Tourists Flock to Serbia for Testicle Festival

Well, at least that's what the tourism honchos are hoping for. And what better to be known for than a testicle festival?

Tourism chiefs in Serbia are hoping their annual testicle cooking competition will do for the region what whisky did for Scotland.

The Testicle Cooking World Championship in Ozrem takes place for the seventh time this year and is open to cooks from all over the world.

Dishes, said to have aphrodisiac qualities, are made from the testicles of animals including bull, wild boar, horse, shark, ostrich, kangaroo, donkey, turkey, goat, reindeer and elk.

Organisers admit they rarely get chefs from abroad - but they are hoping that the festival will start to attract international visitors to sample the food.

Festival organiser Ivo Mokovich said: "The importance of a recognisable brand to sell a region cannot be underestimated - look at how many people go to Scotland because of the whiskey or how many people know Switzerland because of their cheese and chocolate.

Ah yes, nothing better to wash away the aftertaste of whisky and chocolate than a nice helping of donkey testicles.

"We are now hoping that the many famous and varied testicle dishes that we have created in the region will become world-famous and attract people who appreciate good food from all over the world."

The testicle cooking contest starts on 27 August with elimination heats leading through to the final three days later on 29 August.

There's a rather disgusting photo at the link.

Update: William Jacobson sends us this really tasty recipe.

'This Was Hillary Clinton's Initiative All the Way Through'

Forget actually getting justice and forcing the Serbs to hand this monster over. Just arrange some payola and everyone's happy right? Well, that's how the Clintons roll. It all comes down to cash.

One of Hillary Rodham Clinton's first acts as secretary of State was to broker a $1 million blood-money payout by the Serbian government for the New York victim of a vicious beating, high-ranking sources told The Post.

Bryan Steinhauer of Brooklyn, who weighs 135 pounds, is to receive $900,000 for being thrashed to a pulp by classmate Miladin Kovacevic, a nearly 300-pound basketball player, during a barroom brawl near Binghamton University last May.

The Serbian government will also forfeit the $100,000 it posted as Kovacevic's bail.

Steinhauer, 22, spent months near death in a coma. After being arrested on assault charges, Kovacevic skipped the country with travel documents prepared by Serbian diplomats in New York.

The Serbs, who have no extradition treaty with the United States, still refuse to hand over Kovacevic, who has flaunted his freedom and remains unrepentant.

While in the Senate, Clinton ratcheted up the heat on Serbia, demanding the country hand over the 22-year-old fugitive goon to face justice here.

After being named America's top diplomat, Clinton kept the pressure on, via instructions to the US ambassador to Serbia, Cameron Munter.

But with a US trial looking unlikely, the Steinhauer family pushed for a financial settlement to cover Brian's medical bills, sources said.

Munter conducted negotiations with Slobodan Homen, Serbia's state secretary of justice, until the settlement was reached Thursday.

"This was Hillary Clinton's initiative all the way through," said a senior government official in Belgrade, who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity.

The official added that the Serbian government agreed to the Steinhauer family's demands to maintain good relations with the United States, which provides $50 million in annual aid to the economically ailing Balkan nation.

A State Department spokesman called the settlement "a private matter" between the Serbian government and the Steinhauer family.

So we provide $50 million in aid and they just turn around and sent $900,000 of it back, essentially. Nothing like putting the screws to them and withholding money until they hand this thug over.

I can't wait to see Clinton declare "victory" with this one.

Granted, the Bush administration did little if anything with this case, but this is just a bit unseemly. You know the Serbs will never hand Kovacevic over and now they can claim they've done us a favor.

It's been a banner week for Mrs. Clinton. First she throws human rights under the bus and now she accepts payola in lieu of justice. Apparently nobody cares. If the Steinhauer family so desperately needed money, maybe while she was Senator Clinton she could have helped raise money or, perish the thought, donate some of her own vast wealth.

Building Putin's Empire

Deal with Serbia gives Russia victory in 'pipeline war' with EU

Russia won the right Friday to direct a major supply route for natural gas through its ally Serbia to Europe, a deal that analysts described as a Kremlin victory in a "pipeline war" with the European Union.

The agreement, signed in the Kremlin before President Vladimir Putin and visiting Serbian leaders, increased Moscow's control over energy supplies to Europe and could undermine a rival EU project.

