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at least they get to vote unlike some places where the ruling government refuses to call an election or blatantly thinks they can skirt the issue holding it at bay by creating problems within there country.

#1. Does that refer to the UK? We have elections every 5 years. The government doesn't have to call one for another 2. If they refuse to do that in a couple of years THEN you have something to complain about. If you don't like it move to Belarus.

Regarding the main story I agree with the 'realpolitik'. The majority of the worlds countries are dictatorships with shoddy human rights. We can either invade and change their regimes (not really popular), pretend they don't exist and let them keep on abusing their citizens (spineless), or establish working relationships and encourage peaceful change through example.

What are "ethics" if you don't keep to them?
Nothing. There is nothing left if you give away your principles just to help another dictator squash his population. Where does it stop?

I don't care if there is a short-term benefit (realpolitik or "modernised" politics). If you "give away" the fundamentals of your society, then someone alse will want the same dispensation so he or her can make their own short-term benefits.

Sanctions don't work. The Hussains and Mugabes of this world aren't hurt by them. They have millions in the bank. All sanctions do are hurt the regular citizens of the country and give the dictator a perfect example of how much the 'evil west' hates them and wants them to starve.

Even embargoes on the purchase of arms are useless. The Chinese authorities simply ignore them and there are plenty of businessmen in the west happy to sell 'agricultural equipment' equipped with turrets.

If you spend more time on Belarus's chances of qualifying for the 2010 world cup than you do on Belarus politics, I guarantee you'll have more listeners. I know of nobody who can even name a politician from Belarus, and The World Tonight is for a UK, not an international audience. That's why it's not on the World Service.

Why not call a spade a spade. The EU's hypocricy as expected had one motive and that is to try to assure its supply of oil and gas from Russia this winter. Why not trade the rest of Georgia if you have to in order to get it. Munich 1938 all over again. Oil and Gas supplies in our time.

When the EU was the only economic game in town, sanctions had some influence. Unfortunately Russia now has pots of oil money, and is happy to prop up dictators from Venezuela to Khazahstan so EU sanctions were only counter productive.

How you can use the word democratic in an article that involves the quango eu is astonishing. I think we should keep well away from this near-communist grouping and carry out our own foreign affairs and certainly not indulge in so-called ethnic foreign policy which is a byword for imperialism.

As far as your post goes in general, I’m not sure what this has to do with the news gathering process. Perhaps you should put these questions to your MP?

ave MarcusAureliusII and regards to you IanBannen,

Do tell, with all the wind and the sea and the sun above us, why in the world would we worry about Russian oil? Let them worry about it…

If one would think about it, all the companies need to do is to evolve.

It's this atavistically trained thought that's keeping us back, if you give it a moment or two, you could see it, easily.

Thanks.

regards to moriaeencomium:

The reason to worry about Russian oil, but especially Russian natural gas, is because it has a stranglehold on not only Belarus's economy, but also Germany's economy, and therefore EU policy. This example of cynical realpolitik on the EU's part - just like the impotent response to the Georgia crisis - is only necessary because of energy dependence. And in spite of great strides forward in the Green movement in Germany, the net effect of Green reforms has been to make it more dependent upon Russian energy. Check it out:

The solution? Make energy independence, not just greenness, the top domestic and foreign priority of the UK and other EU nations. Unfortunately, most European (and especially German) politicians are a lot dumber than Barack Obama and don't comprehend that energy independence is a prerequisite of political independence, which then allows one to speak with a credible and independent voice of human rights. *sigh*

It would be a fair agenda WCoastConservative, to reach maturity and speak with independent voice.

We are as dependent on Russian oil and gas as we want to be, these ol' habits are nothing but addictions. Electric vehicles were buzzing on the streets way back in 19th century, not to speak about air propelled systems and other marvels hidden in the garages everywhere.

We have technologies which are making today geopolitik as obsolete as other MAD doctrines are.

If a lobby of interest, self-interested lobby that is, is strong enough to stage 9/11 attacks or provide some sort of moral justification for mock trials and bombings then we have some deeper issues behind our actuality and we'll not turn things for the better until we deal with these underlying issues and strategies.

These days we can see what happens to economies based on such rumsfeldian fundamentals as fear and murder are. Did we have another case of avian flu in Germany just recently, how much tamiflu is stockpiled out there and for whom? Did we have a great idea of freeing Iraq from the dictatorship? Did we ever? I don't believe there was a decent roadmap from the beginning, but even if there was one, the administration lost the compass from the start while the end never justified the means, not for a decent, moral and humane minute of conscious thought.

Since there are so many perspectives, we could share a few opinions about the time wasted because of our inability to speak about peace and prosperity instead of fear and terror.

It is this waste of our time, these decades of missed opportunities spiced by grand Blairian speeches which make continuous implementation of failed and well known strategies so.., I'll stay polite.

Well, no one should act with surprise to the state of the States or of the world today and I'd rather had a slow transition than rapid and sobering detoxification we're about to experience if we are to get up from this sort of a freefall.

As for Georgia crisis, I'm sorry, but I've seen it as the end of the immensely dimwitted idea of unipoloarity in the universally diverse and multicultural universe. I don't think that scaring and arming populace or running amok in Middle East is the way to get things done these days.