contributors

Articles by Gustav Strandberg

1. Energy issues are being dealt with by a variety of actors; governance and cooperation are lacking

   The EU wants the Baltic region to have a common energy sector, something the region does not have today. Political governance is weak and the people making the investments have yet to prioritize regional cooperation. This is the view of Michael Bradshaw, professor of human geography at Leicester University, who opened the first Baltic Worlds Annual Round Table on November 24 at Södertörn University in Stockholm.

2. Following the Nord Stream. Elder statesmen paved the way

   “Follow the pipeline” was also one of the central themes of the 10th Aleksanteri Conference, “Fuelling the Future: Assessing Russia’s Role in Eurasia’s Energy Complex”, held at the University of Helsinki at the end of October 2010.

3. Russia maintains its focus on gas

   The Russian energy strategy for the next few years includes lofty goals. While other countries are investing 1.5 percent of their GDP in the energy sector, Russia is spending 5 percent. This was noted at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) Annual Conference on Russian and Eurasian Studies.

4. nuclear storage gone awry

   In Michael Madsen’s film Into Eternity, the safe storage of nuclear waste has gone awry: distant descendants of ours from a civilization unknown to us have penetrated the defenses of Onkalo, the final repository of nuclear waste on Finland’s west coast.

5. Finland – land of uranium

   The Decision-in-Principle (DiP) in 2002 to build a fifth nuclear power plant made Finland the center of attention when the nuclear power industry began to see its chances. Finland is the first country to have made a decision on final storage of nuclear waste. Finland is also the only Nordic country in which energy consumption is rising.

6. Human trafficking is likely to increase and become even more complex

   Professor Shelley was the keynote speaker at the “Human Trafficking: The Nexus Between Research and Operative Work” conference in Uppsala, Sweden on November 25, 2010. She noted that human trafficking always grows where there are large social gaps and little opportunity for poor people to improve their situation. However the organization, manifestation and methods used in the combat are culturally distinctive.

7. Belarusian democratic opposition appeals to the EU

   In a joint proclamation, signed by ten organizations, the democratic opposition in Belarus now urges the EU not to negotiate on anything with the regime in Minsk other than the immediate release of all political prisoners, including the four presidential candidates who are still imprisoned and threatened with long-term prison sentences.

8. Belarus election. Frauds and repression as usual

   The 19 December presidential elections in Belarus did not meet the high expectations that the partial but encouraging regime liberalization of the past two years had raised in Western democracies and among the Belarusian opposition. Incumbent president Alexander Lukashenka was once again re-elected with supposedly 79,65 % of the votes in an election OSCE observers did not recognize as free and fair.

9. Belarus Election. Return to repression

   On Monday the 20th and on Tuesday the 21st Minsk was back to its normal life. The life of fear. The doors that had been opened during the month before had once more, at least for a period, been closed. In an interview the 21th, the independent professor of Political Science, Mr Valery Karbalevich comment the situation.

10. The Future of the Eastern Partnership Policy

    Last month Baltic Worlds' reporter visited two conferences being held in Poland with the aim of discussing the one and half year of EU’s Eastern Partnership Policy (EaP) and trying to generate new proposals for the future work of the EU towards Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus. The main aim of the EaP is to promote democracy and economic integration with the Union of the six countries involved in the program, which is not an easy task.

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