Posts Tagged ‘Russia’
January 20, 2013
It is cold that kills not warmth. It is global cooling that will provide the greater challenge for humans – not global warming. But whether cooling or warming or both, humans will be better served by figuring out the best ways to adapt and not waste time and energy on trying to control the climate based on fanciful theories and religious beliefs about what causes climate change.
It’s the Sun, stupid!
Yesterday we had about -20°C, which is pretty cold but not unusual for this time of year. A friend in Australia was sweltering in +44°C -pretty hot but also not unusual. Another friend in Alberta had a normal winter day at about -25°C. Yesterday across the world humans were living and managing over temperatures ranging from about -50°C to about +49°C. Coping – quite successfully – with a temperature range caused by local weather of almost 100°C .
Snowpocalypse Russia
On Friday, Moscow was on a verge of traffic collapse as more than 10 inches of snow fell on the city, which is more than half of January’s average. Thousands of passengers were stranded overnight in the capital’s major airports, as several dozen flights were delayed. Muscovites woke up and found their cars, driveways and houses buried under a thick layer of snow, with city workers unable to get to smaller streets.
Moscow (Reuters / Sergei Karpukhin)
While the snowstorms have caused inconvenience for large population centers in western Russia, they have been life-threatening further east in the country. The polar circle city of Norilsk has been buried under 10 feet of snow – entire apartment blocks, markets, stores and offices were buried under snow overnight.
Banks of snow were as high as two people put together, reaching the second-story windows of some apartment buildings. Cars, stores, garages were blocked. Norilsk metropolitan workers were forced to dig passageways through the snow banks to create access between the outside world and the barricaded city. Meanwhile, icicles up to three feet in length have formed off the ledges of buildings, breaking at random and causing a lethal hazard for pedestrians below.
Norilsk (Photo from bigpicture.ru)
Tags:climate change, Moscow, Norilsk, Russia, Snow, wintwr
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Russia, Weather, Winter | Comments Off on Just another Russian winter — or is it global warming?
December 20, 2012
Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death…
Russia is enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as low as -50 degrees Celsius. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150 have been hospitalized.
The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia.
Across the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures, RIA Novosti reported.
The Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also abnormal for December.
If this is global warming …. image. RIA Novosti / Aleksey Malgavko
The cold spell, along with snowfalls, has disrupted flights all over the country, and led to huge traffic jams. In the southern city of Rostov-on-Don some highways were closed due to snowfalls over the past two days, triggering a traffic collapse. …
Over the weekend, meteorologists predict temperatures will plunge even lower in the Moscow region, hitting -25. The Russian capital is also expected to be swept with snow, RIA Novosti reported.
Tags:global warming, Russia, weather, winter
Posted in Climate, Russia, Weather, Winter | Comments Off on Harshest Russian winter in 70 years – must be global warming
October 1, 2012
The advent of shale gas is not only a game-changer regarding power generation but also a game-changer in the area of energy and geopolitics. The Russian dominance in the European gas markets is being threatened and they are now joining forces with various environmental groups in an unholy alliance to restrain the development of shale gas production in Europe.
But in the long-term I expect Russia will join the shale-gas movement. They have larger resources of oil and gas bearing shales than most others.
Wall Street Journal (Associated Press):
The Kremlin is watching, European nations are rebelling, and some suspect Moscow is secretly bankrolling a campaign to derail the West’s strategic plans. It’s not some Cold War movie; it’s about the U.S. boom in natural gas drilling, and the political implications are enormous. Like falling dominoes, the drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is shaking up world energy markets from Washington to Moscow to Beijing. Some predict what was once unthinkable: that the U.S. won’t need to import natural gas in the near future, and that Russia could be the big loser.
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Tags:Gazprom, Hydraulic fracturing, Natural gas, Russia, Shale gas
Posted in Energy, Gas, Global economy, Russia | Comments Off on Russia losing the shale gas wars
February 8, 2012
This is probably something characteristic of tax authorities and not just the crazy Russian legal system at work. The unfortunate Sergei Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention 2 years ago after being denied urgent medical care but a presidential human rights commission found last summer that charges against him had been fabricated. But the taxman won’t give up.
It does seem like a case of “kill him in detention” and then sue him!!!
Reuters:
MOSCOW PLANS TO PUT DEAD LAWYER ON TRIAL
Russian investigators have said they may prosecute a dead lawyer who worked for a foreign investment fund in the latest bizarre twist to a case that has come to exemplify investor fears about Russia’s rule of law.
Source: Financial Times: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ef3b4172-51b5-11e1-a30c-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1llc77Qbh
Tags:behaviour, Russia, Taxation
Posted in Behaviour, Russia | Comments Off on Russian taxman sues dead lawyer
November 23, 2011
Breaking!
On Tuesday, 22 November at 20:25 UT, ESA’s tracking station at Perth, Australia, established contact with Russia’s Phobos-Grunt spacecraft. This was the first signal received on Earth since the Mars mission was launched on 8 November. ESA teams are working closely with engineers in Russia to determine how best to maintain communications with the spacecraft.
