Russia

50 Years of Victory (what's in a name huh!)
For most of the now snow-free UK, it's back to work; so was the thaw evidence of global warming? However, over on EU Referendum Richard North keeps up the pressure, as well he should. For the climate scientists (as pure as the driven snow?) have a lot to answer for. Here we are in the age of cut backs so why did our airports and other transport systems come to a stop in the recent bad weather? Was it because the authorities sought to save money and so did not bother with all the snow clearing equipment? Or did they heed the predictions of the scientists about snow becoming unknown and feel the money would be better spent on other things, like diversity and equality projects?

Too late

The EU is developing confidence with its worldwide importance. We have an EU force being sent to Chad, only 4 months late, to help solve the problem of security for Dafur refugees. It was unfortunate that the Chadean rebels (UFDD) just happened to choose the same time to attack the capital N'Djamena,as that chosen for the EU force to enter Chad. They used helicopters supplied by Russia to help do so.The French now have 1,100 troops based in Chad under a military treaty and will lead and provide half of the EU force. The latter sport an armband with a little ring of stars. So the EU is now put in the invidious position of supporting corrupt President Déby. Admittedly there is that oil pipeline to Cameroon to protect.

Zaporozhets

At the start of December Mr Putin's party won the elections in Russia. At once there was the suggestion that not all had gone well, there was suspicion about the outcome. This in turn led to caution in the way the results were greeted by some European Leaders, but not all. The effervescent Mr Sarkozy heaped praise on Mr Putin from the moment the results were known. Then, just a few days later we see that Renault, in partnership with Nissan, have bought a 25% stake in the Russian car maker that we call Lada, but is called Avtovaz in Russia. Could these events be related? To get this stake the French and their partners beat off competition from, amongst others, General Motors and Volkswagen.