World press on the Russian economy, Turkey and the Ukrainian crisis (January 13, 2015)Yesterday, the Astana four-party summit on the Ukrainian crisis scheduled to take place on Thursday was cancelled due to the failure of progress between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine.The Los Angeles reacted to the news with an article "'Frozen conflicts': Democracies decline to uphold their own values"."Ukraine appears on its way to becoming the latest 'frozen conflict', a case of territorial aggression loudly condemned by an outside world unwilling to intervene and change it," the article reads. "The European Union's offer to Ukraine of a path to membership was the spark that ignited today's eastern Ukrainian conflict. But it is Russian President Vladimir Putin's fierce determination to keep the North Atlantic Treaty Organization out of what he considers Russia's traditional sphere of influence that has the former superpower adversaries pulling the strings in the background," the article reads. "This is a colossally dangerous situation," the newspaper quotes Bryan Lee, director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies about the nuclear-armed states on opposite sides of the Ukraine conflict. "We've never had a conflict that is so close to the NATO borders and really involves the kind of visceral sense of threat the Baltic states and Poland feel about the Russians.""Ukraine peace summit scratched after diplomacy fails to break impasse" is another article on the subject published by the Los Angeles Times. "That tentative truce signed by both sides as well as separatist rebels at a meeting in Minsk, Belarus, was supposed to be followed by a full exchange of prisoners, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, delineation of the front lines and a complete cessation of hostilities to allow negotiation on a permanent settlement. With those conditions still unfulfilled and gunfire and artillery exchanges accelerating, there are no grounds to expect a positive outcome at another meeting, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told journalists after the four-hour Berlin meeting," the article reads."How Russia’s Sinking Economy Could Provoke Unrest on Its Doorstep" is an article on the Russian economy which appeared in Foreign Policy magazine. "The origin of the current labor influx and its subsequent decline lies in the Russian construction boom financed by the oil bonanza of the 2000s. Millions of labor migrants from Central Asia and other former Soviet satellites and republics streamed into the country eager for plentiful, though low-wage, work. In 2012, Russia’s Federal Migration Service stated that the country needed immigrants to prevent workforce shortages due to the country’s shrinking population. For their part, the autocratic and economically impaired Central Asian governments were eager to see workers go abroad, viewing labor migration as a type of social “safety valve” to postpone economic stagnation and ward off political instability at home, according to experts." Due to the recent decline of the ruble and stricter migration laws, labor migration in Russia has dropped 70 percent compared to the same period last year, the article reports. "With more migrants staying at home in Central Asia, the region could see an upswing in political instability... Now, another generation of unemployed workers are heading back to their corrupt, economically stagnant, Central Asian homes. If more governments start collapsing along Russia’s periphery, Medvedev will have other “problematic” situations to worry about," the article reads.An article headlined "How low can oil prices go? Welcome to the oil market’s old normal" was published in the Washington Post. "Oil price forecasting is a hazardous business. In June 2014, Barclays was forecasting a $109 a barrel price in the fourth quarter, nearly $50 a barrel more than what prices actually averaged in the fourth quarter. On Monday, the price of the international benchmark crude, Brent, fell to below $48 a barrel in London," the article reads. "It’s important to keep today’s prices in perspective. Today’s price level – and the enormous cyclical swing in prices since June – is not a “new normal” for oil; it’s the old normal... The four years with the highest average crude oil prices since the 1860s were 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2013. So when people talk about cheap oil, they’re talking about crude oil that is still more expensive than the average price from 1986 through 2004," the article reads. Among other reasons why it is hard to predict oil prices, the article cites the "delay between price signals and actual changes in production and demand," Saudi Arabia, "the driving force behind the drop in prices because it has grown weary of cutting its own oil output in order to prop up prices enjoyed by other countries, both in OPEC and especially outside of OPEC" and the shale oil boom in the U.S. The article concludes by stating that "Sooner or later, though, the cycle will turn" and oil prices will rise again. "The bet is about the timing of the price rise, not about if it will occur," the article quotes the Saudi oil minister al-Naimi.An op-ed titled "Turkey’s Awkward Place in the Paris March" was published in Time magazine. Commenting on the participation of Turkey's representatives in the march, the article reads: "In many ways it was a good fit: Turkey’s population is overwhelmingly Muslim, but its government is avowedly secular. The country was founded, in fact, on the principles of separation between church and state embedded in modern France, where its founding father studied. Turkey is also a member of NATO, and a long-standing applicant to the European Union. But in other ways, the Turkish presence was incredibly awkward." "Turkey currently has more reporters in jail, 40, than any other country, even Iran and China. And the country’s increasingly autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has a particular problem with editorial cartoons: He’s repeatedly sued Turkish cartoonists, claiming damages for being portrayed variously as a giraffe, a monkey, and an elephant. In 2011 the German ambassador to the country was summoned to the Foreign Ministry after a Berlin newspaper printed a panel showing Erdogan’s name on a doghouse. But that wasn’t the only problem in Paris. It turns out that, mere days before Davutoglu traveled to France, a Parisian suspect in the terror attacks was making her way through Turkey [to Syria]," the article reads. Highlighting Turkey's tacit ongoing support of militants fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria and using Turkey as a corridor on their way to the country, the article concludes: "All of this, and more, shadows Turkey’s stubborn effort to join the European Union, an increasingly unlikely development as Erdogan clamps down on press freedom and tightens judicial controls."
