By Edith Balazs
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said countries in central and eastern Europe should join together and create a “triangle” of supply points for natural gas to reduce dependence on fuel from Russia.
“I’m proposing that countries in the region set up a gas supply triangle to boost the diversity and security,” Bajnai said at an energy summit in Budapest today, which was attended by heads of government from countries in the region. “We need to increase the number of independent suppliers.”
Category: Economy & Foreign Trade
Taiwan’s Defense Minister Kao Hua-chu said over the weekend that Taiwan would continue to try and procure weapons from countries like the United States in an effort to stabilize the region.
“The United States has kept providing Taiwan with defensive weapons according to the Taiwan Relations Act, enabling Taiwan to be more confident in pressing for reconciliation with the Chinese mainland,” Minister Kao said.
“In the future, Taiwan will continue purchasing more weaponry from the United States… so as to build a smaller and leaner deterrent force.”
TAIPEI, Feb 5 (Reuters) – 
Taiwan said on Friday it would buy military helicopters from a European manufacturer, a move that could ignite China’s anger toward Europe following a storm over U.S. arms sales to the island that Beijing claims as its own.
The air force will buy EC-225 search-and-rescue helicopters, defense ministry spokesman Martin Yu said without offering details.
To further expand their uranium supply, state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) Overseas Uranium Holding Ltd. has come to a purchase agreement with Canada’s Khan Resources worth US$53 million.
Khan Resources is a uranium development company based in Mongolia, with their subsidiary Central Asian Uranium Company Ltd. (CAUC) primarily focused on the Dornod province in the country’s northeast.
It seems that since China apparently ruined the Copenhagen Summit in December and snubbed U.S. President Barack Obama while doing so, America has been on a mission show Beijing that although the U.S. is a mess, they will not be outmaneuvered in foreign policy.
They have done so by striking at some of the country’s most sensitive topics over the last month, namely: censorship, Taiwan, and the Dalai Lama.
It started with Google’s announcement that it would be leaving the Chinese market after suffering a series of sophisticated cyber attacks originating in China in addition to claiming that censoring their search results went against the company motto, “Don’t be evil.”
Google’s announcement came a week after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a private dinner with some of America’s top executives, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Coincidence?
McDonald’s opened its first outlet in Russia 20 years ago this past Sunday, on January 31, 1990, while thousands of Moscoviets braved the cold in Pushkin Square.
To celebrate the milestone, as well as a 23 percent year on year profit increase last quarter, McDonalds’ CEO Jim Skinner announced that they would be expanding their business in Russia by 45 outlets in 2010.
America’s recent weapons deal with Taiwan was the correct decision, not “the wrong decision,” for the Obama administration. Here’s why:
WASHINGTON (New York Times)— For the past year, China has adopted an increasingly muscular position toward the United States, berating American officials for the global economic crisis, stage-managing President Obama’s visit to China in November, refusing to back a tougher climate change agreement in Copenhagen and standing fast against American demands for tough new Security Council sanctions against Iran.
Now, the Obama administration has started to push back. In announcing an arms sales package to Taiwan worth $6 billion on Friday, the United States leveled a direct strike at the heart of the most sensitive diplomatic issue between the two countries since America affirmed the “one China” policy in 1972.
In a controversial move, Russia’s state-run arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, said yesterday that there were no international agreements preventing the sale of arms to Iran.
This news comes as Russia continues to expand their role as one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers and exporters. That’s all nice, but what peeves some other players on the world stage (namely the U.S. and Israel) is their willingness to deal with so-called ‘pariah regimes.’ i.e. countries that the U.S. doesn’t have under their heel.
Russia lists China, India, Syria, Venezuela, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria among their foreign clientele. So, in short, business is booming.
European Commission responds to updated budget cut proposals from ailing Eastern European economies Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Malta:
BRUSSELS (Dow Jones)–The European Commission on Wednesday said Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta are taking “effective action” to cut their budget deficits, but warned Hungary that its public finances face “considerable risks” this year.
Hungary likely hit its deficit target last year, with a shortfall worth 3.9% of gross domestic product, according to the commission, the European Union’s executive arm. But state revenue and spending are at risk this year and planned tax cuts next year could further hurt the country’s bid to bring its budget gap back below 3% of GDP by a 2011 deadline, the commission said.
A great write up on the recent gas dispute between Russia and Belarus, from TIME:
It is becoming a New Year’s tradition in Europe to wake up on January 1 with a big Russian headache. At the beginning of 2006 and 2009, Russia cut off energy supplies to Ukraine after a disagreement over natural gas prices, which subsequently caused fuel shortages in the European Union in the dead of winter. This January, all eyes are trained on Belarus, which has been having its own quarrel with Moscow over oil prices, threatening European energy supplies once again. But three weeks into the current standoff, there’s been a twist: Kazakhstan, another ex-Soviet republic, stepped in last week to offer Belarus its own oil. Now the Kremlin’s most reliable tool for controlling its neighbors — energy blackmail — is at risk of blowing up in its face.