Oil's record …above $126

Oil rose above $126 a barrel for the first time, bringing its advance this week to nearly $10, as investors questioned whether a possible confrontation between the U.S. and Venezuela could cut exports from the OPEC member.

Not only to US but to the whole world and let’s see how much will cost milk in my neighborhood next week!

The dictators screw Burma disappointing even UN

The UN says it is extremely disappointed at the slow progress made in securing access to victims of last weekend's cyclone in Burma.

Humanitarian chief John Holmes told reporters that Burma's response was "nothing like as much as is needed". In addition to at least 23,000 people who died in the storm and tidal surge, 1.5 million are at risk, he said. Some supplies have been allowed into Burma but many more tones of aid, and dozens of foreign staff, have not.

To disappoint Ki-moon needs a lot of effect and proves how dangerous the dictators of Burma are!

Bulgarian Report

From the original Ovi magazine (Ovi lehti in Finnish)

Bulgarian Arrow Suspect killer turns himself inPolice investigating the murder of an arrow-shot Iraqi citizen said the suspected killer has turned himself in. The 41-year-old Iraqi national died after being shot with an arrow in the centre of Bulgaria's capital city of Sofia on Tuesday. Unofficial reports identified the suspect as Filip Dimitrov, 28. He has a criminal record for theft and drug possession.

Investigators told the agency that the motive for the murder was not clear but it was not an attempt to settle scores with the victim, Ali Mohamed Taher. The tragedy took place in front of a shop on the central Tsar Simeon Street where Taher worked. He was rushed to Pirogov Emergency Institute shortly after the shooting but doctors could do nothing to save his life. Police found a crossbow, the weapon used in the murder, as they searched the home of the suspect.

It was Einstein who said, I don’t know how WWIII will happen but I’m sure that WWIV will be fought with bows and spears. Think of it, we didn’t even start WWIII and somebody has already started practicing for the fourth!

Bulgaria's Pleven 1st Mall

The central Bulgarian town of Pleven will soon sport a mall after the reconstruction of the former town bank building is finished. Central Mall Pleven will cost almost EUR 9.2m and has been built by Niya Ltd, a construction and investment company. The mall will cover a total of 11,000 square metres across a built-up area, 7,000 of which will be used for shops.

"The five-storey building will house 40 shops," said Yani Stoimenov, CEO of NIA Procon, the company that will deal with the shop rentals. The mall will also have a two-level cinema, a bank, two restaurants, two fast food restaurants, cafeterias and a huge children's playground. The mall is scheduled to open for visitors in September 2008.

I don’t know if I should be happy or feel sorry for them, since the good old days when kids used to play football in the streets and the backyards is replaced by Pleven's cafeterias, pubs, neon signs and multiplex cinemas!!!

Fix Prices for Pre-Election Campaigns' Airing

Bulgaria's state-owned television channel will charge the political parties, which will participate in the local elections in October, BGN 135 (10 Bulgarian Leva equals 5 euros) for a minute of debate aired in the media.

The candidates for mayor will have to dig deep in their pockets and pay BGN 600 for a minute-long pre-election campaign video aired on the National TV and the state-owned satellite channel in the 12 am to 12:30 pm time zone. The price goes up three times for the same service if the videos are aired during the day. The price for a minute-long pre-election address on the state radio air will cost BGN 90, a minute of political debate will cost BGN 30.

The regional state TV channels will charge the participants in the mayoral race BGN 30 for a minute of debate. A minute of airtime for introductory and closing pre-election campaign videos on the Bulgarian National Television is set at BGN 1,000. The government on Thursday set the prices. They were fixed on the basis of the media time prices that were set for the MEP candidates Bulgaria elected earlier in the year.

Set prices? Equality in front of the screen? I think the point should never be how much the candidates will spend on televised advertising spots but where did they find the money to do so, especially while the Bulgarian people literally fight to have food on the table every day.

