PUTIN WINS ANOTHER ROUND AGAINST THE WEST

BELMONT: The Great Pipeline Game

In May 2006, the US and EU made a determined effort to convince Kazakh officials to build a gas pipeline, around Russia in order to supply the energy needs of Europe.

"Top officials from the European Union and the US are visiting Kazakhstan in an attempt to revive the idea of a gas pipeline bypassing Russia. Kazakhstan's energy minister told the EU's energy commissioner his country favoured the proposal for a pipeline across the Caspian Sea."

Kazakhstan should be pumping up to 45 billion cubic meters of natural gas by 2015. That effort failed today as Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan signed a deal to build a gas pipeline through areas controlled by Moscow to the EU.

"The pipeline will skirt the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan to southern Russia via Kazakhstan and will be built by the end of 2010. The trilateral agreement was signed in Moscow in the presence of President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan."

RTWT.

• THE NEXT US PRESIDENT MUST BE BETTER AT COUNTERING RUSSIA THAN BUSH AND RICE - WHO'VE BEEN A DISASTER ON THIS FRONT.

• AND THE WEST'S PROBLEM WITH RUSSIA AIN'T JUST ABOUT ENERGY.

• IRAN, SYRIA, VENEZUELA, AND SERBIA ARE ALSO EXPLOITED BY RUSSIA AND PART OF AN EMERGING RUSSIAN AXIS THAT MEANS TO DO THE WEST HARM.