News
Publish date: October 24, 2008
News
Karina Moskalenko, Russia’s leading human rights lawyer fell ill in the French city of Strasbourg, and traces of mercury were found in her car. Moskalenko shares a home in Strasbourg with her husband and two children, and where she tries cases against the Russian government in the European Court of Human Rights.
She and members of her family were treated for nausea and headaches.
But a French prosecutor says it seems the mercury came from a broken thermometer or barometer, and was spilled by the car’s previous owner, the BBC reported.
The vehicle was bought last August by Moskalenko’s husband from an antique dealer who used it to carry his wares.
On investigation, it turned out that an old thermometer or barometer had been broken accidentally during a journey, the BBC quoted French officials as saying.
Moskalenko’s clients include the jailed former Russian oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the family of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Fears had been aroused that she had been subject to an attack similar to the one that killed former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko – also a former client of Mosklenko’s – in London in 2006.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.