ATHENA ~ For Real
Turkish EuroVision Entrant 2004
Ukraine's Government Collapses, Elections LoomYushchenko's party, which wants to forge closer ties with the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, quit the coalition on Sept. 3, after Timoshenko's bloc teamed up with the pro-Russian opposition to strip the president of some powers. The parties had 10 days to re-unite.2004 ~ Remember? Yushchenko was poisoned
Ukraine's geographic position, linking East and West, while also holding critical warm water ports on the Black Sea, has made the country a trade link of growing importance between the former Soviet Union and Europe for energy and other goods.
Russia–Ukraine gas disputeRussian navy top brass want to keep Ukraine port
Russia wants to extend friendship agreement with Ukraine, says Chernomyrdin
EU likes Russian supplied heat and hot water...
Europe's competition chief promised on Tuesday she would give urgent consideration to whether new Polish plans to rescue its historic Baltic shipyards meet European Union state aid rules. If Brussels rejects the plans, three Polish shipyards -- including the Gdansk yard where the pro-democracy Solidarity movement was born -- will have to repay aid totalling more than 2.3 billion euros ($3.22 billion), forcing them into bankruptcy.EU leaders met in Paris on September 9, with the president of Ukraine. The talks ended with an EU offer to establish a special partnership agreement with Kiev . But the 27-member block did not offer Ukraine EU membership.
NATO bolsters links with Tbilisi
7/19/08: Russia's energy drive leaves US reeling
FYI: Georgian 5 Day War started 8/7/08
MEND Declares Oil War in Nigeria MEND Claim to Sabotage Royal Dutch Oil Pipeline
WhoTF is MEND?
MEND hearts Jimmah
Crypto Nazi Cravenly Co-opts Oriana's Bones as Beard
Five Big Dhimmis Dancing a DaWa of Death
Who was Condi's "Mentor" again, Babba?
Who's The Smartest Guy McCain Knows?
Bush says economy strong
McCain maintains economic conditions are 'fundamentally strong'
Comrade McCain says:
It's Corrupt Wall Street
VS
Pure American Workers
Obama and McCain Suck Up to the Bankers
AIG seeks $75-billion loan from Goldman Sachs and JPMorganUS, European banks struggle to rescue Goldman Sachs by mergers
Big banks join forces to create emergency fund
When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer. The Goldman Sachs geniuses are followed by employees of the University of California, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, National Amusements, Lehman Brothers, Harvard and Google. At many of these workplaces, Obama has a three- or four-to-one fund-raising advantage over McCain.JUNE 2008:
What's more, there have been fears that the old way of doing business on Wall Street is nearing extinction - investment banks are relying less on leverage to boost their returns and have been cutting jobs to deal with the credit crisis.
Wall Street firms also now face the threat of greater regulatory oversight after the Federal Reserve decided to open its discount lending window to prevent failure among investment banks.
APRIL 2006: Free Market Advocates Ask President Bush Not to Consider Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson for Treasury SecretaryToday, a coalition of free market-based policy groups sent a letter to President Bush asking him not to nominate Goldman Sachs Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Henry Paulson as Treasury Secretary given his controversial stand on environmental issues.JUNE 2006: Zoellick leaves State Department to join Goldman Sachs
The letter was signed by the National Legal and Policy Center, the Free Enterprise Action Fund, Capital Research Center, National Center for Public Policy Research, and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
Media reports indicate that the current Treasury Secretary John Snow will soon leave office and Paulson has been mentioned as a possible successor. However, many of Paulson’s environmental views are opposed to the positions of the Administration.
Paulson is also Chairman of the Nature Conservancy, an environmental activist group that endorses the Kyoto Treaty that would require the U.S. to make economically-drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to combat the scientifically-unproven global warming threat.
JUNE 2006: President Bush Nominates Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson to be the Next Treasury Secretary
JULY 2006: Paulson Sworn in as Treasury Secretary
JULY 2006:
Incoming U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was awarded an $18.7 million cash bonus for six months of work as Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s chief executive, the investment bank said Monday.
MAY 2007: Bush Taps Zoellick as World Bank PresidentMAY 2008: Fed's Direct Loans to Banks Climb to Record Level
MAY 2008: Will Bush Join the Housing Bailout Bunch?
I can tell you that many Republicans who were against the bill report getting an earful from constituents who view the measure as a bailout to folks who may have lied to get a cheap mortgage or were just plain financially stupid. On the other hand, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke—as well as John McCain—has already put his imprimatur on the general idea.JANUARY 2008:
Shares of French industrial power and transport equipment maker Alstom rose more then 5 percent in early trade on Friday after Goldman Sachs raised its rating on the shares to "neutral" from "sell"
JANUARY 2008: Russia’s OJSC “Atomenergomash” and French Alstom successfully complete transaction to establish Nuclear Energy joint ventureMAY 2008:
Prosecutors probe Alstom for contract corruption
French prosecutors suspect engineering giant Alstom, builder of power stations and high-speed trains, of bribing foreign officials to win contracts, a judicial source said Tuesday. Prosecutors started an investigation on November 7 into suspected "corruption of foreign public agents" and "abusive use of assets," the source said.AUGUST 2008: Swiss arrest 1 in Alstom investigation raids
The source spoke after The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported evidence that the company had "paid hundreds of million dollars in bribes to win contracts in Asia and South America between 1995 and 2003."
Alsom told the paper its offices had been searched by French authorities but that no charges had been laid. The company told AFP on Tuesday that the newspaper report was based on "hypotheses and speculation" and that "there is no judicial procedure accusing the company of corruption."
Brokers however took the allegations seriously and the price of Alstom shares fell 2.17 percent to 147.03 euros at mid-day.