Tags:European Space Agency, Mars, Phobos-Grunt, Russia
Posted in Russia, Science, Space | 3 Comments »
November 12, 2011
Phobos-Grunt is still circling Earth at an altitude between 128 miles and 210 miles after launching Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for Mars buit is dead and silent. The jinx goes on and it is now 21 Russian missions to Mars which have failed their main mission goals:
Information from http://www.russianspaceweb.com 
- Soviet / Russian Mars Missions
Phobos-Grunt
SpaceflightNow: Major General Vladimir Uvarov, a former space expert in the Russian military, told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper he has lost optimism in Phobos-Grunt’s chances for recovery.
“In my opinion, the Phobos-Grunt probe has been lost. This probability is very high. At any rate, it is much higher than the chances for reactivating the probe,” Uvarov told the newspaper. ….
With 11 tons of toxic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellant still in its fuel tanks, Phobos-Grunt’s potential re-entry is stirring concerns of space experts after two high-profile returns of large satellites in September and October.
Tags:Mars, Phobos, Phobos-Grunt, Russia, Russian Mars jinx
Posted in Russia, Science, Space | 3 Comments »
November 9, 2011
The jinx on Russia’s probes to Mars continues.
Phobos-Grunt launched successfully last night but failed to enter its departure trajectory when two engine burns failed – presumed due to computer problems. It is now in a “parking” orbit and the problem needs to be fixed within 3 days when its batteries will run out. The fuel tanks are still in place for the craft’s own thrusters and there is still thought to be some hope. If the problem cannot be fixed it will be the fourth successive failure of a Russian Mars mission.
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Tags:Baikonur Cosmodrome, Mars, Phobos, Phobos-Grunt, Ria Novosti, Russia, Vladimir Popovkin
Posted in Russia, Science, Space | Comments Off on Russia’s Mars jinx continues: Phobos-Grunt in big trouble; 3 days in parking orbit to fix computer problem
November 8, 2011
Much Russian news just now from the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic going live today to an ambitious and critical Mars mission which will launch late today (November 8th).
Russia’s last interplanetary launch of a probe to Mars in 1996 failed at launch. Prior to that in missions to the larger of Mars’ 2 moons, Phobos 1 was launched on July 7, 1988 and Phobos 2 on July 12, 1988. Communication with Phobos 1 was lost in September 1988. Phobos 2 operated normally till it was within 50m of the surface of Phobos and again communication was lost in March 1989.
In the meantime the US Mars Rover has operated on Mars for thousands of hours, Chinese and Indian probes have reached the moon and a Japanese probe has brought back some minute quantities of matter from an asteroid. The Russians have been short of financing and are now trying to regain the pre-eminence they once had. To have the Chinese planting flags on the moon in 3 or 4 years would be unbearable.
Russian missions to Mars have never yet been completely successful and the launch on November 8th as part of the Phobos-Grunt (Фобос-Грунт meaning Phobos -soil) project is carrying a great deal of Russian prestige and – more importantly – the future of the Russian space program.
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Tags:Mars, Mars missions, Phobos, Phobos-Grunt, Russia
Posted in Russia, Science, Space, Technology | 5 Comments »
November 8, 2011
The Russian gas pipeline bypassing all transit countries to Germany by being routed under the Baltic Sea goes live today.
RT: After 13 years of planning and two years of construction, the Nord Stream pipeline will deliver its first supplies of Russian gas to an estimated 26 million homes in the EU on Tuesday.
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Tags:Baltic Sea, Dmitry Medvedev, European Union, Gazprom, Germany, Nord Stream, Russia, Vladimir Putin
Posted in Business, Energy, Gas, Germany, Russia | Comments Off on Nord Stream gas goes on-line today
October 4, 2011
Barbaric and anachronistic punishments – straight out of medieval times – of stoning, lashing, amputation of limbs, mutilation and beheading are not only common but are enshrined in the law of several Islamic countries. Of course even nations which pride themselves on their civilised behaviour still resort to the most exquisite tortures they can devise – whether at Abu Ghraib or at Guantanomo. But at least in most countries barbaric behaviour and cruel and unusual punishments are not enshrined in law.
Now Russia in a burst of machismo is trying to compete with Saudi Arabia.
Svenska Dagbladet reports:
The Russian Duma today approved a proposal to castrate pedophiles by 332 votes to zero. President Dmitry Medvedev had introduced the proposal in May this year. This means that anybody convicted of offenses against children under 13 years and deemed to be mentally ill will be subjected to chemical castration.
The law must still be approved by the Senate before it becomes effective. Russia is now one of the few countries where castration may be carried out as a punishment and joins Poland which is the only country in Europe which does so.
A measure of how civilised we really are must be the extent to which we allow or tolerate or excuse or justify barbaric behaviour. And physical punishment to be imposed on the mentally ill sounds to me like a society which is taking an easy way out and abdicating its collective responsibility.
Tags:Chemical castration, Dmitry Medvedev, Poland, Russia
Posted in Behaviour, Russia | 1 Comment »
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