Category: Europe

Russia may ban circulation of US dollar

Russia may ban the circulation of the United States dollar.

The State Duma has already been submitted a relevant bill banning and terminating the circulation of USD in Russia, APA’s Moscow correspondent reports.

If the bill is approved, Russian citizens will have to close their dollar accounts in Russian banks within a year and exchange their dollars in cash to Russian ruble or other countries’ currencies.

Otherwise their accounts will be frozen and cash dollars levied by police, customs, tax, border, and migration services confiscated.

After the law enters into force, it will be impossible to obtain cash dollar in Russia. The ban or termination of the US dollar will not apply to the exchange operations carried out by Russian Central Bank, the Russian government, ministries of foreign affairs and defense, the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service.

Source: APA

Rifts show as sanctions bite EU

The foreign ministers of the European Union’s 28 member states will consider the situation around the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions for Moscow’s position on Ukrainian events at a meeting on November 17, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Federica Mogherini, said Tuesday.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann spoke on Tuesday against the imposition of new anti-Russian sanctions over Moscow’s position on the situation in Ukraine.

Faymann made the statement to journalists after a government meeting.

He said Vienna believes in the negotiating process to settle the situation in Ukraine, the Austria Press Agency (APA) reported.

The sanctions have had a significant impact on the Austrian economy.

Until now, Russia was the tenth most important business partner for Austria. In 2013, Austrian companies exported an aggregate of 3.5 billion Euros of products to Russia and imports reached 3.2 billion Euros. Russia had also become an increasingly important destination for Austrian direct investments.

The sanctions have particularly affected Austrian banks, who remain concerned about the possible commercial risks should Russia decide impose sanctions against the financial sectors of EU Member States, either in the form of extraordinary taxations, restrictions to capital movement or even expropriation.

It is likely that the EU sanctions and any Russian countermeasures will cost the Austrian economy in the region of 750 million Euros.

With this in mind, the Austrian government recently adopted a crisis package, including support for small and medium sized enterprises, SME’s.

The European Union’s sanctions regime against Russia is not expected to change in the near future, the new European Commission president said on Wednesday, however.

Jean-Claude Juncker said toughening or easing the sanctions is not an issue for today.

Juncker also said he would make his first visit to Kiev.

The US has urged the EU to impose several rounds of economic sanctions against Russia over the country’s alleged role in the Ukrainian crisis, while Moscow has repeatedly stated that Russia is not a party to the Ukrainian internal conflict.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes that latest events in Ukraine, primarily elections in self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, do not allow for consodering possible cancellation of sanctions imposed on Russia.

“There are no reasons to cancel them now,” she said in Berlin on Tuesday. Merkel named elections in the self-proclaimed republics “illegal,” noting that Moscow should influence militias more actively to prevent the conflict from escalation.

“Russia does not take effort at an extent we would like them to do so,” she said, noting importance of observing the Minsk agreements by all conflicting parties.

Member of European parliament urges recognition of DPR

The MP of the 7th session from the party Forza Italia, Fabrizio Berto announced in the conversation with journalists that the international community has to take the results of elections in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) seriously and recognize the state forthwith.

As Fabrizio Berto explains:

I have a big work experience in a quality of observer. First of all, I observed that the organization of the process correspond European standards. I saw that people were happy to go to the elections. They were to wait for a long time in queues to enter the cabin to give the vote. And this fact is a confirmation of their ability to create their destiny themselves. I think that it wouldn’t be so in Italy.

He pointed out that the results of these elections reflect aspiration of people whom were seen by international observers at the electoral constituencies. The representative of the European Parliament stressed the common values of Europe:

We were also on the Saur-Tomb and saw military conditions, in which people live. I would like to say that both Ukrainians and Russian, inhabitants of the European Union have to have one common value, it is human life.

First woman to head CERN

Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti was chosen on Tuesday to head the CERN particle physics research centre that houses the giant LHC “Big Bang” machine, making her the first woman nominated to lead a top global scientific institution in the field.

Gianotti, who won world attention in 2012 for her leadership role in CERN’s discovery of the long-sought “Higgs boson”, will take up the post in January 2016 as scientists there look to new findings on the origin and make-up of the universe.

Her appointment was decided at a meeting of the centre’s ruling council, made up of representatives of its 20 member states, a CERN announcement said. It remains to be formalised at a further meeting in December.

Gianotti, 52 and a researcher at CERN near Geneva since she joined it with a doctorate from the University of Milan in 1987, will replace Rolf Heuer, who steered the centre through the initially-troubled launch of the Large Hadron Collider.

