Over at TYR, I argued that the explanation of the Ukraine-Russia gas dispute was an effort by the Russian side to break up the European gas customers as a negotiating block by exploiting the conflict between the transit states (like the Ukraine) and the customers (like Germany). This gave rise to further discussion down-blog right [...]

“Global imbalances matter” seems to be the favoured warcry over at Brad Setser’s blog these days (I’m not sure anyone really disagrees with the idea that they matter, all the arguing seems to be about how much and why). Recently however Brad seems to be drawing support from a rather unexpected quarter: “one part [...]

This is the first really concrete piece of news we’ve had on the UK housing situation. George Wimpey Plc, Britain’s second-biggest homebuilder by revenue have just announced that full-year pretax profit probably fell for the first time in a decade:
U.K. sales slipped 1 percent to 12,100 homes, with the average selling price dropping 4 percent, [...]

Another example of the law of unintended consequences: Evo was in Spain on Wednesday, probably partly as a result of the spoof phone invite from a right-wing radio station. This ‘invitation’ opened the door politically for Zapatero to offer a courtesy invite which might have otherwise drawn a lot more political backfire from the PP [...]

While a lot of our attention this week is focused on the EU’s energy needs, we shouldn’t neglect this piece of news. Basically I had it right on Monday: unfortunately poor Muhammet Ali Kocyigit did test positive for the H5N1 virus, and the Turkish health minister Recep Akdag was guilty of spreading disinformation earlier in [...]

Well the news is coming in thick and fast. The EU Observer informs us this morning that:
The EU might build a new gas pipeline on the Adriatic Sea coast in order to ease reliance on Russia following the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute. Hungarian economics minister Janos Koka told news wires about the plan following a meeting [...]

This is a kind of bits-and-bobs post without a lot of coherence, as I am trying to make sense of something which is hard to make sense of, so anyone with more specialist knowledge, please chip-in.
Now I think what we have here is a highly complex situation, and if individual actors behave strangely in a [...]

The question as to whether or not Russia ” truly belongs in the prestigious Group of Eight (G-8) advanced liberal democratic market economies”, and even more to the point, whether it is in a fitting condition to take the helm in that organisation is a question which was asked by Taras [...]

If there’s one mystery trumping all the others in the recent Russian-Ukrainian gas supply row, it is the one concerning the role and intentions of the Kremlin, particularly with respect to Vladimir Putin: Why fight a public battle over an issue that is almost as intransparent and complicated as the geological processes that created the [...]

Here’s the link to the EU Energy green paper I mentioned yesterday. As is to be expected, the report is ‘fair and balanced’. The section on nuclear energy focuses mainly on the sovereign decision making process as to its adoption and emphasises the role of Brussels in ensuring environmental safety. It does, however, contain this [...]