Archive for April, 2009
Posted on April 16, 2009 - by Venik
Costly NATO Ambitions
Besieged in his new glass-domed presidential palace in Tbilisi by thousands of protesters demanding his resignation, Mikheil Saakashvili is desperately searching for any opportunity to strengthen his slipping hold on power. The EU, rattled by the brief but eventful 2009 gas war between Russia and Ukraine, is almost just as anxious to help Misha keep [...]
Posted on April 16, 2009 - by Venik
Glimmers of hope
Recently there has a lot of talk of Obama’s “glimmers of hope” in the US economy. This tentative optimism hinges precariously on the small stock market gains in the past few days. Companies across the country are cutting production and inventories and the expectation is that eventually this will spur some consumer demand. This is [...]
Posted on April 12, 2009 - by Venik
Is Sprint Reading Your E-mail?
We all know that Google has a huge database of your online searching and browsing interests. We also know that every credit card company is tracking your spending habits more diligently than you do. We even know that your Windows operating system comes pre-configured with a clandestine application called the WGA Notification tool, designed to [...]
Posted on April 11, 2009 - by Venik
Choose Your Justice
The New York Times recently ran a story about Telenor losing a $1.7 billion lawsuit in Russia. To summarize: Telenor – a Norwegian telecom firm – and Alfa Group – one of Russia’s largest private investment banks got into a squabble over VimpelCom (Beeline) – their joint telecom business in Ukraine. Alfa wanted to acquire [...]
Posted on April 4, 2009 - by Venik
Misunderestimated Enemy
Obama’s election campaign put the war in Afghanistan on a pedestal as the single most important national security goal of the post-Bush era. Currently, the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan numbers about 55,000 troops from forty one countries, including about 23,000 American soldiers.The NATO force in Afghanistan has virtually no heavy armor – just a [...]
Posted on April 3, 2009 - by Venik
Georgian Navy auctions sunken ships
Georgian media reports that the country’s Navy auctioned off three of its ships sank by the Russians during the brief war between the two countries in August of last year. The bidding on the lot of three sunken patrol boats still cluttering Poti naval base started at $10. The winner at $61,000 was Gem Aidemir, [...]