The machine was primarily built to find the Higgs – a theoretical particle and related energy field which was thought to have made formation of the physical universe possible by converting matter into mass.

In the LHC, now awaiting relaunch with twice the power in spring next year, elementary particles are smashed together at close to the speed of light, creating billions of tiny “Big Bangs” and their aftermath.

Gianotti in 2009 became project leader of the Atlas collaboration, one of the two major teams working separately to spot the Higgs in the LHC data.

With her counterpart from the CMS team, she detailed the finding of the Higgs – named for the British physicist who predicted its existence in 1964 – before a global television audience in July 2012.

The discovery brought a Nobel Prize in 2013 for Peter Higgs, the British theorist, and Francois Englert, a Belgian physicist working on the same idea with two other colleagues in the early 1960s and who also posited the existence of the boson.

Gianotti, an accomplished pianist who once considered devoting her life to music, said she was honoured to be named to head the sprawling institute – which links some 10 000 scientists on site and around the globe – along the Franco-Swiss border outside Geneva.

“CERN is a centre of scientific excellence and a source of pride and inspiration for physicists from all over the world, a cradle for technology and innovation, and a shining concrete example of scientific cooperation and peace,” she said.

When collisions in the LHC are resumed, scientists will be looking for evidence helping to resolve other major questions including the dark matter thought to make up about a quarter of the universe and dark energy accounting for some 70 percent.

Source: Reuters

‘Western intelligence services are trying to exploit MH17 tragedy’

Western special services know who shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine and the reasons behind the move but prefer to manipulate this information and take advantage of the tragedy, retired Lt. Gen. Nikolai Pushkarev, formerly of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) told RIA Novosti.

“The Western intelligence and the Americans are very well aware of all the details: who shot [flight MH17] down, why and what for, but manipulate this information and this incident for their own benefit.

This provocation was organized to lay [the blame] on Russia and force it into sending troops to Ukraine, officially, but the Russian government did not succumb to this provocation,” Pushkarev said in an interview.

Pushkarev added that the United States is interested in a “direct military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”

Pushkarev also stated that investigating the real reasons behind the catastrophe is not the responsibility of the Main Intelligence Directorate.

“The Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service are responsible for investigating this case, because they have the needed experts in these structures, this is their prerogative,” he explained.

On July 17, a Malaysia Airlines plane flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk, killing all 298 people on board. According to a preliminary report issued by the Dutch Safety Board early in September, the plane likely broke up in mid-air as a result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from the outside.

Kiev accused independence supporters in eastern Ukraine of shooting the plane down, but has not provided any evidence to back this claim.

The local militia leaders have said that they do not have weapons capable of shooting down a plane flying at 32,000 feet.

Meanwhile Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that a thorough, independent investigation of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 is needed before any decision on where those responsible should face trial, Reuters reported.

The aircraft crashed in eastern Ukraine in July with the loss of all 298 people aboard. “What we now have to do is through the independent safety boards to exactly understand what happened and the public prosecutors have to work on the prosecution which follows from this,” Rutte said.

Rutte was visiting Kuala Lumpur to meet his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak. The Dutch PM flew from Amsterdam on Flight MH19, re-named from MH17.

The removal of fragments of the Malaysian Boeing which crashed on the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) might begin on Friday, a source from the DPR Ministry for Emergency Situations told TASS.

“The removal of the plane fragments will approximately begin on Friday,” the source said.

An unnamed source from the DPR transport ministry has confirmed the report. “We have been coordinating the necessary documents and the order in which the fragments will be removed. If things work out right, the first batch of the Boeing fragments will be sent to the Netherlands,” the source said.

‘NATO needs Russia to withstand present-day global challenges’

NATO can hardly withstand present-day global challenges without Russia’s assistance, but the ball is on the side of the Western military alliance, Alexander Grushko, Russia’s permanent envoy to NATO, said.

Grushko repeated that Russia has never refused cooperation with the western military bloc.

Grushko spoke in an interview with Russia’s Kommersant business daily.

“By cutting off cooperation with Russia, the alliance weakens the potential of international efforts in the fight against terrorism, piracy, the Weapons of Mass Destruction proliferation, drugs trafficking and regional instability,” he said.

“We did not make a decision to suspend projects on practical cooperation within the frames of Russia-NATO Council,” Grushko said.

Grushko said that Moscow “has always had a firm stance that true cooperation is possible only on an equal and mutually respected basis.”
“Considering all this, we directly stated our resentment of NATO’s expansion policy and the movement of its military infrastructure up to the Russian borders, as well as our non-admission of ignorance of international law norms.”

