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The New Middle East

Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon dominate the bad news headlines from the Middle East region, but a new Middle East is quietly taking shape in the Gulf, in places like Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi (UAE).

In the last 3 months of 2007, I spent some time with two extraordinary women whose work and views exemplify important, positive changes that are taking place. One of them is Sheika Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, wife of the Emir of Qatar, and chairperson of the private Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The other is Yasemin Saib, a 34-year-old Saudi woman, who runs her own film production company in Dubai.

"The gender gap is not due to Islam. In the golden age of Islam, women were participating in every aspect of their societies. Look at the men. They are also oppressed. This is the problem: politics, the political agendas that some people are using to suppress their citizens, and traditions that existed even before Islam. Those traditions can play to the interests of some politicians." --Sheika Mozah

"I love fasting during Ramadan, I love praying in the mosque, I love being part of a Muslim community. In Dubai, I can be an Arab and a Muslim. And I can also have all the Western amenities, all the freedoms I need to be an independent, self-sufficient woman." --Yasemin Saib

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Shift Happens

In a world of rapid change, shift piles upon shift. One can get thoroughly confused and draw the wrong conclusions by focusing on one change while losing sight of the shifts that are coming up.
Advertising is a case in point. Seismic shifts are shaking up the world of advertising big time. But which shift is most relevant? And what are the implications for executives?
Understanding the shifts
In the advertising world, multiple shifts are piling on top of each other and it is often hard to keep track of them, much less understand their implications. Let’s look at just some that are re-shaping the advertising world:
Shifts from advertising placed in digital content to ads placed in social networks and applications
Shifts from digital advertisements delivered through conventional PC’s to a growing array of mobile devices, with an increasing ability to target messages based on the physical location of the person
Shifts in the behavior of digital users in their responsiveness to advertisements online
Shifts in the way that companies connect with and build relationships with stakeholders (e.g., blurring boundaries between customers, partners and suppliers)
Shifts in the revenue models for businesses, as online businesses in particular become more and more dependent on advertising as a key revenue source (e.g., is there any Web 2.0 start-up that doesn’t blithely answer “advertising” when asked about their revenue model?).
If that isn’t complicated enough, we also have broader macro-economic shifts like potential near-term recessionary pressures
Whew! No wonder it’s easy to get confused, especially since one set of changes can offset or even reverse the impact of another set of shifts. So, how do we make sense of all this?
In essence, three fundamental shifts are piling on top of each other.
Advertising is migrating to digital media because it is far more effective in targeting and reaching relevant audiences than most traditional media.
Aggregate advertising spend in the US is likely to experience a cyclical downturn as the economy softens
People are confronting a proliferation of sources competing for their attention and becoming less receptive to advertising messages, even when they are very well targeted
Here’s the danger: we may become so focused on the recent growth in online advertising that we dismiss any short-term slowdown in spending growth as a purely cyclical phenomenon. In the process, we may miss the longer-term, and ultimately far more profound, impact of the diminishing returns that online advertising is already beginning to experience.
This is particularly relevant in the Internet space. Virtually everyone seems to be zeroing in on advertising as the basic revenue model. Titanic battles among Internet gorillas, including mega-acquisitions, are at least in part motivated by a desire to occupy choke-points in the advertising value chain.
The likely evolution of Internet advertising
The basic paradox of the Internet can be framed very simply: The very platform that makes advertising both more relevant and more measurable is the same platform that longer-term will challenge and ultimately undermine the basic role of advertising in communicating with customers.
Why will the Internet ultimately undermine advertising? A number of factors come into play:
The Internet proliferates resources, all competing for the attention of people. Even the most targeted and relevant ads over time will have a harder and harder time rising above the noise.
The Internet creates powerful options for people in terms of how they become aware of new products and services and how they obtain information about the products and services that are relevant to them.
The Internet offers increasingly powerful tools to filter and block advertisements (and, yes, product placements will be an interesting alternative for a while, until even that space becomes so cluttered that people will mentally filter out the products)
On the second point, social network sites provide increasingly robust platforms for us to learn about what our friends are interested in and purchasing (although in many cases still trying to figure out the appropriate balance between privacy and attention). In this context, Esther Dyson wrote a great op ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on February 11 on “The Coming Ad Revolution” highlighting the “walled gardens” that users themselves are cultivating to connect with each other and with favored vendors.
Amazon continues to represent a leading edge example of how a trusted third party intermediary can help filter and present information about the interests and purchase patterns of others in ways that are very helpful in discovering new products. We are still a long way from the infomediaries that I wrote about almost ten years ago in Net Worth. However, the proposition of a trusted advisor who can help us sort through the growing array of resources and discover those that are truly relevant and valuable becomes ever more compelling.
