rises from $1.09 per 1 mcm and 100 km to $1.60, which is a more reasonable though somewhat low price.

In addition, Ukraine will buy all gas from Russia and Central Asia at the Russian-Ukrainian border, while it previously bought gas on the Russian-Turkmenistan border being compelled to haggle over the transit fee with Gazprom. Therefore, Ukraine is not likely to actually pay more for the Central Asian gas than the $44 per mcm it paid last year, though it is said to pay $65 per mcm this year.

The only really disturbing element is that the enterprise Rosukrenergo will be in charge of the gas deliveries to Ukraine. It is a joint venture between Gazprom and a legal entity under the auspices of Raiffeisen Bank, which took over two years ago from Euraltransgaz, which took over in 2001 from Itera.

These companies appear to have been created only to skim off profits from Gazprom. Hermitage Fund assesses that the unjustified profit of the Raiffeisen entity is $500 million a year.

The US government alleges that the partners of this entity are the organized criminal Semen Mogilevich (Ukrainian Jew who lives in Moscow), former Naftohaz Ukraina chairman Boiko and top people in the Kremlin. Prime Minister Yekhanurov emphasized that Russia insisted on Rosukrenergo's involvement and that the Ukrainian government was not involved in it.

The economic outcome is relatively easy to calculate. If Ukraine will import 60 bcm of natural gas this year, it would have to pay $5.7 bn to compare with $2.9 bn for 62 bcm last year, that is, an increase of $2.8 bn. However, from this we need to deduct an increase transit income of Ukraine of $500 million and decreased transit costs for Turkmen gas of about $800 million, which leaves us with a net increase of $1.5 bn or barely 2 percent of Ukraine's GDP. Given how energy prices have risen around the world, this appears a very good deal indeed for Ukraine, and the question arises whether Russia will really stick to this settlement.

Two industries in Ukraine will be hit by the higher gas prices, the chemical industry (especially mineral fertilizers) and the steel industry, which are very dependent on gas and in direct competition with Russian industries that only pay $35 per mcm for gas.

For Russia, the whole gas conflict appears a monumental mistake for at least six different reasons.

First, market economic arguments, but the massive price discrimination ranging from $47 per mcm for Belarus to $250 per mcm for Western Europe makes clear that the conflict is really political.

Second, for long the Kremlin has made clear that its main objective has been to influence the Ukrainian parliamentary elections on March 26 to the benefit of Yanukovich's party the Regions. This is bound to backfire to the benefit of Yushchenko and Yekhanurov. Once again, the Kremlin is running Yushchenko's election campaign for him.

Third, Russia does not appear to have realized that it has a very weak position in gas negotiations with Ukraine. Much of Russia's export gas is virtually worthless without Ukraine's gas pipeline, which is the only road to the outside world for most of the gas until 2009, when the St. Petersburg LBG plant and the North European pipeline to Germany are supposed to come on line. Gazprom is under the heel of Ukraine's transportation monopoly. Russia was cheated by Ukraine persistently from 1992 to 1999 but does not appear to have learned to appreciate its weakness.

Fourth, legally Russia was bound by a five-year agreement concluded with Yanukovich in 2004, guaranteeing Ukraine the price of $50 per mcm. Ukraine could have taken Russia to international arbitration in Stockholm and would no doubt have won.

Fifth, by taking immediate and drastic action, reducing gas supplies to much of Europe, Russia has severely damaged its reputation as a reliable supplier of gas that it has nurtured for the last four decades. Two days of minor disruption are evidence enough. At a time when much of Europe is considering the choice between Russian gas through pipelines or LNG from anywhere this can potentially be highly damaging, as energy decisions tend to be more political and emotional than rational. Especially considering that this happens at the very time that Russia becomes chairman of G-8, the damage to Russia's international reputation is likely to be palpable.

Sixth, the Kremlin's insistence on using the non-transparent vehicle Rosukrenergo is likely to increasingly discredit it as people realize what it actually is.

In short, Russia could hardly have done worse until the agreement today. It has appeared aggressive, uninformed, reckless and foolhardy.

For Gazprom, however, this does not look all too bad. It has shown that it is really interested in raising prices to a reasonable level to boost its profits. It has reached a sensible agreement pretty fast, even if it could have left the prices to be renegotiated each year or raised by some formula, which Ukraine accepted. The big question is how seriously two days of minor supply disruption will be taken by potential European customers.

Holiday where did it go?

Happy New Year!

Not much time for blogging what with holiday, internet down and Typepad down for part of it as well.

And this seems to be mostly about technology this holiday as well.

Tried to use Plaxo (address software) to send e-cards but started so late only managed a few, including two sets to one group, by mistake!

We got a new Freeview box, so far so good. And a DVD/video recorder to turn all our video cassettes into DVDs. I'm surprised this is allowed since presumably you have to keep the videos to prove they are not illegal copies. Anyway, it really is easy, but not quite one touch as the box claimed. With our all in one scanner/colour printer/copier it is easy to make proper copies of the label as well. So an assembly line has been set up to turn the Christmas videos and some others into DVDs.

A happy Christmas, not spoilt by the fact that we couldn't find the stockings, and Santa delivered in plastic bags dumped unceremoniously outside the bedroom door.

My best present was an iPod. Bought by Sloph, out of her student income bless her heart. She and Bee knew I wanted something but couldn't decide, so now the decision is made for me. I spent most of the holiday tidying up my music collection to play on it. I realised it was even more of a lifestyle accessory than I expected. Never having had a walkman (what jog? me?) I haven't learnt to manage life with ear phones in my ear and a double set of noises to attend to, plus equipment in my pocket/handbag. It was rather disturbing at first. Takes me an extra long time to dress up for the cold, getting my headphones tied up in my scarf and vice versa. Still, it is a wonderful present and I'm loving getting glimpses of my music collection which haven't seen the light of day for years and now the shuffle is finding them. Generally broke after the Christmas bills come in, so being good and not buying any more music from iTunes.

More holiday time spent shopping and buying furniture for the eventual lodger. House is almost empty of boxes now.

No time to do anything much special in Oxford, though Sloph and I managed midnight mass in St Mary's. It was great to be living in a city where you can walk everywhere. Ther service itself seemed strange, though its my fault for not having been to church for so long. I'm unused to woman priests, a shared officiation, hymns I don't know, plus having to turn to neighbours with "a gesture of peace". We should have gone to the Festival of Nine Lessons earlier in the month, I think, since I prefer the singing to the rest of it.

Also managed to walk down by the river on New Year's Day, testing my new boots by walking through the mud on the bank. Nice to feel we are just a stone's throw from the river and to feel almost in the countryside.

Now facing up to all the remaining letters I have to write before I go, and knitting a new front for Teddy. He's much loved but a sorry picture of his former state even when given a full "capitalny remont" some years ago with a new jumper to hold his stuffing in. The repair was prompted by an emotional scene in IKEA when Bee "had to have" a new brown bear with a tiny companion. I was outraged at "old" Ted being supplanted without even a proper goodbye. Somehow I ended up promising to restore him to his former glory so he didn't feel supplanted.

Other "domestic" activities included building a gingerbread house, bought in the German market in Birmingham. Kept the whole family happy for an afternoon making "mortar" out of icing sugar, and decorating with a "pick and mix" selection of sweets from the stockings.

Hansel was lost in the wood (never even came out of the box) and we weren't sure whether the biscuits on the roof were actually meant to be flowers or mushrooms, though perhaps they were just the inspiration for the buttons on the outside of Selfridges in Birmingham.

Off to Kosovo on Wed.