News
Publish date: March 6, 2006
News
Continuation of Russia’s drift away from democratic norms under President Vladimir Putin "will make it harder for the two sides to find common ground and harder to co-operate even when they do," said the report, which was issued by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. It warned that some critical problems cannot be dealt with effectively unless Moscow and Washington co-operate.
"If Russia remains on an authoritarian course, U.S.-Russian relations will almost certainly continue to fall short of their potential," the report said. Release of the report was timed to coincide with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Washington, his first as foreign minister. He is due to arrive today and will meet the next day with President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The report urged that the United States preserve and expand co-operation on dealing with the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program and on coping with the risk of Russian nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands. On the whole, though, the report said relations were headed in the wrong direction.
"In particular, Russia’s relations with other post-Soviet states have become a source of significantly heightened US-Russian friction," it said.
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.