Dutch Report

From the original Ovi magazine (Ovi lehti in Finnish)

Giant Lego Man Washes Ashore in Holland

A giant 2.5 meter Lego man mysteriously washed up on the Dutch resort of Zandvoort joining the ranks of such publicity stunts as 1984's giant Swatch in Frankfurt and a life-size Lego crane that hit Chile last year. The plastic invader was wearing a shirt with the words, "NO REAL THAN YOU ARE," which makes it unclear if this was even done by Lego.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the Lego man, with a traditional yellow head and blue torso. "We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. A woman nearby added, "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England."

Dutch authorities will be taking the man into custody to determine whether he is eligible for asylum status after officials believe he escaped from Denmark's Legoland Billund after suffering from countless human rights violations. "The Lego man appears to be in shock because he hasn't spoken or stopped smiling since his rescue," another official stated.

Crackdown on magic mushrooms

The famously liberal Netherlands has been swinging toward the right, cracking down on immigration, religious freedoms and the freewheeling red light district. The next possible target is magic mushrooms following the death of a 17-year-old French girl, who jumped from a building after eating psychedelic mushrooms while on a school visit.

Regulation of mushrooms is even less stringent than Holland's famously loose laws on marijuana, which is illegal but tolerated in "coffee shops" that are a major tourist attraction. In May, Health Minister Ab Klink ordered the national health institute to perform a new study on the risks of mushrooms.

At a press conference, a spokesman for the national health institute was unable to answer reporters' questions concerning the progress of the study after screaming that a huge Lego man was trying to steal his packet of stroopwaffels.

Flood of complaints against call to ban Koran

Police have received a flood of complaints against a call to ban the Koran made by MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration party PVV, last week, reports ANP news service on Wednesday. The exact number of complaints is not yet known but run into ‘scores’ from around the country, a spokesman for the public prosecution service in Amsterdam said.

The Dutch right-wing politician, known for his views favouring the restriction of immigration, particularly from non-Western countries, his criticism of, and opposition to, Islam, suggested that Muslims should 'tear out half of the Koran if they wished to stay in the Netherlands' because it contained 'terrible things' and that Muhammad would 'in these days be hunted down as a terrorist'.

Dutch liberals are planning on sending Geert Wilders a plate of magic mushrooms and space cakes for his birthday on September 6 in the hope that he lightens the hell up and kills the brain cells responsible for his prejudice.

Finnish bouncers and excessive force

From the original Ovi magazine (Ovi lehti in Finnish)

On Saturday night my English neighbour and his Finnish wife went out for a few drinks with some friends before they bid farewell to Finland and began their new life back in Britain. Midway through their evening at Zetor, a theme restaurant/nightclub in the centre of Helsinki, my friend underwent some brutal physical abuse from the club's security staff after he foolishly punched a Finnish man who had been sexually harassing his wife and then tried to steal her handbag.

I have given considerable thought to the approach I should take to writing this, since my friend's actions did deserve the attention of the bouncers, but – and this is the key point – the bouncers had no excuse for the extent of their retribution. Three members of Zetor's security jumped on my friend, who I'll call J, and inflicted severe wounds upon his forehead, face, throat, upper body and left knee, while at one point J almost lost consciousness due to the strange hold.

The incident, as related by J and his wife, goes as follows: Mrs J and her friend were harassed during the night and when their tolerance was exhausted they told the guy to stop. The guy then returned with Zetor's security staff and before their very eyes the man tried to snatch the handbag, which J happened to be holding. J foolishly punched the man in the heat of the moment and three bouncers were on him in seconds.

One had his arm around his throat, another was forcing J's arms behind his back and then when on the ground another sat on his legs. J managed to wriggle one of hands free to signal that he was about to pass out, yet the bouncers grabbed his hands and tied them behind his back with a plastic tie strap. Face down and with your hands secured behind your back would be considered by many to be restrained, but the bouncers did not stop.

A member of the supposedly professionally-trained security staff grabbed J's head and smashed it into the ground repeatedly, which is evident from the severe friction burns on his face and forehead. J hadn't been brandishing a weapon or shouting abuse, and one witness, who was not part of J's group, gave police a statement stating this. The arrival of the police signalled the start of part two of J's nightmare.

