Gas Deal and Tieing Up Some Loose Ends

Via abdymok I got this excellent piece from the NYTimes on the January gas deal (NYTimes version here):

The official residence of the managing director of a company now set to control Ukraine's supply of natural gas is a one-story, clapboard house in a tumbledown village bordering a defunct collective farm outside Moscow. A dirty rug covers the floor, a bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling and scraps of plywood plug gaps in the wall.

Olga P. Sakharova, 49, lives there with her mother and a German fox terrier called Lyusa and has never heard of the director, Oleg A. Palchikov, who operates a business worth $7 billion a year.

"What boss would want to live here?" Ms. Sakharova asked, surprised to learn that she occupied one of the few known addresses of any of the executives of the shadowy gas trading company involved in a deal between Ukraine and Russia that continues to roil politics here in Kiev, nearly 400 miles away.

Read on at either link above. . .

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For those who have asked me in person (and why not in the comments section? if you read, then comment or ask there, please!) about when one can expect news of the formation of the new coalition and appointment of PM in Ukraine's parliament:

Our Ukraine has declared that it will not go public with any decision before April 7. Lots of negotiating is going on with those parties likely to form some part of the majority, thus Party of Regions, BjuT, and the Socialists.

The sites most frequently updating about developments in Ukraine vis-a-vis the elections are foreign notes and neeka's backlog. Both sites have factual information and other stuff, opinion and other non-election related stuff.

Also, adbymok and leopolis and orange ukraine are writing about the election, just not as frequently as the other two. All worth checking into.

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THERE IS THIS GREAT animation of Tymoshenko and Yanukovych (in Russian) that I got via Petro's Jotter

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For Michael, w/whom I chatted today (you should pose your questions to me on my blog!), check the above sites for more info on Belarus', especially Neeka's site and here, at Neeka's round ups of Belarusblogs on Global Voices site.

Here's what happened:


The first photo is from this set; the last two photos are from here.

Read this here ("A Rebith of Opposition, or A Rebirth of Fear?") for a summary and some thoughts and read this NYTimes piece ("Belarus To Charge Defeated Candidate Who Led Protest").

And look at the pics here of a demo at the Belarusian State TV that happened just the other day W, March 29, after the crackdown.

Shchyro djakuju, Neeka, for all the links on your site and at your global voices site. . .

And wait, Stephan at Everybody I Love You did an interesting piece comparing Lukashenka and the Bush administration's record on free and fair elections; he also has some other posts about the situation in Belarus' and a few pieces about the Ukrainian elections.