Russia may resume strategic cooperation with NATO if cold war pattern of relations are dropped, but currently there is little to suggest such a development.

“It is obvious that such developments are not providing for true interests concerning the strengthening of the common European security on the collective basis,” Grushko said.

In early August, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was the secretary general of NATO at that time, said that the Western military alliance terminated cooperation with Russia, was set to strengthen collective defense of the military alliance’s member states and would expand its level of cooperation with Ukraine.

Last week, Rasmussen, whose office term in charge of NATO expired on November 1, said Russia poses no threat to NATO, ItarTASS reported.

Grushko, however, already said in mid-October that the North Atlantic alliance exploited the Ukrainian crisis to promote its own geopolitical interests, adding that NATO’s role in Ukraine was exceptionally destructive.

According to the UN, more than 4,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled Ukraine’s southeast as a result of clashes between Ukrainian troops and local militias in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions during Kiev’s military operation, conducted since mid-April, to regain control over the breakaway territories, which call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics.

Ukraine’s navy blocked by sunken ships

Russia has reportedly sunk three of its own ships to block Ukrainian navy vessels into a lake off the Black Sea, Ukranian officers say, highlighting Moscow’s determination to wear down the morale of Kiev’s forces in Crimea.

The Ochakov — a Soviet-era warship decommissioned in 2011 and set to be sold for scrap — was towed to the entrance to Lake Donuzlav on Crimea’s western coast from the Russian base at Sevastopol on Thursday and blown up.

It capsized and, along with two smaller Russian vessels, is now blocking the narrow gap between two spits of land, its hull beaten by rough Black Sea waves.

Ukraine’s navy has limited resources and suffered a major blow last week when its chief Denis Berezovsky switched allegiance to the pro-Russian Crimean authorities and a new chief was appointed.

But officers at a base near where the Russians sank the ship have no doubt what the Russians were trying to do and insist they will not be shaken by the tactics.

“It is blocked so we cannot get out,” said Capt. Viktor Shmyganovsky, second-in-command at the base in Novoozerne, one of the four biggest in Crimea.

“If it wasn’t blocked, we could have taken our ships to Odessa and it would stop them being seized by Russian forces. We would be more powerful in alliance with ships in Odessa.”

Ukraine’s navy headquarters is in Sevastopol, where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was founded under Imperial Russia 230 years ago.

Odessa, further round the coast into Ukraine and the country’s largest port, offers a safer option amid the current military situation in Crimea, a semi-autonomous region of Ukraine.

Officers at the Novoozerne base declined to confirm how many Ukrainian ships were currently in Lake Donuzlav, while hinting at submarine capability.

But Ukraine’s navy is around a tenth of the size of Russia’s and suffers from “inadequate finances”, according to London-based military affairs think-tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Ukraine only has one, Soviet-built submarine which it is currently trying to restore to “service condition after over a decade of inactivity,” it adds.

Despite the odds stacking up against them, the Ukrainian navy is determined to stand its ground to the end in this storied naval territory, said Shmyganovsky.

Source: DefenceNews

Thieves steal ‘Arbeit macht frei’ gate

Thieves have stolen the iron gate to Dachau concentration camp bearing the slogan “Arbeit macht frei” (work sets you free), the director of the memorial site in southern Germany and local police said on Monday.

The cast iron gate measures 190 cm by 95 cm and police said the thieves probably used a vehicle to take off with it on Saturday night.

“It is the central symbol of the prisoners’ suffering at Dachau concentration camp and therefore has hit the memorial at its heart,” said Gabriele Hammermann, director of the memorial. Prisoners passed it every day, she said.

The Nazis set up the camp in Dachau, near Munich, in 1933, after Adolf Hitler took power.

It was initially meant to detain political rivals and more than 200,000 people had been detained in the camp by the time US troops liberated it in 1945.

In December 2009 the “Arbeit macht frei” sign was stolen from the entry gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland by a Swede.

He was sentenced a year later by a Polish court to nearly three years for masterminding the theft, while two Poles were jailed for up to two-and-a-half years for snatching it and cutting it into pieces to fit into their car.

Majority of Scots would now vote ‘yes’ to independence

Just six weeks after the referendum in which Scots rejected independence by 55 to 45 percent, a new YouGov poll for the Times has found that 52 percent now back a split from the union, as Labour sees its support in Scotland gradually diminish, RT reported.

The YouGov poll put support for the union at 48 percent. The figures will give more momentum to the pro-independence Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), which wants to see another referendum as soon as possible.

Another vote on whether Scotland should remain in the 300-year-old union with England may be triggered in 2017 if the UK votes to leave the EU. The Scottish are much more pro-European than the English, and want to stay in the European Union.

