What's the deal?

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

I'm still wondering how come nobody has asked the Russian president Putin: What's the deal? It seems that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks and Russia is back to its old games with the Europeans. The issue is gas prices and the value of energy.

With oil prices going sky-high and things looking to get worse day after day with the Iran crisis getting closer every day, the other solution for the energy problem in Europe is natural gas. One-forth of the European needs and increasing year by year is supplied from Russia, and Russia gave a demonstration just a few months ago how they can turn energy into weapon with Ukraine where nearly the whole country froze to death.

Worrying about the Russian bullying over Ukraine for the gas prices, the European Union started thinking for other alternatives that could not fully cover the European needs. At the time a second message came from Russia, they were thinking to turn to Asian markets, especially the Chinese market, instead of dealing with the European doubters.

A big meeting between the EU and Russia kept Mr. Barozo happy because he saw that there is a solution between all these misunderstandings, but made the rest of us more worried, especially after Mr. Putin announced that a deal with Europe means certain exchanges.

Thinking about it, Mr. Putin should not surprise us because by stopping Iran from exploring their nuclear possibilities Europe is ready to give them nearly everything. Why shouldn't Russia ask for something more than a good price? After all, who is scarier, Russia or Iran? Russia can produce its own nuclear bombs and they don't need excuses or apologies.

Getting the chance, the EU and Russia can sign a couple of other things, like making it easier to get a visa and simplify the deportation of illegal immigrants. On top of those, as Mr. Schuessel, the Austrian chancellor and president of the EU till June said: "Real practical steps to build closer relationships between our citizens" and that means what? The next time Putin will try to play games with the gas prices, Russia will send us Russians to hold and keep us warm?

Putin, from his side, was glad for the agreement on co-funding a European studies institute in Moscow and an EU aid program for the North Caucasus. That really warmed me up.

Finally, both sides discussed about Iran, the Middle East and human rights. Please pay attention to that. Russia want more, far more to what was offered to Iran, compromise in the Middle East and just shut your mouth about the human rights issues in Russia. Thinking of it makes you wonder what they offered Iran, they are not going to be a theocratic dictatorship, a regime of horror but a holy democracy?

If you feel that you missed something the answer is no, we are still talking about the Russian policy over the gas sales to Europe. If you think that you lost perspective the answer is no, they have!

Mahdi's chosen

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

While Iran's mullahs and the west are thinking about the next step after the proposals for Iran's nuclear program from the EU, an Iranian friend of mine - not the known parasite and informer of the mullahs, he's not a friend of mine - sent me some information coming from Iranian blogs, supporters of the pathetic president puppet Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to the Shiite traditions, the ruling cast in Iran, Muhammad al-Mahdi or simpler Mahdi, an Imam who disappeared mysteriously a few hundred years ago is supposed to return one day and bring back safety and peace for the Muslim nation, and then destroy all its enemies. I suppose here we can include, according to the ayatollahs and their puppets, three-quarters of the globe. According to all these bloggers, Mahdi's time is coming and when he comes the USA and Israel are going to vanish from the map. The EU will be Muslim and we will all be dead! I'm sure you think that all this is laughable and you are probably think if it is worth continue to read, since the whole thing sounds like pulp fiction. Well, it is getting better. Ahmadinejad claims that he communicates with Mahdi. The bloggers don't make it clear if they communicate through a satellite telephone or with text messages, or even e-mails and Skype, but he does! According to Ahmadinejad's conversations, they have a 'private communication channel' and that does not include Al Jazeera to their great disappointment. Are you on the floor laughing? Wait, more is coming. According to these bloggers, good old Ahmadinejad is intentionally provoking USA so they will invade Iran and Mahdi will come earlier to save his believers. You see Mahdi is watching CNN and when he will see the green screen and bombs exploding, he will pick up his newest NOKIA, call Ahmadinejad and then, riding his white horse, will attack the Americans. Please take it seriously, Mr. Ahmadinejad, the joke president of Iran, asked all his ministers, advisers, etc., in the Iranian administration, a.k.a. 'board of little dictators', to sign a declaration of commitment and obedience to Mahdi. It's like the Finnish president asking the same from the Finnish administration, but, instead of Mahdi, she would write to Thor and Odin. There is the argument that President Bush has often claimed his communication with God, but at least he has only a couple of more years and then they will communicate in private for good. I know I have made you tired with my articles about Iran, but as I have said before however boring it might get we must often remind that there are really dangerous people and we must help the Iranian people to get rid of them - by themselves please, no need for another invasion. I don't know why, but the whole thing reminded me of something I've read on a wall in Athens a long time ago, clever graffiti that said: "Marx is dead, God is dead and I don't feel very well lately!" Well, people like Ahmadinejad don't make me feel very well either!