Despite the fact his face was bleeding and there was a danger of concussion from the beating security staff had inflicted, J received no medical attention all night and was even denied access to a lavatory, while locked in a cell unfit for any human or animal. His wife didn't know where he had been taken and had no way to contact him until he got home the following morning. The Finnish police then made an incredibly amateur mistake by asking J to sign a Finnish statement, which will result in the case being thrown out once it reached court.

J flies back home to the UK today and will be taking back very few, if any, good impressions of Finland. He will have to face airport security with his scabbed face, plus he will have to start his new job with a damaged knee that will certainly be aggravated by the weight of the luggage they are transporting back to England. J's Finnish wife felt obligated to apologise to her husband for ever bringing him to this country and they are both returning with a bitter taste of this country in their mouths.

Back home in England he will tell this story and people will be shocked. They will be shocked primarily by the fact that Zetor and its security staff will escape any kind of punishment or bad publicity, thereby ensuring that other patrons are under threat from these bullies. It is for this reason that I have decided to write an Ovi editorial to hopefully safeguard you from the bouncers at Zetor because, as a friend of J's wife said, nothing will change or happen due to the fact that all anybody will say, "It's Finland!"

Can you imagine if this situation happened in England or another EU country? Can you imagine somebody dismissing the entire incident with a, "Well, it's England!" The ignorance, the arrogance, the outright stupidity of that statement is what keeps this country on the same track, destined to relive these miscarriages of justice ad infinitum. It is time for people in Finland to stop blaming the country and point the finger back at themselves because they are the ones that turn the blind eye allowing it to happen.

My final warning: Avoid Zetor.

Pori jazz festival

Tuesday night at around eleven o’clock at night and I just cannot resist; believe it or not I’m dancing to …"Staying Alive"!!! Not the original by the Bee Gees but a fantastic jazz version of the known disco song by a Latvian jazz band. The place is the Klubi Garden at the Pori Jazz Festival.

For a long time before I moved to Finland every time I asked anything about Finland the answer was mostly connected with Formula 1 and I hate the damn sport if you could ever call it sport. However, nobody, literally nobody, ever told me anything about Finnish jazz. Not that I didn’t know about Scandinavian jazz, since my record collection already included a couple records from the Norwegian Jan Garbarek and Swedes Jan Johansson and Nils Landgren, but as for Finns… none!

The names Antti Sarpila, Jukka Eskola and Eero Koivistoinen meant nothing to me and most likely they mean nothing to you if you live outside Finland and I’m really sorry because if you like jazz because there is absolutely no excuse for not knowing these names. There is one good chance to live in a small Finnish town for fifteen days beside a fantastic river and feel the beat of the jazz music; ladies and gentlemen, only three days remain of this year's Pori Jazz festival and if you have missed it then you have time to organize next year's trip to jazz Finland - it starts on July 12th 2008.

For this year's festival line-up let me give you a list of names: Ziggy Marley, Steely Dan, Elvis Costello, Sly and the Family Stone, Paul Anka, Natalie Cole, Bianca Morales and Blood, Sweat and Tears. This is only the cream because the real coffee is there waiting. Phil Minton plays the trumpet alongside Roger Turner, Ted Curson and many many others. Imagine a whole jazz street beside the river in a country where, at midnight, you can still see the sun, and then at four in the morning sitting by the river with a glass of chilled white wine with eyes closed you allow Eti Carinae to move you with Latin rhythms.

When I said 'jazz street' I meant it literally because for a fortnight a street becomes the center of jazz music, with the Jazz Café, the Voodoo city café, the Klubi and the Klubi Garden and the Teatteri. The ultra music nightclubs become jazz stages and across the river on an island is the Kirjurinluoto Arena, a big stage with dance and magic! In the middle of all that are small tents with ethnic aromas to satisfy the stomach hunger after the soul with selections from Thai rice to Greek feta.

Naturally for some of these events there is an admission fee but there are so many other happenings going on for free that you feel that whatever you paid it was …too little. One evening – well, in Pori eight o’clock in the evening is not exactly evening with the sun burning your back - in the middle of the Jazz street on a stage sponsored by Nova radio and without ticket I saw one of the best progressive jazz performances I have ever seen in my life by a Swedish musician playing trumpet and playing only his compositions, but unfortunately I cannot remember his name.

