A stitch in time saves…….stress apparently

As tempted as I am to drift of into the Gershwin/Heyward classic “Summertime (and the living is easy)” in some form of dysfunctional tribute to Ukraine remaining permanently in Summer Time from now on rather than having to remember to “spring forwards” and “fall back” the clocks each year, I won’t.

Suffice to say, Ukraine has decided to remain permanently on daylight saving time from here on, as the political reasoning is that fiddling with the clocks every year “harms people’s health and causes stress.”

Hmmm.

Unfortunately that means I will have to retrain my aging parents that Ukraine will be +3 hours in front of the UK in winter but only +2 hours in front when the UK is on BST.

Maybe I should just tell them not to phone in winter to avoid any confusion?

I wonder what effect that will have on business?

Europe’s Education Ministers meet in Kyiv 22/23 September

Now here is a subject close to everybody’s heart. We all have things to say about education. We of course bemoan standards, normally the lack of them or significant drop in them, compared to “our day”.

Those of us who are “older” will note the educational inflation. A degree was once worth something as fewer people had them, employers and HR departments had not made a degree a necessity for roles that never needed them before (and to be quite honest, in many cases still don’t).

The agenda for the European education ministers meeting in Kyiv on 22/23 September would be an interesting read.

Now some of us will state that due to so many degrees, MA’s and MBA’s are now the new degree, (the degree now being downgraded to A Level equivalent) and the PhD is now the new MA/MBA. As soon as MBAs/MAs become common (as is rapidly happening), they will become educationally deflated to a lesser meaning.

Sir Ken Robinson has some very interesting thoughts on this subject, many of which I agree with.

However, one has to suppose that actually dealing with education as a process of benefits for society and an association to individual happiness (and its cumulative happiness index effects on society) rather than churning out yet more Business Management degrees and MBAs (and yes amongst my qualifications I hold such a qualification courtesy of York University), said ministers will be looking at process and benchmarking against various national models for equitable purposes for international education, rather than the net result of the process and what that fairly well educated individual will contribute to society as a result of the time and money invested in them.

That is not meant to belittle Business Management degrees and MBAs, however, when there are so many holders of that particular degree, they do, as I have said, become commonplace and less valuable to an individual and employer.

My other degree is in Civil Engineering. Of Business Management and Civil Engineering, which do you think has always offered me better paid work and consistent interest from employers and head hunters?

I am now seriously considering doing an MA in a political science, but not for employment purposes, simply to fill my time as I have nothing better to do. This MA is highly unlikely to get me a job in Ukraine as Ukraine is quite capable and does produce its own political science graduates and post graduates. For me, if I decide to do it, it will rank highly on my happiness index although one suspects completely useless to me as far as employment opportunities go. Particularly as I am not exactly looking for a job.

For you dear readers, well, you may well get a far better blog to read……then again…..maybe not!

For my boy, it would undoubtedly be beneficial to have me do it as he will be diving into the Bachelor’s degree political sciences at a UK university (IELTS score depending) next year. One suspects either IR or media. He has a very clear idea of the career he wants to have.

Anyway, the meeting of European education ministers does not really fill one with confidence that the system will be challenged or robust discussions held over ideological changes to produce happy products and the benefits of a happy populous to society or inherently GDP (a happy worker and all that).

Occasionally there needs to be a severe challenging to the established and conventional wisdom not necessarily to change the process but to change the outcome and end product. Ever since I left full time education for example, lateral thinking, problem solving, contingency planning and all those adult real life things have been actively encouraged by employers.

Why is it that the full time education systems start by educating the populous out of those abilities? The answer I suspect is that education is now a business and thus suffers from the inflationary pressures on qualification no differently that an economy suffers inflation during boom and bust cycles.

My last temp receptionist before retiring from life in the UK had an Hons Degree in English. Necessary for the role? No of course not. Could she get a different or full time job? No, that was why she was temping. This was during the boom and not bust years almost a decade ago!

Time for a drastic rethink in European education? – Certainly a consideration surely.

Do we continue to produce square pegs for anticipated and existing square holes or do we allow the pegs to emerge in a shape more befitting the individual and allow them to happily and comfortably define their own space in the free market which leads to innovation and SME’s that drive an economy?

Do we need to be taught Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or are we already aware of what drives people without having to be taught the academic labels he defined?

Did gravity not exist before Newton wrote it down? Were we unaware that what went up subsequently came back down if we threw it in the air?

After all, on-line gamers solved in 3 weeks what scientists have failed to do in 10 years!

Toxic towns – Remember Kalush?

Well dear readers, do you remember me writing about Kalush almost two years ago?

