Search Results for: Russia

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a major political initiative to prevent European Union (EU) member states being played off against each other in energy negotiations with major suppliers, such as Russia. It has proposed legislation that would insist national EU governments give Brussels information on any current deals and negotiations regarding energy supplies, including, but not only, oil and gas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE CASPIAN Sea’s five coastal states have signed a cooperation deal on dealing with oil spills. Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan have agreed a Protocol Concerning Regional Preparedness, Response and Cooperation in Combating Oil Pollution Incidents. This is a legally binding agreement linked to the UN’s Tehran Convention on protecting the Caspian’s environment.…

BY MARK ROWE and MJ DESCHAMPS

IN Russia, politics is everything, and politics invariably means what the state’s two figureheads – Dmitri Medvedev, the president, and Vladimir Putin, former president and prime minister – determine.

So when noises are heard coming from the Kremlin signalling a change in attitude towards green energy, the wise betting is that there is political weight behind such moves.…

BY MARK GODFREY

ALTHOUGH it has two reactors generation 5% of its electricity needs, South Africa is, like China, a developing country where energy needs exceed capacity. China’s emerging nuclear power giant China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co (CGNPC) has been trying to persuade Johannesburg officials to install its ‘CPR1000-plus’ reactors, derived from French technology.…

BY ELENA SMIRNOVA and KEITH NUTHALL

Russia’s automobile manufacturing sector could by the end of this year face tougher competition from abroad, if the current plans to agree the country’s membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO) come to pass. The chair of the WTO working party charged with negotiating a complex agreement allowing Russia into the global trade body announced a timetable this summer that would see trade ministers approve Russian membership between December 15 and 17.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers this week authorised the European Commission strike a gas supply deal with Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, which have substantial reserves under and near the Caspian Sea. The agreement would focus on a pipeline system running under the se from Turkmenistan to Azerjaijan.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

INTELLIGENCE agencies by their very nature are secretive. So too are budgetary expenses and the ways in which agencies finance operations, especially in foreign jurisdictions and where they carry out so-called ‘black ops’. The techniques to quietly transfer funds do not in fact differ that widely from organised crime or terrorist groups, using banking services, front companies, charities and the like.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ENERGY ministers from the European Union (EU) and the Balkans will next month (October 6) vote on a new plan to create a ‘gas ring’ of pipeline links uniting the fragmented energy markets of south-eastern Europe. A meeting of the Energy Community, an organisation linking the EU’s supposedly united energy market with those in neighbouring countries to the south and east, will be asked to back an ‘Implementation Plan for Gas Infrastructure Development in the Energy Community’.…

BY MARK GODFREY

A NEW breed of modern recycling operations are helping China improve its domestic supply of recyclables. Among them is Tianjin Dowa Green Angel Summit Recycling Co., Ltd, a new Chinese Yuan Renminbi CNY100 million (USD15.52 million) joint venture between Japanese metal recycling equipment maker Dowa Eco-System, local waste collector Tianjin Green-Angel Renewable Resource Recovery Co.,…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is staging a re-evaluation of the sweetener aspartame after it agreed to bring forward from 2020 a scheduled inquiry, despite recent scientific assessments failing to reveal fresh concerns about the sweetener.

Indeed, EFSA reviewed the latest studies on aspartame only in April, but accepted a European Commission request for a new study.…