In this piece from Michael Allen's Democracy Digest, it's hard to think what or who he left out ... a real parade of names and ideas from the Kremlin critic community.

The ruling elite's "schizophrenic behavior" reflects a contradictory duality in its regression to a traditional political paradigm based on restoring superpower status and fabricating external enemies while aspiring to be integrated into Western business and culture.

Engagement with Russia should be multidimensional, integrating the values-based and pragmatic approach advocated in the 2006 Council on Foreign Relations report prepared by Steve Sestanovich and Francis Fukuyama's realistic Wilsonianism, while also cautiously reflecting Robert Kagan's imperative to resist the new authoritarian offensive and David Kramer's understandable skepticism about the Kremlin's willingness to engage.

Russia is struggling to retain its great power status and, lacking any meaningful political model or ideology to

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Natural Resources Deputy Minister Sergei Donskoi has said that Russia would welcome foreign companies looking to explore the country's oil and gas reserves as domestic firms lack the 'strength and money' to carry out these operations themselves.  State-run electricity companies will invest $19.5 billion next year, or 13.5% less than planned after the government approved their 2010 budget, according to the Moscow Times.  EDF may take a 10% stake in Gazprom's South Stream pipeline.  Bulgaria's Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov has said Sofia will demand economic incentives from Moscow to guarantee its commitment to its major Russian-backed energy projects.  ARMZ Uranium Holding is reportedly negotiating with Areva to jointly develop deposits in Namibia and other African countries, where one-fifth of the world's uranium is to be found.  The UK is currently on a non-Russian energy push with ...

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Kodiak Energy Inc. is an oil and gas exploration and development company. Trading on the TSX Venture Exchange and the OTCBB, they focus on creating a portfolio of North American assets that offer production opportunities and asset growth through exploration. Kodiak is a multi-project enterprise with a land position of over 340,000 gross acres leased for exploration and development.

The company’s mission is the development of onshore oil, gas, and CO2 properties in the North American arena. Kodiak Energy has lease holdings in Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia. They also have prospects in the central Mackenzie River Valley of the Northwest Territories, Canada and in northeastern New Mexico. Through their private subsidiary, Cougar Energy, Inc., they are developing the projects of Lucy in the Horn River Basin in northeast British Columbia. The basin has a reputation within the oil and gas industry for its large scale,

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by Manuel Alvarez-Rivera, Puerto Ricobr /br /Bulgaria will be having a new government after President Georgi Purvanov formally asked Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov to form a cabinet on Thursday, July 16. Voters in the Southeastern European nation gave a clear victory to Borisov's right-of-center Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) in a parliamentary election held last July 5. While the election to choose members of the Bulgaria's unicameral Parliament, the National Assembly, was the country's second vote in less than a month - last June Bulgarians elected their representatives in the European Parliament - the parliamentary poll nonetheless had a 60.9% voter turnout rate, up from 55.8% in 2005.br /br /Bulgaria's general election - the seventh since the country peacefully moved away from single-party Communist rule in 1989-90 - was held under a new electoral system which established 31 single-member seats, chosen by plurality voting. First-past-the-post seats were ostensibly ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /br /pa href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SlmdGD2bh-I/AAAAAAAAOoo/P8vnyB3RTno/s1600-h/bulgaria+population.png"img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 258px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357485959172294626" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SlmdGD2bh-I/AAAAAAAAOoo/P8vnyB3RTno/s400/bulgaria+population.png" //abr /br /br /The International Monetary Fund this week forecast the recession in Bulgaria would be deeper than it previously predicted. Such a decision should come as no surprise to anyone, since the country's economic dynamics in both the short and long term look extremely unstable, and Bulgaria is now almost certainly headed towards a series of more or less hair-raising roller-coaster rides. Even the briefest of glances at the population chart above should lead even the most sceptical among us to stop and think a little about the possible economic implications of such an appauling demographic outlook. As can be seen, the opening to the west brought a sharp outflow of people in the late 1980s (mainly ethnic Turks), but the important thing ...

