(EU leaders were reportedly taken aback by Mr Putin’s rebuff)
By William Horsley
BBC News Europe analyst
23 October 2006
Insiders’ reports from EU leaders’ dinner with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday suggest Europe’s diplomats have begun the week suffering from diplomatic indigestion.
All 25 European Union leaders met Mr Putin in Finland.
Accounts of the meeting from some of those present there speak of unusually blunt exchanges between the two sides, in which Mr Putin said he would not listen to lectures about human rights, and rejected EU demands over its vitally important oil and gas business.
Like some blazing row between world celebrities in a private club, word of the verbal fisticuffs is coming out in dribs and drabs and is still spreading.
The Europeans went in saying bravely that that they would tackle Mr Putin over human rights issues, like the recent murder of a political journalist, and calling on him to loosen the state monopolies in oil and gas development if he wanted a relationship of trust.
That stance was the stronger for being shared by Russia’s closest economic partner, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
Pleasantry knocked aside
But Mr Putin’s response was sharp. He told the Europeans Russia would set its own terms on energy supplies, and not sign the Energy Charter Treaty, as they asked.
Challenged about corruption and failings in the rule of law in Russia, he asked why officials had been sent to jail in Spain, and annoyed some in Italy with his quip that “mafia is not a Russian word”.
Challenged over the economic embargo on Georgia, he accused that tiny state of planning to settle its disputes with Russia with bloodshed.
Some of the Europeans were shocked.
So the meeting in Lahti, Finland, had few concrete results.
But the mask of pleasantry has been knocked off.
At the next EU-Russia summit next month it may not be possible to put the really tough issues aside with jokes or jibes.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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