Panathinaikos' Prince Charming

This is an article published in the last issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi lehti

What really is going on with Panathinaikos is not exactly a mystery. It is like one of these mysteries you find in pulp fiction and you know the murderer by the second chapter. Usually the battler is the murderer, but in Panathinaikos' case it is the lord - please don't confuse Panathinaikos' Lord with the Finnish Lordi that won the Eurovision Contest. These rock monsters have heavy monstrous make-up but this is where it stops, Panathinaikos' lord is a monster inside and outside.

What's the story? There is this almighty Greek family with a lot of money. This happens sometimes in small countries like Greece, where the state is damn poor; the number of people living in poverty is damn high and unemployment is booming. Greece is one of these poor countries that have some Greek names on the richest people on the globe lists. I was really careful using the phrase "Greek names" because after these people become rich they usually pretend that they are not Greeks. However, that doesn't count for this certain mystery family, but I thought it was a good place to make the hint.

This certain family owns many things. Philanthropist institutions, animal settlers, oil companies, media organizations, a football team and a prince. This prince is sort of Charles story; you know the one from England with the Greek daddy - another Greek who doesn't like to say it. Back to Charles, everybody tries hard to show how cool, clever, intellectual and responsible, but it takes only one look at his photograph to understand why nobody wants him to become a king. Actually nobody knows what to do with him, so they keep him doing charities and playing polo.

With the Greek family's prince things were a bit more demanding. You see, royal families are fine; the only things you have to do are show up at the right time and make occasional speeches written by the government, whether you like them or not. In Greek families, especially the ones into business, you have to do far more. You have to think. You have to act. You have to bring money. In this case the prince was a failure in all above, so the family decided to follow the royal English family's example and led him into high-society and the jet-set life of a play-boy.

However, in this case even Charles looks like Prince Charming compared to them, so they decided to follow another way. Charles has horses, the Greek will have Ferrari. In the end both will have horses. He was even dreaming to be the next Senna - you know, the Brazilian F1 driver who's dead now, but alive when our prince was driving his Ferrari. Another failure but something good came out of it. The prince now had a shop with Ferrari spare parts in Athens. The family felt that he might have a chance, so they decided to give him a second challenge: a football team.

They could have given him a team from the fifth local neighborhood division and nobody would really mind, but they had to give him the most popular, world famous Greek team, Panathinaikos. Having a small spare parts shop in Athens is one thing, how many Ferraris are in Athens? How many spare parts you can sell? How much can you screw up with a shop like that? But Panathinaikos?

The prince's failure did everything to screw the team but most of all he did everything to screw the people who are this team, the fans and the players, past and present. For the football players, football is a job with a time limit hanging over their heads. If you don't enjoy your job or have problems with your boss the best solution is change work.

The prince has made a lot of valuable players want to change team. Even move to the all-time villain Olympiakos. Somehow I do understand that. I have moved to another company, even to a competitor, but I think the attitude is when you wake-up one morning and you don't want to go to the same place to work change job as soon as possible. I don't blame the players for moving away, even though a couple of them hurt me deeply.

