Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Manuel,

Go down to the bookies and put some money on U-turn Cameron to win the next UK election.

You may even try and put a bet on him to be leader of the torrid party at the same time.

Unless of course it splits further into two or the escapees join the Kipper party.

If we were to view this whole situation from a distance, the EU actions are no better than the same actions of Russia, nor is Russia's actions any worse than the EU actions.

It is not OK for Russia to intervene as it's OK for EU to intervene/instigate everything else...

We should let the people decide. And all those so called leaders should abide by which way ever the people decide. And let the people live with their choices.

Anyway Ukraine is almost bankrupt, and not important in terms of GDP, never mind its Crimea. Any country, Russia or Europe, overtake these could help the poor people.

fossy - i never bet on this sort of thing, but as you're the one with the big gob, why don't YOU put money with mouth (fat chance) and back the numbers you were propounding?

ahoj - surely crimea is actually a part of ukraine, and if so this (contrived?) referendum is surely more like annexation

I will have enough fun thinking of you eating your own words in twelve months time.

But, if the wish of its people is to separate, then why to object. It is democratic.

I agree that Russia shouldn't have increased its forces in the country, even thought they have a kind of military agreement with Ukraine.

That is too simplistic. You can't run countries that way. Are we happy for the Isle of Man to have a vote. What about Norfolk or Cornwall and then Devon once Cornwall has left us. I don't know how they will have a referendum in Crimea. The voters lists are in Kiev. There are no parties and no campaigning. There has not been any discussions about the referendum questions. The ethnic Tartars are ignoring the vote. The Russian ethnic is a small majority at 58% and plenty do not want to be governed by Russia as they have seen the lack of freedom. Does anyone think the referendum will be fair.

depends who orchestrated the referendum, and don't forget crimea is part of ukraine and ukraine is not russian either .... racing certainty that it was russia who has "arranged" rather than a spontaneous demand

Of course it was Russia who instigate the referendum. Russia was worried about losing its naval base in Sevastopol as it is their only access to the Black sea and consequently the Med. Putin also had ambitions for his Asian market to rival the EU. Ukraine was a key part of that strategy. He is ex KGB and wants the USSR back. He once said that the biggest geopolitical disaster in the last 100 years was the break up of the Soviet Union. Putin also doesn't like the idea of countries on his border being members of NATO as Ukraine would become later. Don't forget that if Ukraine was already a member of NATO we would have a duty to defend them with force together with the rest of NATO. An attack on Ukraine would be war.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Russia invade some other areas on the eastern border. Causing internal trouble and then being invited in by a puppet leader is a Soviet tactic that goes back to the 1950s.

Italy, Greece, Little Greece, all have leaders appointed by the €U.

Whats the difference with Southern Ukraine?

Not so. The leaders were appointed within the countries. The leaders had to be acceptable in terms of being technocrats so that they would get EU loans. They had the choice of appointing different leaders. The appointments were made by the respective parliaments voting freely.

I refer back Post

Fred1new - 01 Mar 2014 17:38 - 37292 of 38259
I think in their circumstances I would rely on luck and hope that Russia is satisfied with the Crimea as a mouthful.

Can see Crimea separating from the rest and attempting to run as a individual state under the financial thumb of Putin.

Not sure what the economic effect will be, or what the share out of their debt will be.


------------------------




Of course it was followed by the usual attention seeking mouthful from the Manuel!

Appointed within the country...by who?


elections??

Whole cartoon strip here: http://wingsoverscotland.com/a-family-of-nations/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-family-of-nations

That was quite funny reflect Scots perception of London elite.

MaxK
Appointed by the parliament after a vote. Bear in mind that Italy and Greece have different election systems to us. Italy's was invented by the Allied Countries after the war to stop dictatorships as was Germany's. Italy has a sort of proportional representation system that produces coalitions almost every time apart from Burlusconi's government. Italy's coalitions collapse on a regular basis. in fact it happened just recently. Italy has had an average of one government per year since WWII. Two lasted 11 days only. It is quite common for their parliament to elect new leaders without a full general election.

cynic
I ment to tell you something that you might find interesting. I was out the other day with some friends, a few of which own businesses. We were talking about zero hours contracts. Two of them used these employment contracts and both for the same reason. The next day I rang a couple more friends and asked them about it. One more did for the same reason again. It ended up as three out of eight.

The reason was that employment legislation makes it difficult to sack people even when they are not much good at the job. Once you have employed someone for a while they go to employment tribunals if you sack them. If you employ people on zero hours contracts then you can just not have any hours for them to work anymore. The people that told me this said they knew lots of businesses doing the same.

edit
One of them said that some companies use it to avoid the maternity leave entitlements.

I just did a bit of research and Wikipedia's entry for zero hours has this

"According to the CIPD research about 38% of those employed under zero-hours contracts considered themselves to be employed full-time, working 30 hours or more a week."

That matches my friends' experience. Their zero hours staff work full time hours every week.

Thanks guys...a lot more interesting now this thread.....

Why China is right on the future of Ukraine

The Chinese are urging patience, calling for talks after the referendum






Liam Halligan
By Liam Halligan

4:22PM GMT 15 Mar 2014



This Crimean crisis is, perhaps, reaching its apogee. As a referendum is held on the Black Sea peninsula, a territory 25pc bigger than Wales and home to 2m people, the stand-off between Russia and the West continues, dominating the global news cycle.


Talk of a new Cold War is deeply alarmist. Politicians on both sides are posturing in front of each other and their respective electorates. Be in no doubt, though, relations between Russia and the US are now at their lowest ebb since the Soviet Union collapsed more than 22 years ago.


While the possibility of East-West military confrontation remains remote, the war of words is casting a pall over global financial markets. Investors worry that argy-bargy between Moscow and Washington, and a Ukrainian sovereign default, could spark another Lehman-style “systemic moment”.


Crimean voters are today almost certain to back closer ties with Moscow. Two-thirds of them are ethnically Russian and there is widespread anger at last month’s mob-ousting of Ukraine’s elected president.


While Viktor Yanukovich had become unpopular, his 2010 election was “fair” and “competitive” according to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. And he wasn’t up for re-election until 2015.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/10700292/Why-China-is-right-on-the-future-of-Ukraine.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article9194674.ece/ALTERNATES/w620/p38cartoon.jpg