US sustains military aid to terrorist PKK/PYD in Syria

More than 100 trucks carrying U.S. supplies crossed into Syrian territory controlled by the PKK/PYD terror group on Monday night.

Syria signs offshore oil deal with Russian firm...

Syria’s government said Wednesday it had signed an oil and gas deal with a Russian company, prompting claims from the Syrian opposition that Damascus is “swapping the country’s riches for Russian weapons”.

The agreement was signed by Syrian Oil Minister Suleiman Abbas and the Russian Soyuzneftegaz company, allows for the first-ever exploration off the war-ravaged country’s Mediterranean coast.

The exploration will cover an area of 2,190 square kilometres (850 square miles) off the Mediterranean port city of Tartous, where Russia also has a military base.

Damascus said the exploration would be financed by Russia to the tune of $100 million over the next 25 years.

Blighted industry

The deal is a boost for the Syrian government, which has lost control over roughly half of the country’s territory, including most of its oil fields.

Through war and sanctions, Syria's oil production has plummeted by 90 percent since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011.

“Soyuzneftegaz will start working soon after the contract is signed. The company will not follow the unfair economic sanctions imposed on oil fields especially, as well as on all economic sectors in Syria,” Syria’s Oil Minister Suleiman Abbas told reporters.

‘Oil for weapons’

• The agreement between Moscow and Damascus was swiftly denounced by Syria’s main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC).

In a statement published on Thursday, the CNS slammed a deal “which aims to swap the riches of our homeland for Russian weapons destined to kill the Syrian people”. Despite the escalating violence in Syria, Moscow has continued to supply weapons to its Syrian ally and repeatedly thwarted attempts to take action against the Assad regime at the UN Security Council.
france24.com
26/12/13
----------------

Uranium shipment signals end of US-Russian nuclear deal.

MOSCOW - A 20-year-old deal that has powered American homes while reducing the risk of Russian nuclear material falling into the wrong hands approached its end on Thursday when the final shipment of uranium left St Petersburg for Baltimore.

Under the 1993 HEU Purchase Agreement, Russia downblended 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium and sent it to the United States, where it was made into fuel for nuclear power plants.

Over much of the life of the deal, it was used to generate roughly half of all commercial nuclear energy produced in the United States, or nearly 10 percent of all US electricity, according to the US Energy Department.


"For two decades, one in 10 light bulbs in America has been powered by nuclear material from Russian nuclear warheads," Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said of the agreement, commonly known as Megatons for Megawatts.

It provided cash and jobs in Russia's nuclear industry at a time, after the 1991 Soviet collapse, when fears ran high that impoverished scientists would sell secrets or "dirty bomb" ingredients.

It was "crucial for stabilizing the Russian nuclear complex at a critical time in the 1990s," said Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University professor and expert on nuclear security and proliferation.

But times have changed. A richer Russia, while seeking to expand its nuclear energy industry, has resisted US efforts to extend the agreement or come up with another one to continue blending down HEU, Bunn said. 
 jpost.com
14/11/13