The French judicial source said the investigation was the result of information provided by Swiss judicial authorities in May, but no-one had yet been charged. The WSJ said its report that Alstom was under investigation in Switzerland and France was based on information from people involved in the matter.
The report was also based on findings by auditing firm KPMG which, it said, came across evidence by chance while working for the Swiss Federal Banking Commission on an audit of a small private Swiss bank. The auditors allegedly found evidence that Alstom had circulated about 20 million euros (31 million dollars) to "shell companies" in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, which was transferred to marketing people working for Alstom in Singapore, Indonesia, Venezuela and Brazil, "in stacks of 100-dollar bills."
The audit found that Alstom also set up accounts in Liechtenstein, Switzerland, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bahrain and Thailand. These were used "to transfer more than 12 million dollars (7.74 million euros) to individuals in Venezuela, Singapore, Thailand and China," the report alleged, referring to the audit.
The newspaper noted that paying "commissions" to foreign officials was legal and even tax deductible in many European countries until the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development began a campaign against the practice in 1997. France made such payments illegal in July 2000. Until then, French law permitted tax deduction of commissions of up to 7.5 percent if they were declared to local tax authorities.
Alstom was saved from bankruptcy in 2004 by state intervention orchestrated by the then finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy, now French president. One probe concerned a budget of 200 million dollars (129 million euros) for suspected commissions of 15 percent to win a contract for a power plant in Brazil which was completed in 2001.
Another probe concerned a 45-million-dollar contract for the Sao Paolo subway, and others covered payments of about 200 million dollars for projects in Brazil, Venezuela, Singapore and Indonesia, the report alleged. The newspaper said some of the projects concerned had also involved financing from the World Bank, which had declined to comment.
In Paris, Credit Mutuel-CIC brokers commented in a client note with a reference to an investigation in Germany into alleged suspicious payments by German engineering group Siemens. It said that although it was too early to know the facts of the matter at Alstom, the Siemens case "leads one to think that we may be set for a media-judicial saga lasting years."
Natixis brokers said that some investors "may fear that this is only the tip of the iceberg" but that others might consider this to be an old story concerning a previous management. The newspaper interviewed one former Alstom consultant, named as Michel Mignot, who said: "I never took a cent for myself." He said: "I didn't think the transactions were illegal, because they were done to get civil engineering contracts around the world."
Swiss police searched premises linked to French engineering company Alstom SA and made one arrest as part of an investigation into suspected corruption and money laundering, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Alstom, a maker of high-speed trains and power stations, was saved from bankruptcy in 2004 when French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was finance minister then, organized a state bailout for the ailing firm.
"A document officially registering the Alstom-Atomenergomash joint venture in Russia will be signed in Paris," Mariya Korobova said. Russia's state controlled nuclear power corporation will have a 51%-share in the JV, which will operate on the platform of the machine-building firm ZIO Podolsk in the Moscow Region.
The JV ZIO Podolsk is the main supplier of equipment to the Bushehr nuclear power plant under construction in Iran.
The future joint venture will manufacture the entire conventional array of equipment used in nuclear power plants, drawing on Alstom's "Arabelle" half-speed turbine technology. Alstom will transfer technology to the joint-venture company, namely for the manufacture of its "Arabelle" steam turbine and generator.
The joint venture, expected to reach full capacity in three years, will benefit from the best available technology for conventional equipment for its nuclear power plants, and will have exclusive access to the fast-growing Russian nuclear power plant market.
Alstom is the world leader in conventional nuclear facilities, with 175 either already in service or in the course of being built in twelve countries around the world, including France, South Africa, China, South Korea and Sweden. Alstom technology is present in more than a quarter of conventional nuclear facilities around the globe
Teapacks ~ Push the Button
Israeli EuroVision Entrant 2007
Teapacks - Push the button (English translation)
The world is full of terror
If someone makes an error
He's gonna blow us up to biddy biddy kingdom come
There are some crazy rulers
They hide and try to fool us
With demonic, technologicwillingness to harm
They're gonna push the button, push the button
There's a lot of suffering
In the streets there's too much violence
And we stand a good chance of staying alive, even unscathed
Tactical advancement of a fanatical regime
A tragic situation that brings tears to my eyes
And I don't wanna die
I wanna see the flowers bloom
Don't wanna go kaput kaboom
And I don't wanna cry
I wanna have a lot of fun just sitting in the sun
But nevertheless
He's gonna push the button, push the button
Messages are exploding on me
Missiles are flying are also landing on me
Cops and robbers are running all over me
And they're jumping me, getting on my case
Alas, alas, answer me, my God, hi
This nightmare is too long
When I'm barely alive and everyone is aiming at me
Maybe it's too late to sing that I gave her my life
Police, rescue team
It made it to the Kdam, a song with no peace
Red is not just a colour, it's more like blood
Again I'm stopping the breathing in my heart
So I won't drop dead
First it's a war, now it's resuscitation
Boom boom, that's what is happening now
In between a rocket and a machete, a viewer and a reporter
Underhanded opportunism and a kidnapee, rain and a heatwave
An escalation in the levels is setting up camp
Nothing, nothing, that's what everyone is doing
Hardliners become more extreme and officers more serious
The naive become more moderate, waiting for the data
And reply (that everyone is helpless)
A world full of demons where we are nothing but pawns
And champions with gambling chips decide the outcome
Sluggish management, a ship filled with water
And everyone is drinking to good health, and drowning
Maybe it's too sharp
We should sing palm tree songs, desert songs with no flags
I'm still alive, alive, alive
And if it keeps on being scary, only then will I say:
I'm gonna push the button, push the button
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