What made it worst was that the prince did it intentionally, pushing them out trying to establish his regime and his way 'my way or the highway', while the team was beginning to drift away from titles and glories. To make it worst, one of his 'yes boss' coaches dared say in an interview that we should 'forget the good old times, it is not the same team and that we should look to the future' was the point I started getting angry.

In many ways and in many different articles, especially political articles, I have often emphasized that history is what gives identity, self-respect and motivation, and we have seen how it works with whole nations or how the lack of history doesn't work for others. Panathinaikos' history is part of what the team is. For every jersey the family sells, from every single ticket they sell they exchange this history. For every cent they put in their wallets is an exchange of this history. And who mainly gives them this money? Panathinaikos fans. The other half that makes this team.

Panathinaikos is not a playground for the Prince Charming or a test phase for a rich family's brat. Panathinaikos is the oldest Greek team and the only representative of Greek football outside the Greek boarders. Panathinaikos is the heart beat of thousands of people and they have to understand it.

What's the cure for this team? The family has to go away. As far away as they can, I will forgive them even if they imitate other rich Greek families and they pretend that they are not Greeks. They committed the murder and they must stop before they become mass murderers, if they haven't!!!

Free Aung San Suu Kyi

From the last Issue of the Ovi magazine - Ovi Lehti for the Finns:

After having personal experience with what 'junta' means, I am pretty sensitive when it comes to dictatorships or any kind of militaristic regimes. I include states like Pakistan and Iran, even though Iran suffers a theocratic dictatorship which makes it even worse; countries where the army is hiding behind puppet politicians like in some South American or African countries and countries like Turkey where the army hasn't realized that they should stay in their barracks with their mouths shut, instead of beholding the democratic future of the country.

However, things seem to get worse in another country, Burma. The military rulers of the country announced their decision to extend the house arrest of the democratic opposition leader Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi. Hopes were even from the UN that the period of expiration of her house arrest would lead to her freedom and a series of changes. It was in vain!

Oddly enough, even the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed to the leaders of Burma's military junta, especially to their leader General Than Shwe, for Mrs. Suu Kyi's freedom, but his words were ignored once more with a raw announcement that her detention remains.

Why should this devilish General obey the UN Secretary General or anybody else after the suffering that goes on in the other countries I mentioned earlier? Has anybody done anything with Pakistan's president, another general, Pervez Musharraf? The man came to power with a military coup, imprisoning and killing any political opposition to his ego. But you see, he is an 'ally' in the war against terror even though his country is host to the Taliban and any other radical Muslim - it seems joining the 'allies' gave him holy forgiveness!

What about Iran's leaders? They made a political mistake by not joining the war against terror because you would see how democratic they would have been; an immediate baptism. There they don't imprison their opposition, they just make it vanish! Send them the fast way to Allah!

Weird as it sounds, the awareness of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's situation and the worry for democracy in Burma has started from the international Music Television channel and the efforts of U2 singer Bono. However strange it sounds, the media have proved once more how powerful they are to force the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to feel the need to interfere.

There is no way for these petty generals to listen or negotiate. An international boycott only hurts the people of Burma and those already suffering in poverty. Oddly enough the threat of the 'alliance' should be enough to scare any clown general or petty cleric if it was happening under the umbrella of the UN.

Free Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi now, give democracy back to the Burmese people and Mr UN Secretary you don't need to appeal because you have the power the nations have given to you. Use it for a good reason for once and do it now!

by Thanos Kalamidas

Issue 15 of the original Ovi magazine went online.

Boundaries is the theme and our team of writers have produced a sterling effort covering the subject, plus a few random articles thrown in for good measure.

There are over 50 web pages of new material for you to enjoy for the next month, including the usual favourites, such as U Do I Don’t, Show Bizz and Thanos’ one-man crusade against the clown president of Iran.

Check it all out today:

www.ovimagazine.com
We cover every issue

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Ovi magazine is so popular that Jone Nikula (former Finnish Idols judge) is using the same name on his forthcoming new free magazine.

