Search Results for: Russia

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is giving Euro 40 million to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to help it fund Russia’s cleansing of the radioactive contamination in the Barents Sea caused by its aging decommissioned nuclear fleet. The money will be channelled through the nuclear-related budgets of the EBRD-managed Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) Support Fund.…

BY MARK ROWE
RUSSIA’S Natural Resources Ministry has announced plans to increase national oil reserves by 400 million metric tonnes this year compared to a 279 million tonne increase last year. Natural gas reserves will be boosted by 900 billion cubic metres in 2003.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE RUSSIAN and Iranian governments have signed a protocol to cooperate in developing Iran’s coal industry. Russia’s energy ministry said it would work to improve all aspects of the industry, from coal production to processing. The Russians will initially help develop operations in the southern Iranian city of Yazd, the centre of Iran’s major coal producing region.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has signed an international charter on the capture and storage deep underground of carbon dioxide, also involving Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Norway, China, Russia, Britain and the US. This Sequestration Leadership Forum is developing schemes to capturing CO2 at source and storing it for thousands of years deep underground, probably in depleted oil and gas wells, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.…

BY MARK ROWE
RUSSIA is to resume imports of Brazilian boneless beef and pork. Russia, a major new market for Brazilian beef exporters, banned purchases from Brazil last December because of concerns over the disease bovine vesicular stomatitis. Brazil says the export herds have been free of the disease for at least one year.…

BY MARK ROWE
ISRAEL’S Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company is swapping Egyptian crude oil for Russian this month (June), the final stage of a plan to transport Russian and Caspian crude to Eilat, on the Red Sea, for easier sale into Asia. The company last month awarded a tender to swap Egyptian crude oil for Russia’s sour Urals crude.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE STORAGE of CO2 deep underground in uneconomic coal seams is one key option being considered by the (carbon) Sequestration Leadership Forum, which has just been joined by the European Commission. Other members are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Norway, China, Russia, Britain and the US.…

BY MARK ROWE
SALES of the Order of the Pheonix have proved swift at the Moskva chain’s flagship bookstore in Moscow. In Russia, a book that sells 50 copies in a month in a shop is considered to have a good run but the Phoenix, has already far outstripped that with sales topping “several hundred” according to staff at Moskva.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency has warned that Europe’s water resources are being put under threat by unsustainable economic practices, and although “only a few” European citizens suffer from “devastating shortages,” drinking water quality is a concern throughout Europe.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
THE CLUTCH of much-maligned offshore financial centres (OFCs) on remote Pacific islands have been swamped by so many accusations of impropriety, they are now struggling to stay afloat.

Labelled as palm-fringed, sun-drenched laundries for the world’s dirty money, these tiny island states and dependent territories are trying to fend off attempts by international organisations to excommunicate them from the global financial church.…