Another night in a small pub not listed among the jazz clubs and events was a man from Peru with a guitar playing Tanita Tikaram in jazz style and on another night a trio (guitar/bass/violin) from Finland held another pub’s stage for three hours playing the best country I have ever heard outside the USA. On another night a Finn with an electric guitar and Bob Dylan-style harmonica took us all the way back to the '70s with his performance of artists from The Beatles to Led Zeppelin. With those last few examples, I wanted to show you that jazz street not only hosts jazz music but a great deal of good music and fantastic musicians.

I left Antti Sarpila to last because ever since I came to Finland there is no swing music for me without Antti Sarpila. I have all his records, I have seen him dozens of times in Helsinki and every time I watch a gig of his I have real fun and I mean it - I even find myself dancing and for the ones who know me that comes as a …surprise! The man is jazz all the way.

One last thing, when you get to Pori remember that all these nice people who help, all these young boys and girls who make sure that you have good time and do not feel like a foreigner for a minute, are all volunteers and they do this job just from love and joy.

If you want more information just check online at www.porijazz.fi and make sure that you are going to join me next year for the 43rd Pori Jazz Festival. At the moment I’m packing my bag because another fantastic festival starts in Finland …the Savonlinna Opera Festival!

Greek - Report

Today is the turn of Greece in our new Ovi magazine Euro Reporter section.

Attica’s worst fire in decades

The worst forest fire in more than a decade ravaged some 3,000 hectares of Mount Parnitha, one of the few oases of green in Attica's concrete jungle, as ash rained down on the capital. Meanwhile fires in other parts of the country, many of which had started last Thursday, continued to burn, some threatening homes.

Troops joined hundreds of firefighters in efforts to contain the blaze on Parnitha, which started on Thursday afternoon at Dervenohoria, some 15 kilometres away. Several water-dropping planes spearheaded fire fighting efforts from the air. Light rainfall yesterday evening made the firefighters' job easier.

One of the first questions I have to deal with every time somebody realizes that you are living far away from your country is, what do you miss most. The usual answer is my family, my friends but then most of us go to more personal details or better things that make us feel home when we are in our country. However odd it might sounds for me has always been mountains. I miss maintains living in Finland. For years I had my morning coffee looking the top of Imitos, one of the three mountains that surround Athens.

Reading that one, the highest, the biggest and the most majestic of the mountains that surround Athens is on fire made my heart beat a bit louder. Greece is not exactly the place you find forests everywhere. There are very few anymore and they are very valuable for the people and the environment. Losing them is the last thing anybody would ever want; however it looks like that for one more time people are responsible for the loss of thousands of meters of forest and the total destruction of the nature. One of the last forests, on the sides of mount Parnitha seems to get lost in the name of populated with luxurious houses and mansions. What the governments do? Make pompous announcements in the beginning and then let them built more and more. Instead of carefully guarding the burned places they always come one day to find that whole communities have been build in the place of the burned forest and in the end they are forced to accept the situation and just start …taxing the new houses. The result? More and more opportunist find the chance to …burn some new forests and replace them with new luxurious mansions and of course instead of growing trees to grow more money!

For Ovi magazine the Euro Reporter

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HIV man jailed

A 26-year-old HIV carrier from the island of Rhodes was jailed for 10 years yesterday after being found guilty of knowingly transmitting the virus that can lead to AIDS. A court on the island of Kos heard that the unnamed man transmitted the virus by having unprotected sex with two women even though he knew they might become infected.

Judges found the 26-year-old, who was arrested last year, guilty of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm. The two victims – a 24-year-old woman who lived with the accused and a younger woman who had a brief relationship with him – testified before the court that the man had not told them he was HIV positive before having unprotected sex with them.

However much understanding you might have for the bitterness the 26-year old might carried and his dispirit need for revenge since he obviously got the virus without knowing it, still you cannot accept that he turned his anger against more like him innocent victims. And how can you punish somebody who knows that he has already been punished the worst possible way, to die young!

For Ovi magazine the Euro Reporter