Clash between people of a Roma settlement of Tula and Russian riot police

Clashes broke out between people of a Roma settlement of Tula and Russian riot police on the supply of Gazprom gas - the problem has been brewing for a long time and has led to a revolt by a Roma settlement near the city of Tula. The revolt has pitted men, women and stick-carrying children against nearly 500 Russian riot-police.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 17 March 2016.

The center of the dispute is on access to a natural gas pipeline that runs through a village called Plekhanovo. It seems local Roma residents had connected dozens of their own do-it-yourself lines to the main supply for cooking, heat and fuel. However, while trying to hook up another line, the system shutdown and some 400 homes in the area got disconnected from the gas supply.
When engineers tried to rep[air the pipeline, clashes broke out. The local Roma residents wanted to block employees from Russian energy giant Gazprom by burning tyres and pelting with stones. Of course, local Roma claimed that the violence was a reflection of a long-standing frustrations in the area.
In the opinion of human rights organizations, Roma - and other groups who are perceived as gypsies - are subjected to widespread discrimination in Russia. Instead of helping people register their houses and legalize their gas supplies, the authorities have been demolishing their houses. Since 2005, demolition has been going on without compensation.
Reps of Gazprom have indicated that the whole village is supplied with gas with the exception of the Roma settlement. They have discovered two illegal pipes with a diameter of 10cm but they have not yet been disconnected.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Things are still not hunky-dory in Ukraine despite ceasefire

#UkraineCeasefire #Russia #Gazprom #Donetsk #Luhansk Reports indicate that three Ukraine soldiers have been killed and seven others wounded in isolated pockets of violence in the east of the country in spite of a ceasefire with pro-Russian rebels being in place as per agreement arrived in Belarus a fortnight back. Russia has also threatened about cutting off gas supply. This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 27 February 2015.
Of course, both the sides namely the Ukrainian troops and the pro-Russian separatists were seen withdrawing heavy weapons from the front line. Heavy equipment like rocket launchers were removed from the rebel stronghold of Donetsk whilst Ukrainian forces withdrew several anti-tank guns from the front line near the town of Artemivsk.
The withdrawal process is being monitored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and, in the opinion of its officials, Ukraine appears to be at the crossroad between war and peace.
It may be recalled that fighting began in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in April, soon after Russia had annexed Crimea and, till now, it has claimed some 5,800 lives apart from forcing more than 1.2 million people to flee their homes.
Russia is employing arm twisting tactics over gas supply to Ukraine - Kiev has already made a £10m prepayment for gas this week. However, Russia's state-run supplier Gazprom has informed that it would only pay for another day at the current rate. If that actually happens, Ukraine could be cut off and would have to find an alternative.
Cutting off gas supply by Russia to Ukraine s not new – it has done that three times in the past decade. Nearly one third of the European Union's natural gas is sourced from Russia, and 15% of it flows through Ukraine.

Another interesting blog - Citizen Journalist

Another interesting blog - Ramblings