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Russia, France developing new infantry fighting vehicle

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September 25, 2013 – 17:39 AMT

170465PanARMENIAN.Net – Russia’s Uralvagonzavod and France’s Renault are jointly developing a new infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) with an increased firing range of up to 16 kilometers, the Russian company said Wednesday, Sept 25, according to RIA Novosti.

“We [Uralvagonzavod and Renault Trucks Defense] unveiled today a prototype of a future IFV,” Uralvagonzavod general director Oleg Sienko said at Russian Arms Expo-2013, which opened Wednesday in the Urals city of Nizhny Tagil.

“The French side provided us with the transmission, the engine, the concept and the fire control system,” he said.

According to Sienko, the new IFV will be highly competitive on global markets because it is equipped with a powerful 57-mm gun, instead of the 30-mm variant that is standard for current IFVs.

“With its maneuverability and fire power, we are certain that this product will be in high demand on the market,” Sienko said, adding that a joint Russian-French venture could be formed to set up localized production of the new IFV in Russia.

Renault, France’s second-biggest carmaker, has made the Russian market one of its priorities for international development. Russia is already Renault’s fourth-largest automobile market.

In 2014, the Renault-Nissan Alliance will get a majority stake in a joint venture with the Russian Technologies State Corporation, called Alliance Rostec Auto BV, which will control AvtoVAZ, leader of the Russian car market.

Russia, US and UN: Geneva peace talks only way to stop Syria violence

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L), U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi (C) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (Reuters / Larry Downing)

Russia, the US and the UN have agreed that the only solution to the ongoing Syrian crisis lies within the framework of the “Geneva-2” peace talks, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

After their meeting in Geneva on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US State Secretary John Kerry and UN and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi “reaffirmed their commitment to an early launch of Syrian dialogue in Geneva between representatives of the Syrian government and main opposition groups,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.

The meeting between Lavrov, Kerry and Brahimi in Switzerland was focused on “practical issues” to prepare the way for an international peace conference over Syria.

The three diplomats agreed that “a political settlement is the only possible way to an early end to violence in Syria and to overcome acute humanitarian consequences of the Syrian conflict,” the Russian Foreign ministry said. This settlement should be “based on the implementation of all provisions of the Geneva communiqué of June 30, 2012,” the statement said.

The representatives of Russia, US and UN decided to meet for trilateral talks at the next regular session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 17. Kerry said another meeting is needed to set the date for organizing the “Geneva-2” peace conference.

Commenting earlier on Friday’s Geneva negotiations, called to establish international control over Syrian chemical weapons, Kerry said the dialogue “was constructive, it continues.”

“We are working hard to develop a common position,” he said.

Earlier Friday, the head of the UN chemical weapons inspection team, Ake Sellstrom, said that the UN report on the alleged use of chemical weapons on August 21 in Syria was complete and would be delivered to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over the weekend, AP reported.

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A damaged car is seen on the rubble of a damaged building in the Aleppo district of Salaheddine September 13, 2013.(Reuters / Muzaffar Salman)

The US is confident that the results of the report will “reaffirm that chemical weapons were used in Syria” without assigning blame on any of the conflicting sides in the Syrian civil war, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Friday.

President Barack Obama also reiterated that any agreement on Syria’s chemical weapons needs to be verifiable and enforceable.

The talks between Russia and the US kicked off in Geneva late Thursday, with Lavrov saying a military strike was unnecessary once Damascus agreed to put its chemical weapons under international control. However, Kerry said that “words are not enough,” doubting that Assad’s government was serious in its intentions give up its chemical weapons.

The negotiations will continue on Friday night, said the spokeswoman for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“We are staying, probably they will finalise it through the night,” she told reporters in Geneva. “I am not sure about tomorrow (Saturday), but they will go through the night.”

“It is a sign that we are going on, that we proceed with talking and negotiating. Now it is like a real negotiating process, they are working on some real substance,” she added.

Lavrov and Kerry plan to continue their talks in Geneva on Saturday, RIA Novosti cited a source in the Russian delegation as saying.

UN: Syria’s chemical convention application ‘incomplete’

Syria “legally” became a full member of the global anti-chemical weapons treaty on Thursday, after President Bashar Assad signed a legislative decree that “declared the Syrian Arab Republic approval to accede to the convention” and that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem had written to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari.

However the UN has said that Syria’s application is not yet complete, declining to answer what information was missing. OPCW is due to consider Syria’s inquiry in the following week.

Syria was one of only a few countries not to have joined the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons.

The alleged chemical weapons attack after which the diplomatic scramble to avert military intervention in Syria began, occurred on August 21 in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus. The reported casualty figures ranged from dozens to almost 1,400 deaths. Following the incident several videos showing alleged victims of the attack emerged online.

