Search Results for: Russia

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FUTURE of the natural gas sector is guaranteed in any viable European Union (EU) energy mix, the European Commission has said in a major policy paper. In its ‘Energy Road Map 2050’, Brussels argues that gas is the relatively clean fuel that will buy the EU time to adopt new energy technologies.…

BY MARK GODFREY, IN BEIJING

WEAKNESSES in China’s nuclear certification system are an obstacle for domestic equipment suppliers wanting to seize market share when the policy-setting National Development & Reform Commission (NDRC) approves a new reactor building programme. This has been held up by the Fukushima disaster, but China’s local certification regime remains more geared to screening imported equipment rather than encouraging high standards among local equipment providers.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, IN BEIRUT

THE SYRIAN energy sector is currently reeling from the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) and the United States in the last quarter of 2011 in response to Damascus’ severe crackdown on protests that began in March of last year.…

BY EUGENE VOROTNIKOV, IN ST PETERSBURG

IF truth be told, the international image of Russia could so with some burnishing: the Georgia conflict did not help, and the western view is often one of a backward country kept afloat by a sea of oil and whose sails are filled by plentiful natural gas.…

BY EUGENE VOROTNIKOV, IN ST PETERSBURG

RUSSIAN book sales did not leap ahead this Christmas and New Year period – which in Russia officially ended on January 10, (Christmas is celebrated in the country on January 7). Oleg Dushin, a leading analyst at book market specialist consultants Zerich Capital Management, told The Bookseller that in Russia, festive sales surges cannot be compared with those in Western countries.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

THE DUTCH government is pressing for a coordinated European Union (EU) response to fighting the Schmallenberg virus, a damaging disease spreading rapidly amongst livestock across Europe. Probably transmitted by insects, the virus is affecting goats, sheep and cattle, causing abortions, deformities, severe diarrhoea, fever and drops in milk production.…

BY EUGENE VOROTNIKOV, IN ST PETERSBURG

A USD$430 million joint Russo-Chinese plant, the world’s largest high capacity lithium-ion factory, heralds a new global centre for battery production say its founders.

The plant, Liotech, is a joint venture between China’s Thunder Sky Limited and the state-owned Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (Rusnano), with Thunder Sky owning 50.1% and Rusnano 49.9%.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS AND LENA SMIRNOVA

AFTER 18 years of negotiations, Russia has finally gained approval to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a key diplomatic move that could have profound consequences for the country’s textile market and industry.

A ministerial meeting of the WTO in Geneva anointed Russian accession on December 16, making the country the WTO’s 155th member.…

By Keith Nuthall, International News Services

Britain’s recent refusal to sign a new European Union (EU) treaty that would impose tougher controls over the level of budget deficits EU governments can run might seem like prudence, given the appalling state of the Euro. But the failure of Britain to negotiate itself a real say in how Eurozone members control public spending poses grave risks for the UK and its financial sector.

By standing aside from this agreement, Britain has cleared the way for Euro-zone members to agree their own financial industry legislation, which could ultimately make it easier for Euro trades to be made in Frankfurt than in London – and that might prove a bitterly expensive pill to swallow.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INNOVATIVE plastics companies will be able to apply for European Union (EU) funding for cutting edge research and development projects from the new EU research programme called Horizon 2020 – which will run from 2014 to 2020. The European Commission has set out budgets totalling Euro EUR80 billion to push forward the EU’s scientific and research strategies.…