It was indeed when I was writing in a somewhat more “folksy” style which reading it now, I am certainly not that good at. Fortunately I have an audience who seem to be very forgiving and far more interested in content rather than form.

Anyway, Kalush and the toxic man-made nightmare so ably raised to public attention by then-President Yushenko during his last week in office, has not been forgotten. At least it has not been forgotten as far the the citizens of Kalush are concerned or indeed President Yushenko’s successor or the new administration.

20.9 tonnes of hexachlorobenzene have actually been removed a few days ago and by now will have been moved by road to a disposal site in Poland. A total of 7500 tonnes of this monstrous material is due to be removed this year, all headed for Poland. Last year a total of 8500 tonnes made its way to the UK for disposal.

By the end of the year, the Ukrainian Environment Minister expects 60% of the hexachlorobenzene at Kalush to have been removed from Ukraine and by the end of next year, the entire 22,800 tonnes will have been disposed of outside Ukrainian borders.

Now I could question the cost effectiveness of external disposal as opposed to constructing a specialist facility to dispose of it within Ukraine, but certainly as far as Kalush is concerned, there is a finite amount of this toxic nasty to deal with and really given the inaction of dealing with it prior to and since independence, the fact it is being dealt with should be welcomed.

One still wonders however, given the amount of toxic nasties of various degrees of nastiness and quantity inherited from the Soviet era in Ukraine, whether an internal specialist disposal site would not have been a more cost effective strategy. Then again, who would welcome such a specialist site in their region? Are we seeing the rise of NYMBY’s in Ukraine or given the memory and legacy of Chernobyl, a very wise decision where risk management and external disposal outweighs the costs?

Whatever, it is pleasing to see the matter is eventually been addressed with action and not words.

The Goblin Show Odessa – 22 – 25 September 2011

For all you bikers, rockers, heavy metal merchants etc, this year’s Goblin Show in Odessa takes place 22 – 25 September.

Yes I know most of you will not have the faintest idea of what the website says, however if you want a feel for past events click here and see for yourself.

I consider myself too old for that sort of thing these days, and as with many people as I got older rock and metal gave way to blues for the most part.

Still, if you are going, enjoy!

Micro-geopolitics in a macro-geopolitical battle – Crimea

The macro-geopolitical battle over Ukraine between the EU and Russia is obvious to anybody. The AA and DCFTA against the Russian led Customs Union is but one example. Cooperation with the CSTO verses NATO is yet another. Ukrainian ability to transport Caspian Sea oil and gas to the EU without Russian involvement is yet another. Almost every part of business and civil society is subjected to an on-going macro-geopolitical tug of war. A tug of war that the EU desperately wants to win for numerous reasons both present and future.

Nowhere is this more concentrated and prima facie than Crimea, the Autonomous Republic gifted to Ukraine back in 1954 by the then USSR leadership.

It is of course home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, for now at least, and possibly until 2042. There is a very large percentage of the population with Russian heritage. A large number of Crimean citizens hold both Ukrainian and Russian passports despite this being illegal due to Ukrainian laws.

Crimea is incredibly popular with Russians as a holiday location and the city of Moscow, when Yuri Luzhkov was Mayor signed a development program with the Crimean authorities. Alexander Lebedev, owner of the UK’s Independent newspaper (amongst others) has spent $ billions on developments in Crimea.

Only 6 weeks ago I turned down a job to manage the construction of a $250 million complex in Yalta fronted by a very well known and legitimate Austrian company for a development being paid for by an unnamed Russian billionaire.

Russians and Russia have spent literally $ billions and billions over the past 10 years in Crimea and will continue to do so.

This has implications with Ukraine heading towards the EU slowly but surely as Crimea has a historical identity of its own long before being arbitrarily gifted to Ukraine less than 60 years ago. Not only is it already an acknowledged Autonomous Republic with its own constitution, but is has a historical claim that would stand quite firmly against any scrutiny should it seek independence from Ukraine and seek a right to self-determination.

There is also the Tartar issue and links with Turkey.

It could become very messy if the Government of Ukraine and the EU do not keep a watchful eye and try to match the Russian FDI in Crimea with the associated work and rise in living standards this generally produces one way or another.

This, it seems, has dawned on some prominent members of the EU. Stefan Fule, EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy was in Yalta only a few days ago and obviously has recognised the macro-geopolitical battle exists in a very condensed micro-geopolitical circumstance in Crimea. Quite possibly somebody in the EU is now realising that speaking only to those in Kyiv does not necessarily bring the entire country along with those they speak to. Ukraine is in many ways a system of quasi-federalist fiefdoms and what is said in Kyiv does not always trickle down into the fiefdoms. Something made even more difficult when Crimea has its own constitution and parliament.