As we find richer and more diverse ways to connect with friends and trusted advisors who can help us discover what we need, conventional advertising – even with all of the best behavioral targeting algorithms - will become viewed at best as marginal value and at worst as an increasing nuisance. People want to connect with vendors, especially vendors that can address unmet needs, but they will increasingly want to do it on their terms.
Advertisers are wrestling with this shift in user preferences. Recent declines in online click-through rates and the especially dismal click-through rates experienced on social network sites like Facebook should be an early red flag regarding the challenges ahead.
Implications for advertisers
For advertisers, the key message should be to build the skills required to genuinely engage people around their products and services in such a compelling way that people seek them out – and keep coming back because they have received so much value. The old game of paying for placement of messages, no matter how targeted, will yield diminishing returns. The long trajectory that will shape the advertising business is the move from random interception to targeting intention to seeking attention and ultimately to attracting attention.
The end game is collaboration marketing where advertising, meaning paid placements of messages, becomes more and more marginal. The focus shifts to becoming more helpful by creating rich, serendipitous environments that people will actively seek out (there’s a lot more to be said on this front, but this is a blog after all, so the details will be left to the imagination of the reader).
I want to be clear: while I am skeptical about the long-term future of advertising as paid placements of messages, marketing becomes more and more important in an era of abundance. Companies of all kinds will wrestle with growing challenges in terms of connecting, and building deep relationships, with key stakeholders. I also understand that advertising does far more than convey information; it also excites and engages people in imagining how their lives could be improved with the vendor’s products. Marketing will still need to address this emotional and psychological mission – my only point is that advertising in online environments will be increasingly marginalized as the vehicle for accomplishing this mission. Will advertising go away? Hardly, but it will move from the core of marketing to the edge, challenged by diminishing returns and more robust options for engaging people.
Implications for revenue models of businesses
If advertising is likely not to be a sustainable revenue source, it means that online businesses must find other sources of revenue to support their businesses long-term. What might be some of those revenue sources? Well, one option is to get customers to pay. In this regard, Kevin Kelly has an interesting post on “Better Than Free”. Observing that the Internet is a vast copy machine that makes copies of everything super-abundant and free, he concludes that “when copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.” Kevin highlights eight uncopiable values that can in one form or another be sold – immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity (meaning here certification of authenticity), accessibility, embodiment, patronage and findability. It is a thought provoking piece and, for my money, it begins to shine the light on the key question: what will people continue to pay for in this digital networked world?
Kevin’s perspectives are largely framed in the context of digital goods and services that are the core of the Internet today. More broadly, until fab labs become consumer items, physical goods that cannot be reduced to digital code will still command a price, although we need to be ever watchful about the extent to which these goods will be transformed into services (look at what’s happening to computers as they get sucked into the cloud).
And, if Chris Anderson is to be believed in the preview to his forthcoming book, more and more things will be free in the economics of abundance. But even Chris ultimately circles around to finding money. As he observes, “to follow the money, you have to shift from a basic view of a market as a matching of two parties — buyers and sellers — to a broader sense of an ecosystem with many parties, only some of which exchange cash.” While he acknowledges advertising as one source of cash, Chris offers a much more nuanced view, tapping into a number of other cash reservoirs.
So, where’s the money? Here’s my answer: to find the money, seek out scarcity. Abundance in some areas inevitably creates scarcity in others. Attention, reputation and talent become relatively scarce in economies of abundance. Businesses will be well positioned to charge for their services if they can deliver one or more of the following values:
help amplify attention through more effective advice/recommendations
foster and protect reputation
help amplify talent development through rich learning environments
The real winners will realize that amplifying return on attention, building reputation and developing talent are deeply and intricately related – the most valuable platforms will address these needs in powerful new ways.
Bottom line
Bottom line, if entrepreneurs want to build hot properties that can be flipped quickly, relying on advertising as the primary revenue source in the near-term may be OK – it will position you for a robust exit as long as investors stay focused exclusively on the first shift (I can hear a lot of my entrepreneurial colleagues breathing a deep sigh of relief at this point).
On the other hand, if entrepreneurs want to build enduring businesses that will change the world, resist the temptation to become too dependent on advertising. It’s OK to offer many products and services for free (in fact, that will be essential for success) but just be sure you understand your role in a broader ecosystem where someone (even if it is not directly you) is making a ton of money with platforms and services that people will pay for. In particular, look for ecosystems with platforms and services that generate increasing value as the number of participants expands.