Yesterday, the Astana four-party summit on the Ukrainian crisis scheduled to take place on Thursday was cancelled due to the failure of progress between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine.
The Los Angeles reacted to the news with an article "'Frozen conflicts': Democracies decline to uphold their own values".
"Ukraine appears on its way to becoming the latest 'frozen conflict', a case of territorial aggression loudly condemned by an outside world unwilling to intervene and change it," the article reads. "The European Union's offer to Ukraine of a path to membership was the spark that ignited today's eastern Ukrainian conflict. But it is Russian President Vladimir Putin's fierce determination to keep the North Atlantic Treaty Organization out of what he considers Russia's traditional sphere of influence that has the former superpower adversaries pulling the strings in the background," the article reads. "This is a colossally dangerous situation," the newspaper quotes Bryan Lee, director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies about the nuclear-armed states on opposite sides of the Ukraine conflict. "We've never had a conflict that is so close to the NATO borders and really involves the kind of visceral sense of threat the Baltic states and Poland feel about the Russians."
"Ukraine peace summit scratched after diplomacy fails to break impasse" is another article on the subject published by the Los Angeles Times. "That tentative truce signed by both sides as well as separatist rebels at a meeting in Minsk, Belarus, was supposed to be followed by a full exchange of prisoners, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, delineation of the front lines and a complete cessation of hostilities to allow negotiation on a permanent settlement. With those conditions still unfulfilled and gunfire and artillery exchanges accelerating, there are no grounds to expect a positive outcome at another meeting, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told journalists after the four-hour Berlin meeting," the article reads.
"How Russia’s Sinking Economy Could Provoke Unrest on Its Doorstep" is an article on the Russian economy which appeared in Foreign Policy magazine. "The origin of the current labor influx and its subsequent decline lies in the Russian construction boom financed by the oil bonanza of the 2000s. Millions of labor migrants from Central Asia and other former Soviet satellites and republics streamed into the country eager for plentiful, though low-wage, work. In 2012, Russia’s Federal Migration Service stated that the country needed immigrants to prevent workforce shortages due to the country’s shrinking population. For their part, the autocratic and economically impaired Central Asian governments were eager to see workers go abroad, viewing labor migration as a type of social “safety valve” to postpone economic stagnation and ward off political instability at home, according to experts." Due to the recent decline of the ruble and stricter migration laws, labor migration in Russia has dropped 70 percent compared to the same period last year, the article reports. "With more migrants staying at home in Central Asia, the region could see an upswing in political instability... Now, another generation of unemployed workers are heading back to their corrupt, economically stagnant, Central Asian homes. If more governments start collapsing along Russia’s periphery, Medvedev will have other “problematic” situations to worry about," the article reads.
An article headlined "How low can oil prices go? Welcome to the oil market’s old normal" was published in the Washington Post. "Oil price forecasting is a hazardous business. In June 2014, Barclays was forecasting a $109 a barrel price in the fourth quarter, nearly $50 a barrel more than what prices actually averaged in the fourth quarter. On Monday, the price of the international benchmark crude, Brent, fell to below $48 a barrel in London," the article reads. "It’s important to keep today’s prices in perspective. Today’s price level – and the enormous cyclical swing in prices since June – is not a “new normal” for oil; it’s the old normal... The four years with the highest average crude oil prices since the 1860s were 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2013. So when people talk about cheap oil, they’re talking about crude oil that is still more expensive than the average price from 1986 through 2004," the article reads. Among other reasons why it is hard to predict oil prices, the article cites the "delay between price signals and actual changes in production and demand," Saudi Arabia, "the driving force behind the drop in prices because it has grown weary of cutting its own oil output in order to prop up prices enjoyed by other countries, both in OPEC and especially outside of OPEC" and the shale oil boom in the U.S. The article concludes by stating that "Sooner or later, though, the cycle will turn" and oil prices will rise again. "The bet is about the timing of the price rise, not about if it will occur," the article quotes the Saudi oil minister al-Naimi.
An op-ed titled "Turkey’s Awkward Place in the Paris March" was published in Time magazine. Commenting on the participation of Turkey's representatives in the march, the article reads: "In many ways it was a good fit: Turkey’s population is overwhelmingly Muslim, but its government is avowedly secular. The country was founded, in fact, on the principles of separation between church and state embedded in modern France, where its founding father studied. Turkey is also a member of NATO, and a long-standing applicant to the European Union. But in other ways, the Turkish presence was incredibly awkward." "Turkey currently has more reporters in jail, 40, than any other country, even Iran and China. And the country’s increasingly autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has a particular problem with editorial cartoons: He’s repeatedly sued Turkish cartoonists, claiming damages for being portrayed variously as a giraffe, a monkey, and an elephant. In 2011 the German ambassador to the country was summoned to the Foreign Ministry after a Berlin newspaper printed a panel showing Erdogan’s name on a doghouse. But that wasn’t the only problem in Paris. It turns out that, mere days before Davutoglu traveled to France, a Parisian suspect in the terror attacks was making her way through Turkey [to Syria]," the article reads. Highlighting Turkey's tacit ongoing support of militants fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria and using Turkey as a corridor on their way to the country, the article concludes: "All of this, and more, shadows Turkey’s stubborn effort to join the European Union, an increasingly unlikely development as Erdogan clamps down on press freedom and tightens judicial controls."
