Josef Stalin was born Iosef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia on December 18th 1878.

Yesterday a "ceasefire" was announced in the Georgian war, but the killing continued in Gori. According to the Daily Telegraph:

Russian forces have shelled the strategically important Georgian town of Gori, an attack that represented a significant escalation in Moscow's military offensive even as Kremlin leaders were announcing a cessation of hostilities.

A Dutch journalist was killed and another wounded after a fragmentation shell exploded outside a press centre where western reporters in Gori, including reporters for The Daily Telegraph, have based themselves since the conflict began.

This morning the leaders of 6 countries that are neighbours of the current Russian Federation held a press conference in Tbilisi, Georgia. Present at the conference were Polish president Lech Kaczynski, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the president of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko, the president of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus, the prime minster of Latvia Ivars Godmanis and the president of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Mr. Kaczynski emphasized that the leaders were there to say “no” to Russian domination. He said that:

We are here to fight. Today we are here together. Today the World has to react, even if with reluctance. We are here so the World can react more powerfully, especially the EU and NATO.

Some people are asking today "Why on earth did Lech Kaczynski do what he did, and say what he said"? Here is our answer:

On August 1st 1944, as Stalin's troops approached Warsaw from the east the inhabitants rose up against the Nazi occupiers, in what came to be known as the Warsaw Rising. The action was intended to last only until the Soviet army reached the city. The Soviet advance stopped on the opposite bank of the river Vistula and never came to the aid of the insurgents. Stalin's forces looked on as Polish resistance against the Germans continued for a total of 63 days. The Polish forces ultimately surrendered on October 2nd, and by the time the Soviet army eventually crossed the Vistula in January 1945 the city had been destroyed and by some estimates 250,000 Poles had been killed, the majority civilians.

In February 1945 Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met at the Yalta Conference on the Crimean peninsula. They discussed an agenda for governing post-war Germany and the issue of Poland. Stalin insisted that the Russians would keep the territory they had already annexed in eastern Poland, and Poland was to be compensated for that by extending its Western borders at the expense of Germany. He promised free elections in Poland despite the recently-installed Communist puppet government based in Lublin. As we now know, Stalin did not keep his word, and the Allies were unable or unwilling to prevent a totalitarian regime suppressing the freedoms for which so many had fought and died.

Ten days ago Lech Kaczynski and Toomas Hendrik Ilves took part in the ceremony commemorating the 64th Anniversary of the Outbreak of the Warsaw Rising held in Park Wolnosci (Liberty Park) located on the site of the Warsaw Rising Museum.

For further information please go to the website of the Warsaw Rising Museum

In addition to the battles taking place in South Ossetia and beyond, another war is in progress in cyberspace. According to the Shadowserver Foundation a number of Georgian websites, including that of president Mikhail Saakashvili, have been subject to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

Polish president Lech Kaczynski has agreed to allow his English language website to be used to disseminate information from Georgia about the conflict.

Yahoo News reports that hosting for Mr. Saakashvili's website has just been moved to Atlanta, Georgia courtesy of Nino Doijashvili. Ms. Doijashvili was born in Georgia, and was on holiday there when fighting broke out. She is also CEO of hosting company Tulip Systems Inc. It seems the DDoS attacks are continuing against the US based servers.

I don't know if the hackers are also thinking of taking on Google or not, but the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also maintains a blog hosted by Blogger.

Vladimir Putin left China yesterday, and arrived in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia:

Mr. Putin said he:

Wanted to discuss the influx of refugees. Russia's actions in South Ossetia are legally totally legitimate.

In an interview with the BBC Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said that:

I'm willing to have an immediate ceasefire. I am willing to have international mediation. I am willing to have international separation of forces. We are dealing with legal fiction here. We are dealing with a clear attempt to annex and appropriate even a small part of another country's territory. Doesn't Russia have enough territory of it's own?

A woman fleeing the conflict via Tbilisi airport said that:

I can't talk now because I'm so emotional and crying. I'd like to ask everyone to stop this war, because nobody wants it.

I guess Mr. Putin is the exception that proves that rule?

Reuters reported yesterday that Russian fighter jets targeted the major Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline which carries oil to the West from Asia but missed. According to Georgia's Economic Development Minister Ekaterina Sharashidze:

This clearly shows that Russia has not just targeted Georgian economic outlets but international economic outlets in Georgia.

In Beijing this morning Associated Press reports that President George W. Bush:

Expressed concern that the attacks were occurring in regions of Georgia that were far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. A senior official in Washington said Russia's use of overwhelming military force against Georgia, including strategic bombers and ballistic missiles, was "disproportionate to whatever threat Russia had been citing".