Bush rejects suggestion Putin's successor will be 'puppet'

Washington: US President George W. Bush on Thursday rejected a suggestion he might see Russian President Vladimir Putin's likely successor as a puppet.

Bush said at a press conference that he knows little about Dmitry Medvedev, but will be watching closely for hints about how his election would change Russian foreign policy.

He said that it will be interesting to learn who will represent Russia at the next Group of Eight industrialised nations meeting. The answer, he said, would "give some insight as to how Russia intends to conduct foreign policy after Vladimir Putin's presidency."

Asked by a reporter if he was concerned Medvedev would be a puppet, Bush replied: "No, I wouldn't say that."

Medvedev, who has been endorsed by Putin, is widely expected to beat three other candidates handily in Sunday's election.


Putin has said he will take the No. 2 post of prime minister after stepping down as required by the Russian constitution.

Fidel Castro hands over Cuba reins to his brother

Fidel Castro handed over the Cuba reins to his brother Raul on Sunday, ending his nearly 50 years in power.

Raul Castro is a former hardliner who is feared for his ruthlessness but has adopted a softer tone in recent years.

The 76 year old vowed to continue the communist revolution.

He is expected to pursue limited economic reforms but in a sign that change is unlikely to be abrupt, Communist Party ideologue Jose Ramon Machado Ventura was named first vice president, or Cuba's number two.

In his first speech as president, Raul Castro said he would continue to consult his older brother on important issues.

"The mandate of this legislature is clear ... to continue strengthening the revolution at a historic moment," he said.

Raul Castro said he was accepting the job on the condition that his brother continued to be the "commander in chief of the revolution", a title created for him during his guerrilla uprising before seizing power in a 1959 revolution.

A difficult choice to make

Hilary Clinton may still be the front runner by a whisker to win the Democratic nomination in August, but she is going to have to work very hard indeed to keep ahead of her rival Barak Obama.

After the votes were counted in this week's Super Tuesday Democratic primaries, she was ahead in delegates and she had won the two largest states, New York and California, but her rival, Obama, had made a strong showing winning 13 states to Clinton's eight states.

The Democratic tally as of late Wednesdy afternoon showed Clinton with 845 delegates and Obama with 765, in a race in which a candidate needs 2,025 delegates to be able to win the nomination.

But what is a serious problem for Clinton is her lead comes from the super-delegates, members of Congress and other party leaders, who are not selected in primaries and caucuses.

Clinton has 213 super-delegates who have declared for her, and Obama has 127. This means that both candidates are almost level in elected candidates from the primaries: Clinton with 632 and Obama with 638.

These super-delegates are free to change their minds when they get to the convention, and they may chose to do so if Obama is gathering momentum.

The Democrats badly want a clear decision, giving them a leader around whom they can rally. A long and bruising primary campaign would help split the party when its main job should be preparing to challenge the Republicans.

Both Obama and Clinton claimed victory on Wednesday morning. Both know that Obama's ability to appeal to a wide audience is growing, and if he does well in the next few primaries, he may be able to catch Clinton.

The Democratic party bosses are terrified of the race coming down to a vote at the Democratic Convention. They want the convention to be a launch pad to the presidential election for a successful candidate, instead of a destructive fight between their two most hopeful candidates.

On the Republican side, John McCain is clearly the front runner after Super Tuesday. His main rival Mitt Romney failed to make much impression, while the surprise of the night was the strong showing of third-runner Mike Huckabee in winning several southern states.

McCain's main platform has been continuing the war on terror, and the abrupt collapse of the campaign by a major politician like Rudy Giuliani has given McCain unexpected room, as his lack of many other firm policies has not been investigated.

The excitement of Huckabee's strong showing led several commentators to talk about him as a possible running mate for McCain, but that would place McCain's platform firmly in the far right.