Thus Crimea more than any other region of Ukraine must be a cause for on-going concern both in Kyiv and Brussels given the undoubted Russian influence in the numerous forms it takes. That said, as Ukrainian law allows anybody from any nation to by land and property within the nation (less agricultural land) it is quite impossible and also illegal to deny such rights only to Russians.

The only way to stamp any EU message within the Autonomous Republic is to match the Russians by way of FDI.

The EU is now therefore trying to engage with the leadership of Crimea. Whilst in Crimea, Mr Fule addressed the Crimean leadership and stated “The EU is ready to assist the reform launched in the republic and its development. We are interested in the economic and social development of the autonomy, the implementation of infrastructure projects and cooperation with the public. Crimea has a chance to become a priority region in cooperation with the EU.

We are ready to introduce Crimea as an investment platform to the European Union, and assist gradual development of the autonomy’s districts.”

In response the Crimean leadership, who were well courted in a recent visit to Brussels in May, stated “We propose to open a EU visa center in Simferopol in the near future, and we are also ready to find premises for it.

All initiatives are working and realistic. Our interest towards Europe is systematic in many directions: tourism, economy, investments, experience exchange, culture and humanitarian sphere.”

Battle has eventually be joined between the EU and Russia in Crimea, and to be fair it is a more than appropriate microcosm from which to view the eddies and flows of the macro.

Once again, at least publicly, the EU in its glacial and cumbersome movement has been slow to counter the swift and nimble Russian foreign policy. That though is the problem with 27 navigators on only one bus.

Oil summits and strategies in Kyiv

Whilst the Black Sea Shelf/Sea of Azov exploration plot rush continues apace with the majority of the worlds big oil players and Government of Ukraine, an oil summit takes place in Kyiv involving 300 or so interested individuals/parties. More than anything else, you would imagine that market development and transparency (at least to the usual opaque standards of transparency in oil) would be high on the agenda as Ukraine seeks to import more from nations other than Russia in an effort to reduce dependency on Russia and also gear itself to a streamlined and efficient upstream process relating to its own production with foreign partners.

Ukraine is already seeking to transport more product from Azerbaijan (and if you have never been to Azerbaijan, Baku is well worth a visit) to both Czech Republic and Poland. Coincidently (or not) I am in negotiation to sell some real estate of mine to a family from Azerbaijan, the main bread winner working for the oil industry of Azerbaijan and they are relocating to Odessa.

These things take time of course, particularly if the EU follows its plans to buy from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan as well, reducing its dependence on Russia and goes direct to Caspian Sea producers in a bid to diversify supply chains a. With Ukraine also looking to do the same, the Ukrainian government seems to be offering reduced port fees to make this more cost effective.

One would hope that when Ukraine eventually moves from upstream to downstream in a meaningful way relating to its own production, those fees will remain low to add domestically produced oil and gas to the list of major exports from the nation with agriculture, chemicals, metals, coal, ores and fertilizers.

It will be an interesting commodity area to watch over the next ten years in Ukraine me thinks!

Server issues

Apologies for nothing even remotely interesting today.  Over at another website of mine I am having “server issues”.  Namely the website is off line and I am attempting to find out why from the server and get it back on line soonest.

The sharp-witted amongst you will therefore have worked out that my websites sit on different servers.

Well, it may be a handy thing should I suddenly become public enemy number one by posting up something that would necessitate taking me off line.

Yes, unlikely I know.  I do not write anything particularly provocative as far as the State is concerned, regardless of the talking head of the State at any particular time.

I never have been a subscriber to libelous comment or literary personality assassination.  All rather pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Far better to question the policies than the personality.

Anyway, when matters are resolved with another server and another website, I will have time to ruminate with you some more.

Children’s Rights Commissioner begins work

Apparently within the first month of having the office of Commissioner for Children’s Rights created, said commissioner, Yuri Pavlenko has dealt with 55 cases of which half have been settled so far.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, according to him, most have been disputes over property and housing however to understand that you have to understand the system of registration of citizens and adults to particular addresses and the rights that go with that registration when it comes to ownership, part-ownership and in effect a defacto last will and testament to leave property to those others registered at an address unless there are legal documents to the contrary.

Other issues relate to the rights of young offenders in jail.

Mr Pavlenko has stated he will personally meet those with issues once a week (one assumes in Kyiv) and that regional offices of the Children’s Commissioner will soon open. If and when said office opens in Odessa I will endeavor to furnish you all with the address as this would seem a logical and accessible point for those NGOs and concerned people from Ukraine and abroad to lobby with regards to the street children, orphanages, schooling, health care, exploitation and all manner of matters of concern relating to Ukrainian minors.

It will be interesting to see how this develops.