For you, special price

National Review's The Corner on Russia's decision to charge market price for gas delivered to Ukraine:

CRACKING THE WHIP [Andrew Stuttaford]

Moscow is looking to increase the price it charges Ukraine for natural gas by far more than the rate it charges more amenable parts of the former USSR. If there’s no deal, Gazprom (the Russian gas monopoly) is threatening to cut off Ukrainian customers (and may have done so by now), bad news at any time of the year, but terrible in freezing, icy January.

[a similar line on the Russian price increase from Pajamas Media]

National Review's The Corner on the Iraqi government's (=Ahmad Chalabi) decision to charge market prices for petrol to consumers:

RE: NORMALCY? [Andy McCarthy]
An astute reader notes about gas lines in Iraq: "Baghdad has been stripping retail gasoline of subsidies, all the better for what will soon be the least fettered economy in the region. Mainstream journalists, unfortunately, neither understand nor welcome this."


One is reminded of a scene from You Only Live Twice:

[Chinese financier]: But this is extortion!
Blofeld: Extortion... is my business.