News
Publish date: September 26, 2006
News
Russian diplomatic and industry sources said Moscow has been negotiating to sell Iran a range of anti-aircraft systems to protect Bushehr from Israeli or US air strikes. The sources said contracts could be signed when Bushehr was ready to begin operations in November 2007.
“Russia has already installed and manned SAM systems around Bushehr,” a diplomatic source said, as quoted by the MOSNEWS website. “The current talks regard an air defense umbrella that would protect all strategic sites in Iran.”
The missile defence system for Bushehr, if truly in the works, would not be without foundation. In 1986, the Israeli air force attacked the construction site of a reactor that Iraq was building in the town of Osirak.
After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Pentagon sources told Bellona Web that the Bushehr reactor in Iran, given its proximity to the fighting, could easily be “accidently destroyed as collateral damage.” Subsequent articles by US publications indicated that the Pentagonn was working on a plan to invade Iran to neutralize its nuclear capabilities.
In November 2005, Russia reached agreement for the sale of 29 TOR-M1 short-range anti-aircraft systems to Iran in a deal valued at more than $700 million. The sources told Middle East Newsline that Iran has also sought the strategic S-300PMU SAM system, capable of detecting and intercepting enemy aircraft at a distance of 300 and 150 kilometeres, respectively.
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.