Казахстан как сырьевой придаток Таможенного союза?
Взаимная торговля Казахстана со странами Таможенного союза ежегодно увеличивается, за счет покупки Казахстаном российских и белорусских товаров. Однако кроме сырья стране пока нечего предложить своим партнёрам.
Ещё до создания Таможенного союза Казахстану не удалось наладить производство собственных товаров. Почти весь малый и средний бизнес в Казахстане занимался торговлей и услугами, производители составляли всего лишь 2%.
По данным независимой ассоциации предпринимателей Казахстана, сегодня российские компании скупают в Казахстане практически все молочное и рыбное сырье, потому что это дешевле.
Внутри Таможенного союза наибольшую выгоду получают Россия и Белоруссия. Продукция, которую эти страны продают Казахстану нередко изготовлена из казахстанского сырья.
Оппозиционные партии неоднократно выступали против соглашений о Таможенном союзе, как ущемляющих суверенитет Казахстана. Они выражали опасение, что Таможенный союз несет экономическую и политическую угрозу независимости Казахстана. При этом представители оппозиции указывают на рост цен на автомобили, топливо и продукты питания в Казахстане после вступления страны в Таможенный союз с Россией и Белоруссией.
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'Big brother' mentality still reigns in Russia
In Ukraine, business and politics are closely intertwined, said Sutyagin, and Yanukovych's political support base is in the energy-hungry industrial east of the country, which tends to look more to Russia and where its fertilizer and aluminum businesses are centered.
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Soon after taking office, Yanukovych signed a treaty with Moscow that extended its right to use Ukraine's Black Sea ports for an additional 25 years, until 2042, in return for a renegotiated deal on natural gas imports that knocked $100 per thousand cubic meters off the price.
The ports, on the Crimean Peninsula, are strategically useful to Russia's navy but more importantly hold symbolic significance for the Kremlin, which sets great store in military power, said Sutyagin.
Russia is also pressing Ukraine to join a "customs union," involving Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, rather than pursue closer links with Europe.
Although Kiev is seeking to exploit recently discovered shale gas reserves in a bid to lessen its dependence on Russia, Moscow is investing in alternative transit routes for its oil and gas to reach Europe. That would mean Ukraine no longer has the bargaining chip of its gas pipeline to use in negotiations with its powerful neighbor.
"It's still very difficult for the Russian ruling elite to recognize that Ukraine is finally independent," Sutyagin added, and Moscow still tries to take a "big brother" role toward its neighbor.
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Al-Assad keen on violence, not dialogue
In late March, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan persuaded Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to agree to a sensible plan to stop the killing in Syria and start a process of genuine dialogue. Unfortunately, that plans seems highly unlikely to succeed.
That is because the Syrian regime is not fundamentally interested in dialogue with the political opposition. It seeks instead to brutally eradicate that opposition.
Unfortunately, such a strategy can be effective if a government is fully willing to be as brutal as Bashar al-Assad has been.
In this context, it is not clear if a plan like Kofi Annan’s could work unless it had some muscle behind it. But there is a limit to what people on the outside can do for Syria. Syria is not Libya, where the opposition was able to gain geographic control of certain parts of the country, including the key city of Benghazi. Libya had an east-west division that allowed the opposition to coalesce and then retrieve supplies through Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.
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None of these factors apply in Syria. The Syrian opposition has not been able to create a geographic stronghold and it is therefore difficult to supply that opposition. In this context, it’s hard to see where the muscle needed to force dialogue could come from.
Annan’s plan is well intentioned. Annan himself is a very intelligent man. But ultimately you cannot have this kind of diplomacy work without a credible threat of force.
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Iraq orders militant freed
An Iraqi court has cleared a Lebanese militant once held by U.S. forces in the deaths of five U.S. soldiers, saying there wasn't enough evidence against him, an official with Iraq's judicial council told CNN.
Ali Mussa Daqduq's case will be automatically appealed and he will remain in custody until a decision on the appeal is made, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
U.S. officials say Daqduq organized a kidnapping in the Iraqi city of Karbala in January 2007 that left five U.S. soldiers dead. Officials said he was a 24-year veteran of Hezbollah who had commanded a special operations group sent to Iraq to develop "special groups" within Shiite militia. U.S. forces captured him in 2007.
The court cleared Daqduq last week.
In a letter sent Thursday, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed worry that the decision means Daqduq could soon go free, and pressed the Obama administration about its plans for dealing with the Lebanese citizen, who had been held in U.S. custody until the United States ended its military mission in December and handed him over to Iraqi authorities.
Although Daqduq has been charged with war crimes by U.S. officials, according to the senators' letter, they said the administration had dawdled in acting against him until he was out of U.S. custody and potentially out of reach.
There was no immediate response from the administration.
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