Strong Russian opposition to independence for the Serbian province of Kosovo was a key bargaining chip in the negotiations that resulted in Serbia joining the project, the South Stream natural gas pipeline. Belgrade also agreed to sell a majority stake in Serbia's state-owned oil monopoly, NIS, to the Russian natural gas giant, Gazprom, at a favorable price.

South Stream is a project worth a projected €10 billion, or $14.7 billion, organized jointly by Gazprom and the Italian energy giant ENI to carry Siberian gas to Europe via the Black Sea.

"Our close political relations were today converted into economic results," Putin's chosen successor, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters. "This is a great breakthrough."

[...]

The agreements signed Friday by Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of Serbia, gave Gazprom a 51 percent stake in Serbia's NIS oil and natural gas company, for €400 million [US$593,259,318.44 ed.] and a pledge to invest €500 million more by 2012.

Some analysts described the price as well below market value, giving estimates of €1 billion to €2 billion [US$1,483,589,692.57 - US$2,966,249,293.59 ed.], although others said the NIS plant needed heavy reconstruction.

NIS dominates the Serbian market, with a monopoly on refining and a network of almost 500 gas stations. The NIS deal gives Gazprom its first refinery outside Russia.

Gazprom gets OMV stake

Gazprom will acquire a stake of 50 percent in OMV's natural gas hub in Austria, giving it greater access to the Continent's customers, under an agreement signed Friday, Bloomberg News reported.

The two will sell to Germany and Italy through the Baumgarten hub, located near a trunk pipeline from west Siberian natural gas fields.

Via The IHT

On January 17, 2008, The Streetwise Professor observed that

Gazprom/Russia is/are playing smashmouth ball over Serbia’s national oil company. Don Miller and Don Medvedev have presented Serbia with an offer it can’t refuse: to sell Naftna industrija Srbije at a fraction of its true value–and one with an unbelievably short fuse, like, you know, Friday.

In exchange for control of SIJ’s hard assets and guarantees of a monopoly position in Serbia for some period (take that Serbian consumers, Gazprom doesn’t do competition), Gazprom Neft (Gazprom’s oil affiliate) is offering an amount that has been estimated to represent well less than one-half (and perhaps as little as one-quarter) of the Serbian company’s value. The tacit quid pro quo is that Russia will support Serbia on Kosovo–but, if Russian rhetoric is to be believed (yeah, I know) they would do that anyways.

To make the deal look a little less like an abject surrender, Gazprom has also dangled the prospect of giving Serbia a stake in a future gas venture. Word of advice, guys–DON’T BELIEVE IT, and DON’T TAKE IT. Gazprom is the master of what Bob Amsterdam calls “premature contractualization.” That is, announcing deals just in time to forestall projects that are adverse to Gazprom’s interest, and then fading the deal when the threatening competing projects are shelved in response to the Gazprom announcement. Gazprom will whisper sweet promises in anybody’s ear to get what they want, and then renege when it suits them. (Nigeria–you should take note of this, as Gazprom has been wooing you too.)

Gazprom’s stratagem is analogous to a common ploy in the software business. In the 80s and 90s “vaporware” was a commonly employed competitive strategy. A software company would announce a new, improved software product in order to forestall entry by a competitor. Once the potential entrant was scared away, the new software would just fade away into the mists, never to be seen. Gazprom is essentially following this playbook–constantly announcing vaporpipelines, vaporwells, vaporinvestments, vaporstorage, vapor-you-name-it whenever a threatening project is mooted.

So, what Gazprom is offering Serbia is: a pittance in cash plus a pig in a poke in exchange for hard assets right now. Given Gazprom’s record of delivering on its big talk, the Serbs would be well advised to take cash on the barrelhead and take the promises for what they are worth–a little more than nothing.

It would be fair to say that Serbia is the first new province in Putie's Soviet Union Lite. Let's see how long it takes before soon-to-be Soviet Russian Premier Putin directs the new pawns - with their new military advisors - to square off against KFOR, while at the same time, telling the EU that abandoning their NATO obligations would be in their absolute best energy supply interests.

And whether he delivers the message or has his beard, Gazprom poohbah Gerhard Schroeder, do so instead.

See also: How To Attract Foreign Investment (Gazprom and its business partners)