If McCain is to break out of his core right wing support, he will have to find a running mate who appeals to the centre, which means Huckabee cannot be considered. Huckabee is a strong social conservative, and he is an ordained Christian evangelical pastor.

His appeal has been mainly in the southern states, and has not been able to move on to a wider national stage. He has attracted some attention for his creationist views, believing that evolution did not happen and that the world was created in a single act about 6,000 years ago.

Where does this leave the Middle East?

The prospect of McCain as president has to be very worrying. He has not mentioned nation building at all when he looks outside the US, so the outlook for Iraq and Afghanistan has to be miserable.

For American worldwide foreign policies to continue to be defined by George W. Bush's sole focus on finding "Muslim terrorists", would continue the reduction of the world's superpower's influence, and continue to wreck the multilateral structure that the world desperately needs to manage its affairs.

Mixed record

Clinton would come to power with a mixed record. She would have her husband at hand to support her, and under his presidency the Middle East got the closest it ever has to a Palestinian peace deal in the Barak-Arafat talks. But she has also shown strongly protectionist tendencies and she led the charge on getting the DP World purchase of P&O rejected in the US.

There is more of a mystery about Obama's positions, since he has offered a lot of rhetoric and little substance. In the past he has made some firm statements in favour of a just peace for the Palestinians, but he has been completely quiet on the issue for many months.

The Arab world has started to hope that if he is elected he will emerge as looking for a fair peace, but a lot of this is hopeful thinking. He has simply not said very much about it.

On Iraq both Clinton and Obama have moved sharply from their more balanced positions earlier in the campaign when they both spoke of a need to 'finish the job', which gave some hope from both for building a new political settlement in Iraq. But during the campaign they have reacted to popular pressure and they both now talk of ending the war in Iraq soon.

This cut and run attitude will mean continued violence in Iraq, unless they change their statements and commit to address the political impasse there.