Whilst the war of words goes on the latest estimate from The Independent newspaper is that:

As many as 2,000 people may have been killed and 30,000 made homeless as the chaotic conflict between Georgian and Russian forces in the pro-Moscow enclave of South Ossetia entered its second bloody day.

The spectacular opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games took place yesterday. The four-hour event was choreographed by celebrated Chinese film director Zhang Yimou. The finale was in the style of a martial arts movie, and involved former Olympic gymnastics champion Li Ning "running" along the rim of the roof of the Bird's Nest stadium, before using his Olympic torch to light the huge Beijing cauldron, home of the Olympic flame for the next few days.

Beijing is also acting as a metaphorical cauldron at the moment. The opening ushered in protests about a lot more than just sport.

I suppose it was expected that the issue of Tibet would give rise to some form of criticism. Amongst a number of demonstrations within China, the Great Wall of China was adorned with a "Free Tibet" banner:

It seems likely that Islamic terrorists are also on the radar screens of the Chinese security forces. Last week in Kashgar 16 policemen were killed "by jihadists bent on disturbing the Olympic games", according to the Chinese government. However the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper takes a slightly different tack. According to their correspondent Malcolm Moore:

Kashgar has revolted against Chinese rule several times in the past, the last real attempt came in 1864, and frankly the local population looks too terrified to consider trying again.

It did strike me, however, that the location of the bombing might be vaguely significant. The two alleged jihadists struck opposite the Tarim hotel, a four-star joint owned by the state petroleum company.

Xinjiang produces the bulk of China's oil and gas, which flows out of the Takalaman desert. Pipelines spider across the province, carrying the riches of Xinjiang directly to Beijing and Shanghai.

The oil is making the province rich – but the recipients of the wealth are not the local Uighurs, but their Han Chinese masters. Even if an Uighur wanted to work on a drill site or refinery, the Chinese government is too jittery about terrorism these days to allow them past security.

Now I'm not sure if it really counts as a protest or not, but this one certainly managed to slip through Chinese security too.

U.S. cyclist Mike Friedman and three other track cyclists on the U.S. Olympic Team caused some controversy by leaving the flight that took them to Beijing wearing masks over their noses and mouths. According to the New York Times the United States Olympic Committee had issued the specially designed masks to protect athletes from the potentially harmful air in Beijing. The U.S.O.C.’s lead exercise physiologist, Randy Wilber, had advised the athletes to wear the masks on the plane and as soon as they stepped foot in China. On his blog Mike Friedman says that:

I am only doing what I perceive as best for my health and upcoming competition. I, nor any of the other athletes involved were attempting to make a political statement of any sort. We meant no offense to the great host the Chinese have been and all appreciate the hard work and devotion they’ve displayed to provide this venue. We are honored to be here, and this has been a long time dream. The bottom line is that we are here to compete faster, higher, and stronger while doing so clean, brave, reverent, and courteous trying to represent our country in the best possible way.

Finally, here's what the Russian media machine makes out of the Chinese Olympic smog:

We didn't intend that this would be our headline for today, but shit happens.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn died last week. So it goes.

War has broken out on the border between East and West…. again.

This time the conflict is in South Ossetia, currently part of Georgia but inhabited mostly by ethnic Ossetians, who speak a language remotely related to Farsi. Here's how Russia Today sees it:

The Georgian Ambassador to the U.S. Vasil Sikharulidze called on the international community to pressure Russia to end their military aggression in Georgia.

Maybe we can draw the parallels with the same situation during the 1930s, when Nazi Germany entered Czechoslovakia under the cover of protecting its ethnic Germans.

The Russian Prime Minister is in China to watch the Olympic games at the moment, along with George W. Bush and many other world leaders. Vladimir Putin commented that:

It's a great pity that this has happened during the opening of the Olympic games, which has always been a day when the guns went silent, but the Georgian leadership have resorted to very aggressive actions against the people of South Ossetia. This is very sad and a worrying development, which of course we will have to respond to.

Whilst Mr. Putin enjoys the games, the people of South Ossetia are hiding in their cellars:

Since he is no longer President of the Russian Federation, and therefore no longer Supreme Commander-in-Chief, I am sure Mr. Putin's intentions in this matter are purely humanitarian, and he takes no interest whatsoever in the energy resources of the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

I don't suppose he loses much sleep these days over the oil riches around the Falkland Islands or in the Fertile Crescent either.

Barack Obama gave a speech on Monday in Lansing Michigan, an area very familiar with the decline in the US automobile industry. He took the opportunity to outline his current energy policy, and he started out by laying his cards on the table:

Our changing climate is placing our planet in peril. Our economy is in turmoil and our families are struggling with rising costs and falling incomes; with lost jobs and lost homes and lost faith in the American Dream. And for too long, our leaders in Washington have been unwilling or unable to do anything about it.