While Scots believe the results of the last referendum have left the country divided, a separate poll for STV found that two-thirds of Scots want another referendum within a decade.

The United Kingdom consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. England is home to about 85 percent of the population, but Scotland – with a small population of just under five million – is richer in natural resources and has about one-third of the UK’s land mass.

Merkel warns UK could exit EU over immigration policy

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has signaled she would rather see the UK leave the EU than compromise the free movement of immigrants, German magazine Der Spiegel reported.

The UK is nearing a “point of no return,” as British Prime Minister David Cameron attempts to renegotiate the terms of the country’s EU membership targeting the freedom of movement, Merkel reportedly said.

According to the 2011 census, 579,000 Poles reside in the UK, making up under 1% of the UK population.

This tiny white minority receive enormous attention from British rightwing media and politicians, who prefer black immigrants from Africa, Muslim immigrants from Pakistan and worship the legacy of Nelson Mandela.

David Cameron’s comments that Polish migrants are taking advantage of UK benefits has sparked much anger in Poland. Poles became the target of violence and political attacks.

The prime minister, Donald Tusk, and the opposition leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski (whose party sits alongside UK Conservatives in a European parliamentary group) immediately announced that they would veto any changes in EU migration rules.

The large numbers of Polish and Czech immigrants that arrived throughout the last decade did not run the British economy into the ground.

A 2013 report from the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration found that European Union immigrants contributed more to the economy than they collected in benefits, contrary to native-born citizens.

On the whole, Polish immigrants were younger and more highly skilled than average citizens, and the majority found work in the UK.

Britain’s reaction to the Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants has been particularly strong for a number of historical and political reasons.

This was Merkel’s first hint that the UK’s exit from the union is a possibility, according to German media.

Cameron earlier said he wants to renegotiate the country’s EU membership before going through with a referendum on the subject, with the European principle of freedom of movement “at the very heart of my renegotiation strategy for Europe.”

Merkel has stressed that her support for UK membership could be reversed, if Cameron pursues migration reform.

Cameron has extended the EU laws “to their limits,” trying to turn away unemployed migrants and seeking deportation of those unable to make ends meet after three months, according to the report.

Earlier in October, the former European Commission (EC) president Jose Manuel Barroso stated that freedom of movement is an essential principle of the EU, and any plan by Britain to cap the number of migrants through the limitation of national insurance numbers would be illegal under EU law.

With next year’s general election on the horizon, British politicians are talking tougher on the issue of migrant workers. It will be the first election since the anti-immigration Independence Party (UKIP) emerged as a serious political player.

The latest opinion poll revealed that support for UKIP has reached a record high following Brussels’ recent effort to levy a mammoth £1.7 billion ($2.7 billion) extra charge on Britain. Cameron has been forced to adjust his policies to win back public support.

Cameron announced plans to reduce the number of low skilled migrant workers coming to the UK from other EU countries by limiting the number of national insurance numbers given to them.

In the recent policy shift, he said EU migrants could now only claim benefits for a maximum of three months, down from six.

These legislative changes, which apply to child tax credit, child benefits and job seeker’s allowance, will be implemented in November.

Cameron is likely to make a speech on immigration policies before Christmas, according to media reports.

Meanwhile, the EC says it endorses the principle of free movement within the EU, where citizens have the right to work and live in all member states.

Paris: Massive fire at Radio France HQ

A massive fire has broken out at the Radio France headquarters building in Paris, causing the evacuation of personnel, according to reports.

The fire engulfed the seventh and eight floors of Maison de la radio (Radio House) in the 16 arrondissement of Paris. Several windows exploded due to the extreme heat. Firefighters were called to the scene.

Radio programmes of France Inter and France Info, the two most important news stations, were suspended as a necessary safety measure. The fire reportedly hit the area of a ventilation system under works.

No injuries were immediately reported.

“I hope we can resume our radio programmes as soon as possible,” Laurent Guimier, director of France Info, told AFP.

France prepares handover of Mistral

France’s STX shipyard has placed four landing craft in the well dock of the Vladivostok helicopter carrier that is to be sent to Russia, the company said at the Euronaval 2014 exhibition on Friday.

Under the contract with Russia’s arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, all the four landing boats are in Saint-Nazaire and will be handed over to Russia together with the Mistral-class helicopter carrier, the Vladivostok.

“We have performed the contract, all the four landing craft are currently in the well dock of the Vladivostok and will go to Russia,” a representative of the French company told TASS.

The landing boats of CTM NG type have a full load displacement of 65 tons, a speed of 13.4 knots, a cruising endurance of 500 nautical miles, and are equipped with three diesel engines with the total power of 1,500 kW.

