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Russian Nuclear Reactors Taken Offline In 2nd Serious Incident In Under A Week

July 19, 2019

Russian Nuclear Reactors Taken Offline In 2nd Serious Incident In Under A Week

In a deeply worrisome development related to Russia’s network of ten nuclear power plants nationwide, two of them suffered significant operating incidents in under only one week, causing multiple reactors to be take offline. 

Russia’s TASS reported that a “transformer short circuit” at the Kalinin nuclear power plant (NPP) resulted in “a complete shutdown of two and a partial shutdown of another power unit in the Tver region” early on Thursday. In total 3 out of the 4 nuclear plant’s reactors had to be unplugged. Cooling towers at the Kalinin nuclear power plant, via Russia Now/The Telegraph

Hours later, as evening fell, Reuters reported one or more of the units suffering shutdown were back online. Russia is well-known as among the world’s largest producers of nuclear energy.

The Kalinin plant is north-west of Moscow in central Russia and has been operational since the mid-1980’s, with the last major known accident in 2016, in which two workers were injured when a power unit short circuited. Its newest reactor, No. 4, went operational in 2011. 

Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary of state nuclear corporation Rosatom, issued a statement stressing there was no need for panic or alarm.

“The radiation level at the station and surrounding territory remains without change and is in line with normal background levels,” the company said.

This latest incident follows a similar one which state media reported last Friday involving a a nuclear plant in the central Russian city of Beloyarsk.

A reactor there had to be disconnected when an automatic safety mechanism was triggered; however, it came back online Tuesday after an inspection found no issues. 

Russia, China Prepare To Dump Dollar, Agree To Bilateral Trade In National Currencies

June 5, 2019

Russia, China Prepare To Dump Dollar, Agree To Bilateral Trade In National Currencies

Just one month after conducting joint military exercises, Russia and China are set to sign an agreement which would boost the use of their national currencies in bilateral and international trade in an attempt to mmove away from the current dollar-denominated financial system, according to Russian state-owned news outlet TASS.

It is planned that Russia and China will be developing bilateral payments in national currencies, encourage and expand the use of national currencies, particularly through promotion of their use when signing international trade contracts. According to the draft agreement, the sides will also assume required measures to lift barriers for payments in national currencies. –TASS

The Kremlin released a draft decree on Wednesday outlining “settlements and payments for goods, service and direct investments between economic entities of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China are made in accordance with the international practice and the legislation of the sides’ states with the use of foreign currency, the Russian currency (rubles) and the Chinese currency (yuan).”

According to the draft, Moscow and Beijing will cooperate to develop a national payments system, along with cross-border payments in national and other currencies. 

“The sides deepen the cooperation in the field of national payment card systems and within the framework of the Russian and Chinese legislation provide support to commercial banks in their independent decision-making on joining the payment system in the state of the other side,” reads the document. 

Last November, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that discussions were under way to allow the use of China’s UnionPay credit card in Russia, and Russia’s Mir card in China. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (left) and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People in November. Photo: EPA

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This Alliance Could Mark A New Era For Oil

October 22, 2018

This Alliance Could Mark A New Era For Oil

Novak al-Falih

Saudi Arabia and Russia could formalize a strategic partnership that would last indefinitely, potentially marking a new era for the oil market.

In a wide-ranging interview with TASS, Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih said that he hopes to setup an official OPEC+ governing body, including a Secretariat, likely to be based in Vienna. The proposal could be finished by December.

To date, OPEC+ has been a somewhat informal group, or at least a provisional one, intended to address the supply glut that emerged following the 2014-2016 market bust.

This past June, the group all but declared mission accomplished, watering down the production targets by agreeing to a vague increase in collective production by 1 million barrels per day (mb/d). Without the urgent need to balance the market, the purpose of the OPEC+ agreement following the June meeting already started to become unclear.

Al-Falih wants to put together an official governing structure that would preside over oil market coordination going forward. “[W]e want to sign a new cooperation agreement that is open-ended. That does not expire after 2020 or 2021. We will leave it open,” al-Falih told TASS. He said that the purpose of OPEC+ would not be aimed at a fixed production target, but to coordinate production levels as they see fit.

But, of course, this has always been the mission of OPEC. The objective of establishing a permanent OPEC+ body raises the question of what is supposed to happen to OPEC. Al-Falih suggests that OPEC+ could “work closely with OPEC.” It seems confusing, since all of the OPEC members are in OPEC+, while OPEC+ contains a bunch of additional countries. How will these two bodies interact and to what degree will they overlap? That much remains unclear.

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Saudi Arabia Won’t “Weaponize” Oil Prices, Energy Minister Says

October 22, 2018

Saudi Arabia Won’t “Weaponize” Oil Prices, Energy Minister Says

With Saudi Arabia moving to quell international outrage over the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by firing a handful of top intelligence officials and arresting more than a dozen Saudi nationals for alleged ties to the killing, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih told Russia’s TASS news agency, in an attempt to reassure Russia and oil importers around the world that the kingdom’s threats to “weaponize” oil by cutting production and sending oil prices to $200 a barrel were little more than empty rhetoric, published by a “rogue” op-ed writer one imagines.