Whilst he referred to the effects of the fuel crisis and the financial credit crunch on the US consumer, he didn't mention the global food crisis during his presentation. I guess this speech was intended solely for his domestic audience? Families around the world "are struggling with rising costs and falling incomes", but in the US at least the vast majority are not starving as a result.

Here's the video of Mr. Obama's speech:

The Obama campaign also released a factsheet about the prospective Democratic candidate's energy policy, which you can download here. This helpfully includes a list of bullet points about Barack Obama's "comprehensive New Energy for America Plan". Here they are:

• Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump.
• Help create 5 million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
• Within 10 years save more oil than the US currently imports from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
• Put 1 million Plug-in Hybrid cars – cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon – on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built in America.
• Ensure 10 percent of US electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

As you can see, Barack Obama's targets for "a clean energy future" are somewhat less ambitious than Al Gore's. He did mention one subject that is dear to my own heart, but for some reason it didn't make it into the bulleted list. Here is what he had to say about energy efficiency:

All of us will need to buy more of the fuel-efficient cars built by this state of Michigan [Loud cheers!], and find new ways to improve efficiency and save energy in our own homes and businesses.

There is also a brief discussion in the factsheet about the foreign policy implications of Barack Obama's new energy plan. There is no reference to the lack of action resulting from the recent meetings of the Group of Eight plus Five or the World Trade Organization, but it seems Mr. Obama would like to make "the US a leader on climate change", which would certainly be a refreshing change from the status quo :

Barack Obama understands that the only real solution to climate change requires all major emitting nations to join in the solution. While it is time for America to lead, developing nations like China and Brazil must not be far behind in making their own binding commitments. To develop an effective and equitable global program, Obama will re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC (sic!)) – the main international forum dedicated to addressing the climate problem. He will also invigorate the Major Economies (MEM) effort and bring all the major emitting nations together to develop effective emissions reduction efforts.

As luck would have it the next chance for our democratically elected politicians to change things for the better is at the next UNFCCC climate change talks in Accra, Ghana, on 21-27th August 2008. Do you suppose that if Barack Obama does eventually get elected as the next "Leader of the Free World" we will finally begin to see some meaningful action on these issues, which are so vital to all our futures?

Whilst the Group of Eight and the World Trade Organization chatter away to little effect, and Bill Gates ponders how to tweak capitalism so that the "one billion people [who] live on less than a dollar a day" can benefit from it, you may be wondering if there isn't a better way to organize society. In the 20th century the alternative most often put forward was communism. That doesn't seem to have worked out terribly well either though.

I suppose the idea is hopelessly utopian, but one man has suggested another alternative for the 21st century. Jacque Fresco was one of the founders of the Revell Plastics Company, he's written 13 books, he has produced hundreds of inventions, and he's been the subject of several documentaries including the award-winning "Future by Design". He advocates an alternative to capitalism and communism which he terms the Resource Based Economy, and he has set up the Venus Project to promote the idea.

Here's a few quotes to give you the gist of the concept:

The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival.

This approach to global governance has nothing whatever in common with the present aims of an elite to form a world government with themselves and large corporations at the helm, and the vast majority of the world's population subservient to them. Our vision of globalization empowers each and every person on the planet to be the best they can be, not to live in abject subjugation to a corporate governing body.

As we outgrow the need for professions based on the monetary system, for instance lawyers, bankers, insurance agents, marketing and advertising personnel, salespersons, and stockbrokers, a considerable amount of waste will be eliminated.

Money is only important in a society when certain resources for survival must be rationed and the people accept money as an exchange medium for the scarce resources. Money is a social convention, an agreement if you will. It is neither a natural resource nor does it represent one. It is not necessary for survival unless we have been conditioned to accept it as such.

"Money is not necessary for survival" – Now there's a thought!

Last week the World Trade Organization met again, this time in Geneva. They failed to agree….. again. According to the Economist magazine:

The round’s chief ambition was to straighten out some of the kinks in agricultural trade. This ancient activity, which accounts for only 8% of world merchandise trade, is the most heavily distorted by misbegotten policies. It is, therefore, in agriculture that an agreement could do the most good. But it was also in agriculture that the agreement came unstuck.

According to the BBC:

The negotiations foundered because the United States could not agree with China and India on import rules.

China said the collapse was a serious setback for the world economy, while the EU described it as "heartbreaking".

As usual, everybody seemed to think someone else was to blame:

China said it blamed the "selfish and short-sighted behaviour" of wealthy nations for the failure of the trade talks.