Turning into an energy hub

The signing of the pipeline deal linking Bul-
garia’s Black Sea port of Burgas with
Alexandroupolis in northeastern Greece is
seen as a large step in placing the country
on the European energy map and a move
expected to pry open the door of new business
opportunities for the region.
The deal, which will involve pumping mostly
Russian crude to the Mediterranean, will take
Greece a step closer to transforming into an ener-
gy hub at a time of soaring petrol prices and a
growing world appetite for power.
Construction of the 280-kilometer pipeline is
scheduled to start at the end of 2008 with a com-
pletion date set for the start of 2011.
Once completed the pipeline will be able to
transport around 35 million tons of oil per year.
This amount could increase to 50 million tons at a
later stage, according to officials involved in the
project.
Politicians have repeatedly called the signing of
the deal an ‘historic occasion’ as they point to the
fact that it is Europe’s first major pipeline project
in the last 40 years. The signing of the deal
between the three countries — Greece, Russia and
Bulgaria — took 14 years to complete.
‘Greece’s position on the international energy
map... is now a fact,’ Deputy Foreign Affairs Min-
ister Evripidis Stylianidis told Greek Economy and
Markets.
‘It is evident that Greece is an equal interlocu-
tor among the international energy players and the
Greek government a trustworthy partner in the
energy sector in the region of Southeastern
Europe,’ added Stylianidis.
The pipeline had been repeatedly delayed,
mostly due to concerns about its financial viability.
However, soaring oil prices and the recent inau-
guration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, link-
ing the Caspian Sea with the Mediterranean,
prompted Bulgaria, Russia and Greece to speed up
the signing of the deal.
Indicative of the support behind the pipeline
are the two recent visits to Athens by Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
In September last year Putin visited Greece to
revive the long-stalled pipeline along with Greek
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and Bulgarian
President Georgi Parvanov. The Russian president
visited Athens again in March to attend the signing
ceremony.
The project is seen to be of strategic impor-
tance, for the first time giving Greece a role in
helping ensure the steady flow of petrol to other
European countries.
‘It is the first important step in upgrading
Greece’s geopolitical role and safeguarding securi-
ty in the region. It will also help in supplying Euro-
pean Union nations with petrol,’ Constantinos Filis,
head of the Center for Russia and Eurasia, a think
tank set up by Panteion University’s International
Relations Institute, told Greek Economy and Mar-
kets.
Experts point out that the pipeline could help
secure stability in the region of Alexandroupolis,
which lies next to the Greek-Turkish border, since
the supply of energy to Greece’s EU partners could
be interrupted in the event of any military conflict
arising between the two nations.
A Russian consortium of the energy companies
Transneft, Rosneft and Gazprom will hold a 51
percent stake in the project.
Greek and Bulgarian companies will evenly split
the remaining 49 percent.
The majority of Greece’s stake (24.5 percent)
will be held by a joint venture between state-con-
trolled Hellenic Petroleum and Thrace, belonging
to the Copelouzos group, while the remaining 1
percent will be held by the Greek government.
The project foresees oil being transported by
tanker to Burgas from Novorossiysk, Russia, and
from there the new pipeline will transport it to
Greece.
Tankers currently make the entire trip via the
Bosporus Strait but traffic along the waterway has
intensified in recent years, raising congestion con-
cerns.
Tanker accidents often endanger the environ-
ment and the safety of residential areas on the
banks of the strait.
‘This pipeline will improve the situation in the
Black Sea straits, accelerating and reducing the
cost of oil supplies. It will help not only Russia,
Greece and Bulgaria but also a number of other countries, both oil producers and consumers, to
feel more secure,’ Russian Ambassador to Greece
Andrei Vdovin told Greek Economy and Markets.
Economic impact
The government says the economic benefits are
numerous.
Apart from construction of the project demand-
ing a 1-billion-euro investment for the region,
Greece also expects to earn tens of millions of dol-
lars from government-imposed oil duties.
Deputy Development Minister Tassos Nerantzis
said the economic impact can be broken into two
stages.
‘The first one relates to the construction phase
of the program, which involves an investment in
today’s prices of 1 billion euros. Then there is the
second phase that involves the operation of the
pipeline,’ Nerantzis told Greek Economy and Mar-
kets.
‘Already there is strong business interest from
banks, energy, construction and shipping groups
with multiple economic and growth consequences
for our country,’ the deputy minister added, with-
out giving further details.
On the job front, the project is seen creating
300 permanent positions after the completion of
its construction.
Other areas that could open up to Greek busi-
nesses include transporting crude oil from Russia’s
Novorossiysk to Burgas before it is pumped down
the pipeline to Greece.
Experts point out that Russia does not have an
adequate number of tankers for this part of the
route and is likely to require the services of foreign
shipping companies to transport the petrol.
‘Given Greece’s strength in shipping, new
opportunities may open up here,’ said Filis.
Steps made in helping make world fuel supplies
more stable could also trim the price volatility of
international oil markets.
‘(The pipeline) will reduce the transit cost in
general for Russian and Kazakh crude oil coming
onto the world market. All of this will be good for
consumers, producing more choices and hopefully
reducing the upward cost pressures in the oil mar-
ket,’ US Ambassador Charles Ries pointed out at a
recent energy conference.
Apart from supplying Greece’s EU peers with
fuel, the pipeline will help provide the country with
a steady flow of petrol for its own growing needs.
Strong economic growth in the last few years
has increased Greece’s thirst for energy in a trend
that is likely to keep growing in the future.
According to figures from the International
Energy Agency (IEA), final energy consumption in
Greece reached 23.5 million tons of oil equivalent
in 2004, about 50 percent higher than levels
recorded in 1990.
Experts estimate that this growth rate indicates
that Greece will be required to double its current
energy supply within the next eight years.
Due to delays in introducing alternative energy
sources, Greece is one of the EU countries with the
highest dependency on oil imports.
Economists also draw attention to the fact that
although Greece’s economy is growing at a fast
rate there exist other economies in the region that
are showing larger economic expansion rates which
demand increasing power supplies.
Energy hub
Experts agree that the Burgas-Alexandroupolis
pipeline will help place Greece on the energy map
but stress that more is needed to develop the coun-
try’s weight on the world energy scale.
‘More projects are needed if Greece is to
become an energy hub like Turkey,’ said an
Athens-based energy analyst.
The government says that this has already
started.
‘The government’s energy policy is being deliv-
ered at a fast pace in converting the country into
an energy channel,’ said Nerantzis.
After the signing of the petrol project, progress
is expected on the building of a new natural gas
pipeline connecting Greece with Italy and Turkey.
Greece’s link with Turkey is expected to be
ready in July, while construction of the branch with
Italy is scheduled to start in June 2008.
Stretching over 300 kilometers, two-thirds of
which is on Turkish territory, the pipeline will
transport gas from Azerbaijan and other Caucasus
producers to European countries.
Greece has been importing natural gas for a
decade, 80 percent of it from Russia via a pipeline
through Bulgaria.
Greek domestic gas consumption rose by 35
percent between 2003 and 2006 and is expected
to double between now and 2010 to 6.5 billion
cubic meters on higher industrial and consumer
demand and ambitious plans for new gas-fired
electrical power plants.
‘Additionally, we are in the process of connect-
ing electricity grids with neighboring countries
(such as the one with Turkey which closes the loop
of Mediterranean countries and will be ready in
January 2008) either by upgrading the existing one
or planning new ones,’ added Nerantzis.
Other plans on the energy front include imple-
menting changes to the regulatory framework of
bio-diesel energy production.
Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas recently
announced that Greece would spend over 4.5 bil-
lion euros up until 2010 on investments in biofuels
and other renewable energy sources.


