Wu Wei

What will happen next in Ukraine’s parliament?

Depressing view from Kyiv Post's onsite poll just now.

What will happen next in Ukraine’s parliament?

The coalition formed by the Party of Regions, Socialists and Communists will hold together and run the parliament. Our Ukraine and BYuT will form the opposition. 28%
The coalition formed by Party of Regions, Socialists and Communists will fall apart, setting the stage for further chaos, with neither a coalition nor opposition in place. 13.5%
The Socialists will break their pact with the Party of Regions and Communists and rejoin with BYuT and Our Ukraine to form the original coalition. 6.3%
Complete disorder will reign in parliament until the president disbands it. New parliamentary elections will be called. 51.9%

Total voted: 331 visitors

Holidays for all

Bee got her wish for a holiday outside Europe, now labelled as too boring, so we are off for a week in Tunisia.

Comment from the saleslady in Marks and Spencers, as Bee was buying a swimming costume: "I went to Tunisia last year. It was nice apart from the language difficulties. "

Bee (regretting never taking up the option to learn Arabic with the Lebanese students when we were in Athens): "Yes, Arabic is tricky. "

Saleslady: "no, it was the French that was difficult".

Sigh from both of us at the reality of language learning in Britain.

So we are both looking forward to practicing our French, me with the propect of possible work in Algeria, and Bee with only a year of French to her name but more fluent than most of her class who have 4 years study.

We also discovered that there was no Lonely Planet or Rough Guide to North Africa, (as opposed to volumes for East, West and Southern); nothing for Algeria at all, and only an up to date Rough Guide for Tunisia.

Now to get our holiday reading from Amazon. Please leave a recommendation in the comments section.

Sloph is off later to some Hungarian music festival camping with a Japanese friend. She hasn't been there since she was three, in 1989. Clearly time to do Europe again, from the beginning, including another trip to Brussels, and a later trip to Istanbul.

Currently she is monitoring inefficiencies in the local health service by proving that untrained and inexperienced temps can work faster than people who have been there twenty years. If she worked full time she would earn a new graduate's salary. Fortunately for them (or unfortunately for her, always loath to get up in the mornings) she only has to work 9am to 2pm, but even this is too long for the amount of work actually available. She is now redeployed onto filing, presumably a black hole of opportunity.

Heatwave and flagwave

Very pleased with my new flag waving counters, so much so that I can't resist the urge to check what's new. As a result the UK figures are rather suspiciously high. But I can never manage to catch any of these visitors on at the same time as me. Clearly they are shy.

There won't be much action over the next week, as we are planning a last minute getaway to sun and beach, if it is not too late. The British heatwave is over it seems for next week. And Ukrainian politics is clearly stewing in the heat too.

Optical illusions, a change from Kiev politics?

Can't resist dropping in on Lukira every day. It's meant for kids but why should I lose out?

Some really cool optical illusions here (not the usual black and white ones everyone knows).

Mathematics in Kaliningrad

Copydude is planning a long visit to Kaliningrad including a search for the famous lost amber room.

He could also keep a lookout for the bridges. I spent 5 years in Lithuania and never got to Kaliningrad to check. The seven bridges of Konigsberg is a famous mathematical problem solved by Euler, or rather he said it was impossible to solve.

Wikipedia has the map

Is it possible to walk with a route that crosses each bridge exactly once, and return to the starting point?

More recently it was renamed the travelling salesman problem, or perhaps even the DHL problem, as the same topological problem is created by trying to minimise routes to customers.

You would think that the town of Kaliningrad would make more of the opportunities for tourism, since the Russians are no slouches at mathematics. But then you would need to lay on a whole load of other things as well, like maps, cafes, publicity etc for which the Russians are not so well known for. Still a missed opportunity. Kaliningrad In Your Pocket: are you listening?

More on the mathematics in Wikipedia here

Civilised parking

The Humble Observer is questioning Kiev parking practice. And Neeka's Backlog has a whole series of photos on Kiev parking on pavements in Flickr here. Humble Observer comments:

In fact I remember a traffic cop standing right by one day, and I asked him: "Let me get this straight, parking on the street there where you are standing is not allowed, but here on the sidewalk it is?" He answered in the affirmative in such a casual way as if I asked: "When I drive, are my wheels allowed to touch the road?" Of course you can park on the sidewalk! Are there some countries where you can't?

Your traffic cop is right. Other countries do park on the sidewalks.

It is very normal to park on the sidewalks in Athens. As a result the paving is always cracked and it is hard to not ruin your shoes. On the other hand why ruin your shoes when you can park exactly where you are going, anywhere and at any angle you can fit your car. Surprisingly few cars get their rear end smashed when you would expect they would.

The only reason Greeks don't drive on the sidewalk is that the sidewalks aren't wide enough to leave a lane for driving, or if they are, they are already full of cars when you get there.

An example of how bad the parking planning is in Athens: Just before the Olympics, a new metro station opened at Halandri near us. There were tiny designated parking areas (free of course) which filled up within five minutes in the morning. All further streets surrounding the metro were parked up wherever possible from day one. This is despite the fact that this station opening "encouraged" a whole new set of people to travel by metro instead of taking their cars into the centre. A normal country (with proper planning and free enterprise) would have set up car parking for a price on the derelict land round the metro station, or even built some offices with car parking. Even the mafia could have organised to rent the land and charge for parking, (which they do round a nearby hospital in Athens). But no, there was just chaos.

In fact Athens' car drivers are very creative, to cope with the awful traffic jams. When the government restricted traffic in the centre to cars with odd numbered registration numbers to odd numbered dates and vice versa, every family just changed their cars to have an odd number and an even number, so they could always use one car to drive into the centre.