The incident occurred a few kilometers from the temporary quarters of the UN team of investigators which was in the country at Syria’s invitation to look into several previous alleged uses of chemical weapons.

Both sides of the ongoing Syrian conflict – the Assad government and various opposition groups – have denied their participation in the alleged chemical weapons’ attack, blaming each other.

Source: RT

Russia, China agree terms for multibillion dollar gas deal

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September 5, 2013 – 17:24 AMT

Russia and China on Thursday, September 5 said that they had made progress towards agreeing a mega deal for the delivery of Russian gas to its energy-hungry 169608eastern neighbour, AFP reported.

Russian gas giant Gazprom and China’s state energy firm signed an agreement after a meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin ahead of the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg on the “fundamental conditions” for the gas delivery.

Gazprom’s chief executive Alexei Miller said he hoped the final deal — which has been negotiated for several years already — could be signed by the end of the year.

The deal envisages Russia pumping 38 billion cubic metres of gas to China from 2018, a major change from the Russian firm’s current orientation towards European export.

“Everything has been agreed, except the price,” a source close to Gazprom informed. The price has been the main sticking point for years in the talks.

According to RIA Novosti, the two sides have been negotiating the issue for years, and consistently failing to agree the price issue, while China has gone ahead with signing massive gas supply deals with other supplier nations including Australia, Qatar and Turkmenistan.

The final achievement of an agreement on the specifics of the Gazprom deal comes just a day after China’s President Xi opened the world’s second-largest gas plant in neighboring Turkmenistan that will send at least 25 billion cubic meters a year of the fuel to Beijing, according to its operator Turkmengaz.

CNPC also signed a deal to acquire a 20 percent stake in the Yamal liquid natural gas (LNG) plant from Novatek, Russia’s biggest independent gas producer.

The deal, first announced in June, also saw Novatek agree to deliver at least 3 million tons of natural gas a year to China. The Russian company said in a statement it expects that deal to be finalized by December, providing it is approved by Russian state regulators.

Novatek remains the main shareholder in the Yamal liquefied natural gas plant, due to open by 2016, though the company plans to sell another 9-percent stake in the project, bringing its own share to 51 percent. France’s Total also owns 20 percent.

Russia’s state-owned high-tech corporation Rostec and the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation also signed a strategic cooperation agreement following the Putin-Xi meeting.

Russia’s state-run oil company Rosneft was also expected to sign a deal with CNPC at the G20 forum on construction of an oil refinery in the Chinese city of Tianjin, but failed to do so.

Sibel Edmonds on RT- For War with Syria: Need Ignition? Let’s Just Make it Up, Cook it Up, Set it Up!

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My Brief Interview on RT- For War with Syria: Need Ignition? Let’s Just Make it Up, Cook it Up, Set it Up!

Saturday, 13. October 2012 by Sibel Edmonds
‘NATO, Turkey seek pretense for attack on Syria’

Yesterday I was on RT for a brief interview on the recent developments in the long-ago-planned US war on Syria. As I mentioned during the interview, Boiling Frogs Post was one of the first news sites reporting on those long-ago-conceived and planned operations targeting Syria:

11 months ago, in November 2011 I reported on the Secret US-NATO Training and Support Camp in Turkey to Oust Syria’s Assad.

On December 11, 2011, Boiling Frogs Post broke the story on US Troops Deploying on Jordan-Syrian Border.

In mid-December 2011 we had a brief analysis of Turkey’s Sudden 180 Degree Turn on Syria

In December 2011, we had a follow-up on US Government-Mainstream Media collusion in obscuring all reporting on Syria here.

And this is one of my RT interviews on Syria from last year: Click Here

Anyway, These links provide some background for what I emphasized during my interview with RT yesterday, and here is the video clip:

Iraq buys $4.2 billion in Russian weapons-document

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Iraq has signed contracts to buy weapons from Russia worth more than $4.2 billion recently, according to a Russian government document issued on Tuesday at a meeting between Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Russian President Vladimir Putin vocally opposed the U.S-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 but Moscow has since sought energy and arms deals with Baghdad and the contracts mean Iraq is now one of Russia’s biggest weapons buyers.

The contracts were signed during visits to Russia by Iraq’s acting defence chief in April, July and August, the document showed. It gave no further details.

The Russian daily newspaper Vedomosti reported late last month that contracts worth $4.3 million were being agreed ahead of Maliki’s visit. It said they included deals for 30 Mi-28NE combat helicopters and 42 Pantsir-S1 mobile rocket launchers.

Russia delivered about $12 billion in weapons and signed about $3.7 billion in new arms contracts last year, according to Russian defence and security think-tank CAST.