Falih

Khalid said during the interview that Saudi Arabia has “no intention” of triggering a replay of the 1973 oil embargo which rocked the American economy by sending oil prices 4x higher, creating the first of a handful of “oil shocks” that become emblematic of the economic malaise that persisted for much of the 1970s in the US.

“There is no intention,” Khalid al-Falih told Russia’s TASS news agency when asked if there could be a repetition of the 1973-style oil embargo.

Saudi Arabia has historically been reluctant to use its energy policy as a tool to meddle in international politics (the country only reluctantly went along with the OPEC embargo against the Western countries and Japan that backed Israel during the six-day war).

“This incident will pass. But Saudi Arabia is a very responsible country, for decades we used our oil policy as responsible economic tool and isolated it from politics,” Falih said.

Falih’s mandate from the Saudi government is to stabilize oil markets and “contribute to economic development”, something that would in all likelihood grind to a halt if the kingdom helped send oil prices to $200 a barrel. Though, notably, Falih said he couldn’t offer any guarantees about the price of oil.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Complete Chaos”: Russia Slams “Dangerous” U.S. Pullout Of INF Treaty As “Blackmail”

October 21, 2018

“Complete Chaos”: Russia Slams “Dangerous” U.S. Pullout Of INF Treaty As “Blackmail”

Washington’s planned withdrawal from the international Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, announced by President Trump on Saturday, has been slammed by Russia as “a very dangerous step” which is ultimately part of “continuing attempts to achieve Russia’s concessions through blackmail” in statements made by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Sunday.

And Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev, who chairs the Russian Parliament’s Upper House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned the move could create a domino effect endangering other landmark deals like the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The lawmaker said such an outcome pits mankind against “complete chaos in terms of nuclear weapons.”

Russian Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov further said that the decision would receive the condemnation of the international community as it could trigger a new arms race and make the world deeply unstable. However, Ryabkov accused the United States seeking “total domination”and said it’s attempting to remove impediments to that goal.

“At first glance, I can say that apparently the INF Treaty creates problems for pursuing the line towards the US total domination in military sphere,” Ryabkov said, according to TASS.

He explained further of the treaty signed between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1987 in Washington, DC: “This would be a very dangerous step, which, I’m sure, won’t be just understood by the international community, but arouse serious condemnation of all members of the world community, who are committed to security and stability and are ready to work on strengthening the current regimes in arms control.”

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Edward Snowden: 5 years in Russia and still relevant as ever

August 5, 2018

Edward Snowden: 5 years in Russia and still relevant as ever

Edward Snowden changed the practices of both the internal and external focused US and global intelligence agencies.

TASS reported that August 1 was the five year anniversary of Edward Snowden’s being granted temporary asylum in the Russian Federation. This happened after his release of an enormous trove of information showing clandestine and illegal practices being carried out by the US intelligence agencies to gather information on just about anyone in the world, for any – or no – reason at all.

Edward Snowden, 35, is a computer security expert. In 2005-2008, he worked at the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Study of Language sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA) and at the global communications division at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In 2007, Snowden was stationed with diplomatic cover at the US mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2009, he resigned from the CIA to join the Dell company that sent him to Hawaii to work for the NSA’s information-sharing office. He was particularly employed with the Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm.

In June 2013, Snowden leaked classified information to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, which revealed global surveillance programs run by US and British intelligence agencies. He explained the move by saying that he wanted to tell the world the truth because he believed such large-scale surveillance on innocent citizens was unacceptable and the public needed to know about it.

The Guardian and The Washington Post published the first documents concerning the US intelligence agencies’ spying on Internet users on June 6, 2013. According to the documents, major phone companies, including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint Nextel, handed records of their customers’ phone conversations over to the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who also had direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Skype, YouTube, Paltalk, AOL and Apple.

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In Paris Tragedy, It’s Necessary to Know Who’s Pulling the Strings

November 18, 2015

In Paris Tragedy, It’s Necessary to Know Who’s Pulling the Strings

Putin demands a real investigation, but the Western establishment has already decided how to use the massacre

  Originally appeared in German at German Economic News. Translated by David Norris

The attacks on Paris could lead to a massive military operation of NATO in Syria. Russia’s president Putin has consequently asked the question as to who is pulling the strings. The question is related to the Russian military successes in Syria – and with the efforts of the US-Neocons and intelligence agencies to seize the opportunity to extend the war in Syria as quickly as possible.

Once again Russian’s president, Vladimir Putin, has posed the right question: Who were pulling the strings in the Paris attacks? Putin, according to TASS, has given the French his full support in “solving the crime, as well as identifying both those who carried it out and those pulling the strings”.

What do we actually know?

Basically, we know very little. We should note: As unprepared for the attacks as the French security services were, they were quick with ready answers on the day. Said to be responsible were the terror-militia “Islamic State” (IS). President Hollande acknowledged this and declared war on IS. However, Charles Winter of the Quilliam Foundation, specialists on Syria and IS, points out that it cannot yet be shown whether the attacks were directly organised by IS or were “inspired” by the terrorists. It is quite possible that IS, currently under enormous pressure in Syria, have simply claimed the attacks for themselves in order to induce fighting spirit in their followers. The New York Times cites Bruce Hoffman of the Center for Security Studies at the University of Georgetown: the organisation of the attacks points rather to Al-Qaeda.

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