The first Mistral-class helicopter carrier Vladivostok is due to be delivered to Russia within deadlines fully under the contract, a high-ranking representative of Russia’s delegation at the Euronaval exhibition said on Thursday.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of Russia’s defense industry, earlier this week announced that the first Mistral helicopter carrier will be handed over to Russia by the French side on November 14.

He said that Rosoboronexport had got an invitation to arrive in Saint-Nazaire for the ceremony of handing over the first Vladivostok Mistral-type helicopter carrier. The French side, however, could not confirm his statement.

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Thursday the conditions have not yet been met to deliver Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia.
The €1.12 billion contract for building Mistrals for the Russian Navy was concluded in June 2011.

The first Mistral-class ship, the Vladivostok, is expected to be delivered by late 2014. The second ship, the Sevastopol, is due to arrive next year.

Florian Phillipot, a Vice President of the rightwing National Front party said on Thursday, France should not succumb to pressures from the US in what concerns the delivery of Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia.

As he commented on a statement by Finance Minister Michel Sapin, who said earlier on the same day conditions for the delivery of Mistrals to Russia had not taken shape yet due to concerns over the situation in Ukraine, Phillipot said it’s time Paris got to its feet and stopped taking instructions from the US.

Paris has contractual obligation that must be honored, Phillipot said, adding that trust in and reputation of the country as a reliable supplier of defence equipment is at stake.

On the other hand, it is also a question of finances and Frances is running the risk of a necessity to pay a multi-billion penalty, he said.

Some 360 Russian seamen and 60 instructors are currently getting trained for a handover of the Vladivostok and for the floating of the second Mistral,” Rogozin said.

 

European arms manufacturers seek cooperation with Russia

Europe’s weapons manufacturers are interested in closely cooperating with Russia, including in the naval defense sphere, a senior Rosoboronexport official said on Monday ahead of the opening of the Euronaval 2014 international exhibition in Paris.

Deputy Director General Sergey Ladygin, who leads the delegation from Russia’s main weapons exporter Rosoboronexport, said meetings with both traditional and potential partners from Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East are due to be held.

Special focus will be made on “discussing further cooperation with the leading European manufacturers, including the projects in the interests of the third countries,” the official said.

“Many European arms producers are interested in closer cooperation with Russia, including in naval defense. In current situation, such cooperation is of course hampered by political agenda, however we remain open for our partners and are set for a mutually beneficial dialogue,” he said.

Russia considers its participation in the Euronaval 2014, the world leader of exhibitions specializing in naval defense, maritime safety and security, as a “good opportunity to ‘synchronize watches’ and elaborate further steps,” Ladygin stressed.

The participants are expected to discuss the development of production cooperation, projects on joint design of new vessels and their entry to the global market. “Certainly, we will be actively promoting a whole range of the Russian-made naval vessels and equipment,” Ladygin said.

The company expects that foreigners will be interested in the Mirazh, Sobol and Mangust class patrol boats, the Project 11356 class frigates, the Project 20382 corvettes, Murena-E assault boats as well as the Varshavyanka-class and Amur 1650 submarines.

Rosoboronexport’s stand will feature the Club missile system, artillery cannons A-190 and A-220M with a 100 and 57 mm caliber, the Palma anti-aircraft artillery missile system and Gibka anti-aircraft missile launching systems for Igla missiles.

Euronaval 2014, held since 1968, is one of the world’s largest naval defense exhibitions. This year, the event takes place from October 27-31 at the Le Bourget exhibition center.

The exhibition brings together over 350 companies from around 30 countries. More than 90 delegations from 65 countries are expected to attend the event.

Source: Russia Insider

Russia test-fires nuclear missile

A TV crew was on board a Borey-class nuclear submarine as it was test-firing a Bulava nuclear missile on Wednesday. A video from the sub shows people entrusted with one of the world’s most powerful weapons in action.

The Yury Dolgoruky fired its deadly cargo from the Barents sea in Russia’s north to the Far-Eastern test range of Kura.

Footage from the scene shows tense seamen and officers in blue uniforms going through the launch protocol, using the same language they would use in case of a real nuclear war.

The moment the missile departed was noticeable everywhere on the giant submarine, as it sent tremors through its hulls.

When the reports arrived that the Bulava had hit its intended target some 5,000 km away, crew members cheered and applauded.

Bulava is the newest generation of Russian submarine-launched strategic nuclear missiles paired with new Borey-class submarines as their designated carriers. The K-535 Yury Dolgoruky can carry up to 16 of them in its launchers.