The boys have been scammed... like suckers.

Grigory Pasko, journalist

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«Nezavisimaya writes»: «Last week, three sensitive blows were inflicted on the international positions of «Gazprom». The first and most substantial of them was inflicted by the Europarliament, which on 22 April adopted the third «energy package» of the plan for liberalization of Europe's energy market. It brings into great question the attempts by «Gazprom» to get to the end consumer in European countries. Right behind, on 24 April, the leadership of Turkmenistan in the presence of a representative Russian delegation openly declared about support of the project for the construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline to Europe. And on 25 April at an

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Ukraine has invited Gazprom to be involved in the country's efforts to modernize pipelines but tensions still remain over Ukraine's EU deal.  Russia will not fine Ukraine for importing less gas than envisioned in January, and may prepay Ukraine for the transport of Russian gas, to enable Kiev to pay for Russian gas supplies.  Whilst Moscow and Sofia may have reached an agreement on the South Stream pipeline, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin says that the core issue, namely Russia's employment of Bulgaria's gas pipelines, has not been dealt with.  Despite reports emerging about profits nosediving, TNK-BP claim to have a 'healthy cash position' and are contemplating a series of mergers and acquisitions abroad and in Russia.  Gazprom has affirmed that the price of natural gas for ex-Soviet republics in 2009 will be ...

Sberbank has lent Gazprom $3 billion to buy back a stake in its oil division from Italian company Eni.  Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko says that a deal will soon be reached between Moscow and Sofia over the much-disputed South Stream pipeline, in anticipation of Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev's visit to Moscow.   An energy conference has recommended that European governments inject the Nabucco pipeline with cash and contracts if Europe is to reduce dependence on Russian gas.  Turkmen President, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, has called for resistance to 'the preordained geography of pipeline routes'.  A senior U.S. diplomat has said that the pipeline blast in Turkmenistan highlighted the need for diversification of export routes.  The US Envoy for Eurasian Energy has said that Iran could profit more from its energy reserves if it were to improve diplomatic ...

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_28p7XDn4Qb0/SU0TcP1epkI/AAAAAAAABVg/TlCDCJj1DqQ/s1600-h/carls+bridge.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 278px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_28p7XDn4Qb0/SU0TcP1epkI/AAAAAAAABVg/TlCDCJj1DqQ/s400/carls+bridge.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281899313983563330" border="0" //abr /You have noticed that I have not been posting as usual. It happens because of my reallocation. Last Thursday it was my last day in Bulgaria. I have spent in Sofia more than one year and I have to say I enjoyed my stay very much. In last weeks I had been thinking about new locations and job a lot. And finally decided to come back to my home country, back to Prague. After 3 years of living abroad I really look forward to come back to Czech Republic. But before I start new job I am taking 2 months of vacation. I will publish some new posts during my holiday.br /br /Picture above shows Carl's Bridge in Prague.div class="blogger-post-footer"http://stockweb.blogspot.com/atom.xml/div pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/0CWBo_Yz176B2_YBKJm6OhIDVg8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/0CWBo_Yz176B2_YBKJm6OhIDVg8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a ...

The Irish TimesJASON CORCORAN in Moscow Saturday, October 11, 2008EU MONITORS in Georgia have confirmed that Russian forces have dismantled 17 checkpoints, one signals post and one military base in zones adjacent to breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia.But, while EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said yesterday Russian troops have completed their withdrawal from the areas in line with yesterday's deadline,French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner complained that Russia still occupies three disputed pockets of land - Akhalgori and Perevi in South Ossetia, and the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia - areas that were under Georgian control before hostilities broke out.Col Dorcha Lee, a former army officer and veteran of UN peacekeeping missions in Lebanon, the Middle East and Serbia who heads the Irish group in the 200-strong European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) admits that their work is difficult and breaking ...