Supply concerns
Greece’s new role in the sector has triggered con-
cerns over who will supply the pipelines with gas
or fuel.
‘What the European governments, including the
Greek government, are seeking to do is safeguard
their energy security by not allowing just one single
provider to supply them with energy,’ said Stylian-
idis.
‘In this regard, Greece is increasing its suppli-
ers in natural gas by adding LNG (liquified natural
gas) from Algeria, Egypt, Qatar and third sources
into its own energy mix. As far as oil supplies are
concerned, the suppliers of Greece in crude oil
include many countries,’ he added.
On a recent trip to Athens, European Energy
Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said that Russia
should not be allowed to dictate Europe’s energy
supply.
‘I am not worried about dependence on Russia
in oil as long as we have diversity of supply,’ he
said. ‘The problem is not Russia, the problem is
that Gazprom is a monopoly supplier.’
Piebalgs stressed the importance of the Turkey-
Greece-Italy interconnector but added that it
should serve multiple producers.
‘It is very important that it involves natural gas
from the Caspian. We should get gas from many
suppliers, including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turk-
menistan, Iran and Iraq, not just Russia,’ he
stressed.
Ries has also backed the notion of using multi-
ple suppliers, saying that otherwise Europe will
miss an opportunity to improve market efficiency.
‘If the interconnector is filled with Russian gas,
a huge opportunity for increased competition in the
European gas market will be lost,’ according to the
US ambassador.
Russian springboard
The signing of the deal has brought Greece and
Russia closer together as the two countries look
into further boosting bilateral economic ties.
‘We see this development as a way toward
expanding cooperation to additional fields, in par-
ticular investments and larger exports of Greek
products into the Russian market, tourism, and so
on,’ said Stylianidis.
‘It is the firm belief of our government that we
could use bilateral energy cooperation as a pilot
case to achieve equally substantial results in other
fields of economic cooperation,’ he added.
Greek media reported after the signing of the
deal that Athens will play a larger role in Russian
plans to invest 300 billion euros in European busi-
nesses.
Russian conglomerate Sistema bought a major-
ity stake in Intracom Telecom last year for 120 mil-
lion euros. The company said that it might also be
interested in other telecom investments in Greece.
‘The idea is to use the dynamic momentum,
created in the sphere of the energy cooperation, to
boost other mutual investment projects in a large
spectrum of activities,’ said Russian Ambassador
Vdovin.
‘Russian capital has already entered the
telecommunications market in Greece and some
other opportunities may arise. There are also
prospects for enhancing Russian-Greek cooperation
in the military field,’ added Vdovin.
According to figures presented by the Hellenic
Center for Investment (ELKE), Russia accounted
for 4.7 percent of Greek foreign trade turnover in
2004. Greece imports from Russia mostly crude
petroleum, gas and metals while export products to
Russia mainly consist of fur, tobacco and fruit.
Greece’s position on the
international energy map is now
a fact. It is evident that Greece is
an equal interlocutor among the
international energy players and
the Greek government a
trustworthy partner.

By D.P.

Davos 2008

Published: January 28, 2008, 00:11
Davos: The continuing violence and the facts on the ground are stopping progress to a peace deal in Palestine, Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister and Quartet Special Envoy to Palestine, said.