The only concession Athenians have made is to buy large numbers of the very small Smart car, which can then fit into even smaller corners of the sidewalk. But this is probably to allow more members of the family to have cars.

Parking in unusual places is not a problem also. As the family granny lived in the basement of our house where the garage would have been, we were allowed to park in the basement of what in Ukraine 15 yeard ago would have been called "unfinished construction": a concrete shell for two houses, apparently abandoned by the builders for lack of money. Learning to back down a ramp and park amongst the columns and other cars was just good practice for squeezing into other spaces on the sidewalk.

Let us overcome this challenge

This open letter from Ethem Çeku, Minister of Energy and Mining appeared in ZERI, KOSOVA SOT, EPOKA E RE and LAJM

Over the last eighteen months, since we established the Ministry of Energy and Mining, we have been facing challenges. One of the most important ones is the supervision of the KEK management. It is not a secret that KEK is in a difficult situation. Despite international and local management efforts, KEK is not successful in terms of cash collection. This situation has been lasting for years and is continuing also now, in these crucial years for our future.

We expect Kosovo to become a state by the end of the year. This will be one of the most important events in the history, which requires a lot of work and commitment. How can we prove our commitment if we cannot convince our citizens to pay their bills?

Next year Kosovo will have to pay back its debts to the World Bank – it will be up to €50-€60 million a year. Moreover, Kosovo will establish new ministries and also embassies.

About €52 million of the Kosovo Consolidated Budget (KCB) 2006 has been spent to finance KEK and Trepca. Next year about €100 million of the KCB should be allocated for KEK’s expenditures. The cash collection problem is affecting the KCB. Every Euro being spent for KEK or mines is a Euro less for education, healthcare, road infrastructure, pensions, and social assistance for war invalids, who have done a lot for Kosovo.

Next year Kosovo’s budget will be even smaller. 2007 will be the hardest fiscal year Kosovo will experience. This will be a test for Kosovo citizens.

Every day there are reports on illegal connections to the energy network, unpaid bills, damages caused to the energy network. This creates a bad image and an impression that “we are a place of irresponsible citizens. We are destroying our own home and Kosovo’s hope.”

We are grateful to the EAR, USAID and others for their assistance. But we cannot depend on donations – we should meet our obligations and pay our energy bills.

The cash collection is a big challenge. If we continue the same way we will fail in our efforts to build a stable society. This is a battle of our state-building process. And we cannot stay calm if we know that we are losing this battle. It is high time to mobilize and succeed in this process. Let us keep our promises; let us overcome this challenge.

Will these fine words butter the winter parsnips** in time to avoid power cuts? They haven't in previous years. But at least now the Government is sending the message that money paid for citizens' electricity is lost money that can't be spent on health and education.

Translation from UNMIK
*KEK is the Kosovo electricity company.
**"fine words butter no parsnips": this idiom means that it's easy to talk, but talk is not action. But why parsnips I don't know, or even if they grow in Kosovo.

And the next target for the price of oil is?

According to the Chicago Tribune, the widely accepted formula x+y = price = next number that sounds like a milestone = 100 $/barrel. However, explanations entitled "war gaming the price of oil" here show that in the race for the biggest warning so far, this is last year's news and we have already reached 250$.

Which will come first -- world wide recession because of oil price rises or global warning natural disaster of monumental consequence? And what difference will it make?

The plot thickens

Is this just scaremongering or has anyone else seen these rumours mentioned here?

Yet recently information ha been circulated in Ukraine regarding the intentions of the “Anti-Crisis Coalition” to effectively stop the activities of the President of Ukraine on the basis of his supposed incapacity due to poor health. The representatives of the “Anti-Crisis Coalition” plan to resort to such actions should the President of Ukraine not made a submission to the Verkhovna Rada on appointing Viktor Yanukovych Prime Minister of Ukraine by 25 July this year.

Sounds suspiciously like the rumours circulating about Saakashvili. And we know where they come from.

But the post goes on:

In view of the above: 1. We declare that the probable attempt to appoint V. Yanukovych Prime Minister of Ukraine without the corresponding submission from the President of Ukraine will be considered usurpation of power and an attempted state coup. 2. We warn any potential initiators, organizers or participants in such actions that the latter are a crime falling under Article 109 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“actions aimed at the forced change or overturning of the constitutional system or at the seizure of state power”), as well as Article 341 of the same Code (“seizure of state or public buildings or constructions”). 3. We call on citizens of Ukraine, state officials, bodies of local self-government in the event of any self-initiated declaration by the “Anti-Crisis Coalition” of V. Yanukovych “Prime Minister” to not recognize his authority and to regard the present Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as having forfeited its legitimacy. 4. We call on Ukrainian political factions, civic organizations and all citizens of Ukraine who seek to live freely in a law-based European state to resort in this event to non-violent opposition.

Could it be Yushchenko is holding out against appointment of Yanukovych? In the hope of what?

Still decisions being made in smoke-filled rooms with political and financial deals being done? Not much good can come of it.

And the post ends:

6. We suggest to journalists and all those present in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to be witnesses of any possible crime committed by the members of the “Anti-Crisis Coalition”", and to all concerned individuals at 10.00 on Monday 24 July to come to the building of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine with cameras, video recorders and dictaphones and to witness any possible crime in illegally seizing the premises of the Cabinet of Ministers, in order to later punish those criminals responsible.

Did anything happen? What were they expecting?

New widgets

See my two new widgets on the side. From neoworx. Soon I'll have more counters than visitors.