It said that the talks collapsed ultimately because the US and EU were unwilling to scrap the huge subsidies they pay their farmers.

Japan, meanwhile, was critical of China and India's stance.

"Compared with seven years ago when the Doha round started, the economic weight of China and India has been increasing. At the same time they need to take more responsibility," said Nobutaka Machimura, Japan's chief cabinet secretary. "I wonder if they were thinking about the world economy as a whole while pursuing their own national interests."

An editorial in the Economist suggests that smaller developing nations are not pleased about the stance of China and India:

Some developing countries—in Latin America, especially Brazil, and in Africa too—are seething that a deal slipped away.

Given all this, the inability of ministers to agree, having come so close, seems unfathomable. Belief is all the more beggared when you look at the wider world. The global economy is slowing, possibly horribly.

And finally, as if all that were not enough:

Meanwhile, believe it or not, food is pricier than ever.

I don't suppose our misbegotten politicians went hungry during their latest gabfest though. Do you?

Back in January Bill Gates spoke about what he called "Creative Capitalism" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This week he has written an article for Time magazine entitled "How to Fix Capitalism". It's interesting that Bill, once the richest man in the world, thinks that capitalism is broken. As he puts it:

The world is getting a lot better. The problem is, it's not getting better fast enough, and it's not getting better for everyone. One billion people live on less than a dollar a day. They don't have enough nutritious food, clean water or electricity. The amazing innovations that have made many lives so much better — like vaccines and microchips — have largely passed them by.

Bill doesn't advocate a different political system though:

Creative capitalism…. isn't a knock on capitalism itself. It is a way to answer a vital question: How can we most effectively spread the benefits of capitalism and the huge improvements in quality of life it can provide to people who have been left out?

He says that human nature is based on two apparently conflicting forces, self interest and caring for others:

Capitalism harnesses self-interest in a helpful and sustainable way but only on behalf of those who can pay. Government aid and philanthropy channel our caring for those who can't pay. And the world will make lasting progress on the big inequities that remain — problems like AIDS, poverty and education — only if governments and nonprofits do their part by giving more aid and more effective aid. But the improvements will happen faster and last longer if we can channel market forces, including innovation that's tailored to the needs of the poorest, to complement what governments and nonprofits do. We need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way than we do today.

For Bill the solution relies not on corporate philanthropy, but on persuading businesses to start researching what they can sell to the world's poor:

It's about giving them a real incentive to apply their expertise in new ways, making it possible to earn a return while serving the people who have been left out. This can happen in two ways: companies can find these opportunities on their own, or governments and nonprofits can help create such opportunities where they presently don't exist.

There are markets all over the world that businesses have missed. One study found that the poorest two-thirds of the world's population has some $5 trillion in purchasing power.

Bill goes on to give examples of creative capitalism at work and suggests ways government and business can work together. Ultimately though, Bill Gates thinks that time is running out:

We can't wait. As a businessman, I've seen that companies can tap new markets right now, even if conditions aren't ideal. And as a philanthropist, I've found that our caring for others compels us to help people right now. The longer we wait, the more people suffer needlessly.

If you don't mind putting up with the preceding advertisement, here's a video of Bill Gates being interviewed by Time editor Richard Stengel:

Earlier this week Better Place announced the "unveiling of its new brand identity and online campaign".

In an article in the New York Times Thomas Friedman, author of "The World is Flat", suggests that the combination of Shai Agassi, Israeli entrepreneur and founder of Better Place, and T. Boone Pickens and his eponymous "Pickens Plan", represents "the start of an energy revolution":

The only good thing to come from soaring oil prices is that they have spurred innovator/investors, successful in other fields, to move into clean energy with a mad-as-hell, can-do ambition to replace oil with renewable power. Two of the most interesting of these new clean electron wildcatters are Boone and Shai.

Better Place advocates going to electric vehicles as soon as possible, without using natural gas fuelled vehicles as a bridge to a hydrogen economy as called for by the Pickens Plan. Better Place's particular angle is the provision of an infrastructure to allow electric vehicles travelling long distances to swap flat battery packs for fully charged ones at the electric equivalent of a filling station, and in "less time than it takes to fill up a gas tank". The cars would be rented rather than owned by the motorist.

Friedman quotes Agassi as saying his goal is to make his electric car:

so cheap, so trivial, that you won’t even think of buying a gasoline car. Once that happens your oil addiction will be over forever. You’ll be “off heroin" and "addicted to milk".

Tom Friedman's conclusion?

If only we had a Congress and president who, instead of chasing crazy schemes like offshore drilling and releasing oil from our strategic reserve, just sat down with Boone and Shai and asked one question: “What laws do we need to enact to foster 1,000 more like you?” Then just do it, and get out of the way.