Whether Jone was influenced by Thanos Kalamidas and Asa Butcher's Ovi was not mentioned in their Press Release (http://www.marmai.fi/doc.te?f_id=915164), but he will certainly become aware of the fact over the next few months.

The original Ovi has been an online magazine for 14 months, has published 14 issues and the name has become synonymous with our style. According to international web measurements, Ovi magazine, the only e-zine from Finland, outranks many Finnish monthly and daily magazines, in Finnish or English. In addition, we have been presenting a weekly radio show under the name 'Ovi Magazine Bad Boys' for over four months.

After all the expense and effort they have done and will do, they will find that they are coming second and advertising another magazine that might not be their style! From our side, the only thing we have to do is remind them that there are European laws protecting copycats and fourteen months of successful history gives us a good advantage.

We will be sending this mail to all the media (including Ovi magazine network of blogs, forums and sites) nationally and internationally to ensure that people know that this free magazine has nothing to do with us.

If Jone Nikula or anybody connected with this Ovi impostor wishes to contact the original Ovi, please email info@ovimagazine.com

Open the original

www.ovimagazine.com

We cover every issue!

P.S. We would like to thank all our readers from the media companies who informed us straight away about this Press Release and we would also like to thank them for their support; it doesn’t matter if they did it anonymously or not. We think you should have informed Mr. Nikula as well, even though we are sure in a country where the Internet is so popular, Mr. Nikula’s associates were definitely informed and knew very well what they were doing.

Afterlife promises

It has been proven that in the last few years, while civilization and science are full of promises and move forwards ever faster, humans are finding ways to kill and kill themselves fulfilling ancient promises. Actually, people use this advanced technology to kill themselves faster taking more innocent people with them.

Fanatic Muslims, mullahs and presidents give them promises of a paradise with Uris dancing all around and lots and lots of rice, in exchange for their life in this world. As more infidels die, the better their position in this paradise Allah created and there is even a cash bonus. Iran and other Arab states give some extra money and generous help to the family of the bomber, of course undercover.

What is this afterlife promise that leads a young man or woman to strap a belt full of explosives and blindly detonate it in the middle of a square ignoring the fact that the people around him are totally innocent, not aware of his drama or demands, not for any other reason but just because of age? I don't think any three or four year old is aware of what's really going on in Palestine, even if they live there.

Why the promise of an afterlife reward is enough to sacrifice this life? The Pope John Paul II back in 1933 introduced the 'Evangelium Vitae' (the Bible of Life) again. According to this dogma, the human life is holy from the minute of conception to the natural death.

During the Crusades, the Catholic Church was promising eternal life in paradise if a crusader died on a mission to take back the Holy Land. A number of men, with the promise of being able to be with Allah in paradise, crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York taking some thousands of innocent lives with them.

An American president signs a declaration of war and kills thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans in the process, many of whom went to paradise in the name of international peace. To that, you can add the soldiers who got killed in the last years in Iraq and definitely went to paradise to join the rest.

I will never forget the pictures on CNN of soldiers praying before the invasion of Iraq. What were they praying for? To kill as many they could? To survive the war? To go to paradise if they were killed? For their victims to go to paradise?

Amazingly, the American president seems to be a strong believer, praying often and mentioning God as often as he can. Has he got a promise for an afterlife paradise position? How many times has he sent somebody to his death? Starting from the period he was Governor of Texas and Death Row to the innocent people who died in Iraq.

The target was Saddam and his followers, but are we even going to find out how many others got killed? How many that had nothing to do with the regime and just happened to live and breathe in the same country?

Does the promise of a holy afterlife excuse murder? Perhaps we are dealing with different paradises? One for the Muslims, one for the Christians, one for the Buddhists and one for the Hindus, imagine if they all met up there? Soon paradise will become hell and I would much rather stay where I am.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Ovi magazine is so popular that Jone Nikula (former Finnish Idols judge) is using the same name on his forthcoming new free magazine.

