The stubborn past.

Today it is Germany's turn to host the G8 meetings.
It has only been 16 years since both German States reunited and it is remarkable that this G8, or G7 + 1 as it once was called, is taking place near Rostock in what once was known as the GDR. The GDR, was in fact a poor excuse for an independant state and was actually a shadow Soviet Republic. Soviet forces were stationned everywhere. I well remember visiting Zerbst airbase and even the vast military camp surrounding Buchenwald.
It appears that Mr. Putin has a certain nostalgia of "the real existing socialism " of Mssrs. Ulbricht and Honecker. Perhaps it is the particular smell of the ex-GDR, perhaps its quaint cobble-stoned streets, or is it the solyanka, still on the menu of this former Russian colony. Whatever the reason, whatever his proustian moment in setting foot in the former "strictest barrack in the Soviet camp", Wladimir Putin will remember the many years he spent as a KGB Resident in Dresden. He must be mildly annoyed to find US warships in the Baltic, and Mc Donalds in the middle of Leipzig.
That could explain his threat to aim missiles at Europe in retaliation to Mr Bush's anti missile facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Or is it perhaps because Mr Putin has had a good look at the map and decided that he was in the position the US were in during the Cuba misile crisis?

Another perennial feature of the G8 is the violent demonstrations led by the so-called anti Globalization movements.These young people are full of the ideals of youth. Unfortunately they can be manipulated by such know-nothing as ATTAC, a movement closer to AlQaeda and the US creationists than is comfortable. Of course they want a world where everybody is equal, in a clean environment, with a decent living standard. But the their solutions are demagogically simplistic. And violence is NEVER justified. Who is not for Mom and apple pie?
As to the African heads of State who are perennially invited at the end of the G8: they are all corrupt. They are mostly incompetent. The G8 leaders pay lip service to them, so that they look good. The new version of the token black.

But all this will change now that George W. Bush has sent us yet another of his Vulcan friends, Bob Zoellick, to straighten out the Worldbank, and reduce poverty once and for all. As Ronald "bedtime with Bonzo" Reagan would have put it: "A rising tide raises all yachts".