Iran has slapped a ban on oil and gas exports to the European Union,
even though the EU has already forbidden Iranian petrochemicals from
entering its territory.
“Despite many requests by EU countries on buying oil and gas from Iran, Iran will not sell any oil and gas to those countries,” Oil Ministry Spokseman Alireza Nikzad Rahbar told the official Mehr news agency.
It is not clear what “requests”
Nikzad Rahbar was referring to, as the EU stopped importing crude oil
in July last year, and gas under the latest round of sanctions that came
into force earlier this month.
It comes as fresh restrictions are
being implemented by the EU, preventing Iranian banks from dealing
with Europe, unless for humanitarian purposes. The embargoes are aimed
at hindering Tehrans nuclear program, which Brussels believes is aimed
at developing a nuclear weapon.
by Vincent Cooper*
Politics is dead in the Irish Republic. The Irish parliament, the Dail,
is now little more than a rubber stamp for the Troika, the generic name
for the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the
European Union, the three powers to which the country is in hock.
Things are bad. Ireland’s debt to GDP ratio is set to reach 122 percent
in 2013, above the 120 percent threshold the IMF considers
unsustainable. The total debt of the country, according to
an Irish Times report, is €192 billion, four times what it was in 2007,
with a projected need to borrow a further €34 billion before 2015.
Ρωσία και ΕΕ «εκφράζουν τη σταθερή δυσαρέσκειά τους» για τα σχέδια του Ισραήλ να διευρύνει το οικιστικό οικοδομικό του πρόγραμμα.
Αυτό αναφέρεται στην κοινή δήλωση του επικεφαλής του ρωσικού ΥΠΕΞ Σεργκέι Λαβρόφ και του ύπατου εκπροσώπου της ΕΕ για τις διεθνείς υποθέσεις και την πολιτική ασφαλείας Κάθριν Έστον σχετικά με τη μεσανατολική ειρηνευτική διαδικασία.
Russia’s state-owned gas major Gazprom and its partners are beginning
construction of the $16bn South Stream pipeline that will run under the
Black Sea to Europe and rival the Nabucco project.
The symbolic first welding of the pipeline takes place in the city
of Anapa in Southern Russia on Friday. Among those present at the
ceremony are Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bulgaria’s Regional
Development and Public Works Minister Liliyana Pavlova as well as
representatives of Italy's ENI, France's EDF and Germany's BASF.
Von Nikolaus Blome
Der
Finanzminister auf Rückreise von Singapur nach Deutschland. Über
sieben Stunden dauert allein der Flug von Singapur bis zur
Zwischenstation Abu Dhabi am Persischen Golf.
Zeit
genug für Finanzminister Wolfgang Schäuble, SEINEN Plan für ein neues
Europa auszubreiten – ein Paukenschlag vor dem EU-Gipfel am Donnerstag.
By Tom Ellis & Achilleas Patsoukas
Geece’s debt crisis has captured international headlines over the past
couple of years. Virtually all analysts have focused on Greece’s deficit
and mammoth debt, which pose a threat to the entire European economy.