Whether Jone was influenced by Thanos Kalamidas and Asa Butcher's Ovi was not mentioned in their Press Release (http://www.marmai.fi/doc.te?f_id=915164), but he will certainly become aware of the fact over the next few months.

The original Ovi has been an online magazine for 14 months, has published 14 issues and the name has become synonymous with our style. According to international web measurements, Ovi magazine, the only e-zine from Finland, outranks many Finnish monthly and daily magazines, in Finnish or English. In addition, we have been presenting a weekly radio show under the name 'Ovi Bad Boys' for nearly four months. The show name is announced every week in the Helsinki Sanomat radio programme section and we talk about Ovi magazine, interview guests and promote events for the foreign community.

After all the expense and effort they have done and will do, they will find that they are coming second and advertising another magazine that might not be their style! From our side, the only thing we have to do is remind them that there are European laws protecting copycats and fourteen months of successful history gives us a good advantage.

We will be sending this mail to all the media (including Ovi magazine network of blogs, forums and sites) nationally and internationally to ensure that people know that this free magazine has nothing to do with us.

If Jone Nikula or anybody connected with this Ovi impostor wishes to contact the original Ovi, please email info@ovimagazine.com

Open the original

www.ovimagazine.com

We cover every issue!

P.S. We would like to thank all our readers from the media companies who informed us straight away about this Press Release and we would also like to thank them for their support; it doesn’t matter if they did it anonymously or not. We think you should have informed Mr. Nikula as well, even though we are sure in a country where the Internet is so popular, Mr. Nikula’s associates were definitely informed and knew very well what they were doing.

Polish example

This is an article from the only online Finnish magazine in English: Ovi Magazine:

In an April edition of The Daily Mail, they revealed that an estimated two million Poles will have arrived in Britain since EU borders were thrown open to eight east European countries in 2004. This figure is remarkable and you cannot fail to be amazed when you realise that the population of Warsaw, the Polish capital, is just over 1.9million.

Britain's population is predicted to break through the 60 million mark this July, which equates to Poles making up 1.6% of the population. To give Finns some perspective that would mean 84,800 Poles living in Finland, which is difficult to comprehend when you think that there are approximately 113,000 foreigners in the country and Poles are found under the 'Others' column.

Britain's Office for National Statistics says that Poles are arriving at an average rate of 100,000 a month, although they don't have figures for the actual number who have stayed and keeping tally is near impossible. The statistics are startling for Britain but it seems that the majority of people are happy with the influx of Polish workers; a reaction not usually associated with the xenophobic populace.

What are the Poles doing for Brits to be so accepting of the influx? While visiting the UK recently and later reading comments on a number of forums, I have learnt that a very large majority of Poles have an excellent reputation as being hard workers. I was told stories about their punctuality, their willingness to do a honest day's work and perform their tasks to a high standard.

Over 340,000 Poles are legally registered in the UK, each of them paying tax, National Insurance and contributing to society, plus many employers say that Poles are less likely to call in sick. The self-employed Poles may take cash-in-hand, but they still endeavour to do a good job and are beginning to kill off the cowboy companies that prey upon the public. So, what is keeping them away from Finland?

I suspect the language barrier is the greatest obstacle and the lack of an established Diaspora in the country. At least when they arrive in the UK, they have approximately two million fellow countrymen as potential customers and speaking Polish is a given. However, many Brits who have hired Poles praise the level of the English spoken and have faced no difficulties.

Forget a single European currency, perhaps it is time to negotiate a single European language, which I suggest to be English, since I am extremely biased. Finland could take the first step by adding English to the official languages of Finnish and Swedish; a step that isn't that huge with the majority of business using English as the working tongue.

There is a chance that language is not the reason Poles don't want to emigrate here, there could be cultural, geographic, economic or even political reasons why many don't come. In the end, the simple reason could be that they don't want to hear endless North Pole jokes.

By Asa Butcher