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English: President George H. W. Bush and President Mikhail Gorbachev sign United States/Soviet Union agreements to end chemical weapon production and begin destroying their respective stocks in the East Room of the White House, Washington, DC on the 1st of June 1990. Suomi: Neuvostoliiton presidentti Mihail Gorbatšov ja Yhdysvaltain presidentti George H. W. Bush allekirjoittamassa kahdenvälistä kemialliset aseet kieltävää sopimusta Valkoisessa talossa, Washingtonissa 1.6.1990 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a must-read article by former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, published by Project Syndicate.

via A New Cold War Order? by Mikhail Gorbachev – Project Syndicate

It is too easy to get into a blame game or point fingers. I agree with Mikhail Gorbachev that mutual trust needs to be reestablished. He is also right that Europe is the big loser.

Thoughts?

Oil and gas pipeline (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is an excellent look behind the scenes at how Europe is probably scrambling to secure gas this winter to avoid risk of freezing. Check it out!

via Will Europe freeze without Russian gas?.

With Germany the biggest consumer of Russian gas, if I were a German consumer, I would start to be getting very worried and looking to Angela Merkel for some answers.

Here are some open questions for German consumers for Angela:

How did we get in this mess, with the risk of serious energy shortages next Winter?
Why doesn’t Germany and the European Commission (EC) have a contingency plan?
Why is the German Government and the EC not open about the risks?
Surely the EC has a publicly available energy strategy with robust risk assessment?
What’s Germany and the EC doing to secure a share of new resources, like in Cyprus?
What’s the impact on the German economy of all these sanctions?
Should we be listening to the World’s economist, like Paul Krugman, and following different economic policies in both Germany & Europe?

Thoughts?