The terms of a possible future deal are largely clear, but the continuing Israeli actions and "their effects on the Palestinians mean that no one on the ground believes that any deal can be made real", Blair said.

Because of the emerging consensus based around the two-state solution, Blair thought that the Annapolis process might arrive at a deal, but was much more doubtful that it could be made to stick, thanks to the continuing violence.

"The Palestinians have to deal with the impact of Israel's continuing occupation, the soldiers, the road-blocks, and peace will only happen if the facts on the ground change," he said

"We have a collision between the facts which people see every day, and the possible plans for peace. Talking at the closing session of the World Econ-omic Forum in Davos, Blair rated peace in the Middle East as one of the most important requirements for improving the state of the world.

He and others on the panel listed what they see as important to achieve during 2008, in the light of the discussions in Davos. In addition to seeking peace, their priorities tackled various aspects of building international plans to deal with global issues like climate change, efficient used of energy, or better use of water resources.

The importance of an energy and environmental policy with specific targets was the priority for James Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and restarting the Millennium Development Goals was the top priority for Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.

The whole panel made very clear that while they see the global economy as a reality, there is a dangerous disconnect with people's values which are defined by their regional cultures, and with the world's regulatory authorities which remain stuck at the national level.

They saw this as a problem which contains the imminent danger that unless action is taken, people will react badly to the effects of globalisation, feeling that it is "something happening to them, rather than something they are taking part in," as Nooyi put it.

Asian power

"The shift of economic power to Asia, and the newly emerging importance of India and China is something with which the West will need to feel comfortable," said Dimon.

"Globalisation is a fact, but its values are still a choice to be made. At an international level, political leaders should make clear that the international values that should go with the global economy are based on justice and freedom, and are not about exploiting people," said Blair.

"There is a long way to go to reassure people across the globe that these values are part of globalisation, and the economic changes are not a threat, but are happening in the spirit of making the world a better place for all," said the former prime minister.

Nuclear reactors in UAE made in France. .

Sarkozy to sign UAE nuclear deal

Sarkozy, right, will visit Qatar and the UAE after leaving Saudi Arabia [AFP]
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, is to sign a deal that could pave the way for France to build nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates.

Starting his third trip to the region in three weeks, Sarkozy arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday and was later due to visit Qatar and the UAE, seeking to further establish French ties in the region.
"My visit to the United Arab Emirates will be ... the occasion to sign an agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy," Sarkozy told the Al-Hayat newspaper ahead of his three-day visit to the Gulf.
The deal for co-operation in civilian nuclear activities, a first step toward building a nuclear reactor, would be the third France has signed recently with Muslim nations after Libya and Algeria.

"I have often said that the Muslim world is no less reasonable than the rest of the world in seeking civilian nuclear [power] for its energy needs, in full conformity with international security obligations," Sarkozy told the London-based Al-Hayat.

Nuclear power

The UAE has expressed an interest in developing nuclear power despite having its own oil and gas reserves.

Neil Partrick, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera the UAE's move towards nuclear power was both "strategic" and "practical".

"Particularly in the UAE, there is increasing energy demands and limited - believe it or not - energy resources," he said.

"A nuclear power programme is practical and more widely may have some strategic weight, but we need to put it in perspective - it could take ten or fifteen years before the first power station comes on stream."

Under the deal, French companies Areva, Total and Suez could build two, third-generation nuclear plants in the UAE.

The weekend edition of France's Le Figaro newspaper said one plant could be built under the agreement, although a formal contract was some way off.

During a December visit to Egypt, Sarkozy also expressed France's willingness to assist Egypt in the nuclear field.

Message to Iran

Building nuclear reactors for civilian use for these countries would mean lucrative contracts for France, which generates most of its own electricity from nuclear power.

Such contracts could also be seen as sending a message to Iran, whose own nuclear programme has led it into conflict with other world powers.

The Iranian nuclear dispute with the international community was among the topics on Sarkozy's agenda during his three-day trip.

Sarkozy says he wants international pressure increased on Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear programme.

"Iran is persistent in not respecting its international obligations, we want to continue to increase international pressure within the [UN] security council and European Union, until the country fulfills all its international obligations," he told Al-Hayat.

Discussion would also focus on the threat of terrorism and the war in Iraq, Sarkozy's office said.