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Pedro Gonçalves

Al Eisele: Why Kazakhstan Is Front and Center at the Global Nuclear Security Summit - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...hstan-is-front-a_b_533531.html

Kazakhstan Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 13 Apr 10 - Cached
  • even though Kazakhstan is hardly a shining example of democracy - Kazakhstan's parliament made Nazarbayev de facto president for life in 2007 with veto powers over any legislation and immunity from criminal prosecution - he was the first foreign leader to renounce the possession and use of nuclear weapons.
  • On August 29, 1991, four months before the Soviet Union collapsed and 38 years after Mrs. Koloskova witnessed the Soviets' first thermonuclear explosion, Nazarbayev shut down the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site.
  • And in 1995, after his country inherited the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal, he declared that Kazakhstan was a nuclear free country and returned 40 heavy bombers and more than 1,400 nuclear warheads for intercontinental and intermediate range missiles to Russia for destruction. He later destroyed 148 ICBM silos across Kazakhstan and underground test tunnels at Semipalatinsk, as part of the Nunn-Lugar Program.
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  • At the same time, he approved a secret joint operation with the U.S. code named Project Sapphire, which removed 1,278 pounds of highly enriched uranium to the U.S..
  • Kazakhstan also has the Caspian Sea region's largest recoverable oil and gas reserves as well as the world's second largest deposits of uranium.
  • And it is flexing its diplomatic muscles as it became in January the first predominantly Muslim nation and the first former Soviet Union state to assume the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Pedro Gonçalves

China's Wen - ready to boost eastern Europe trade | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...hina-wen-idUKBRE83P0K520120426

China Poland EU Economy

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • China will set a $10 billion credit line and a $500 million investment fund dedicated to eastern and southern European states as it aims to increase trade with the region to $100 billion in 2015, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Thursday.
  • "The Chinese side understands concerns among eastern European countries over trade imbalances and will boost imports from those countries," he said
  • Cash-rich China has signed a string of bilateral currency agreements, including with Mongolia and Kazakhstan, to promote the use of Chinese yuan in cross-border trade and investment.
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  • Earlier this week Wen also promised to increase bilateral trade volumes with Germany [ID:nW8E7KD00A] and Poland [ID:nL5E8FOFAP] as part of a drive to diversify its foreign currency reserves, the world's largest at $3.3 trillion.
  • Poland, the largest eastern EU member and still outside the single currency area, is engaged in a large-scale infrastructure building programme and struggling to modernise its energy sector to curb reliance on highly polluting coal.Warsaw hopes for Chinese investments in those fields.China is interested in Poland's banking sector and wants to open branches of its banks, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, its biggest lender, in Poland.
  • "We are pleased that Poland today is China's largest partner in central Europe, with trade volumes exceeding 14 billion euros in 2011," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, adding that the potential for trade between China and Poland and its regional peers was much bigger.
  • Poland is the only European Union member to have avoided recession since the 2008 start of the global financial crisis.
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran delegates storm out of interfaith meet during Peres speech - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1096990.html

Israel Iran Shimon Peres

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 01 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Iranian delegates stormed out of the opening session of an interfaith conference in Kazakhstan on Wednesday as President Shimon Peres began to deliver an address to the forum. The delegates returned to the conference hall after Peres finished speaking.
  • The move recalled a similar scene at a United Nations-sponsored conference in Geneva in April, when dozens of Western representatives walked out in protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address to the forum.
Pedro Gonçalves

China's Hu skips G8 to deal with Xinjiang riots | International | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE5650SW20090708

China Xinjiang Uighurs Urumqi Hu Jintao G8

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China. It is strategically located at the borders of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.
  • But controlling the anger on both sides of the ethnic divide will now make controlling Xinjiang, with its gas reserves and trade and energy ties to central Asia, all the more testing for the ruling Communist Party.
  • Xinjiang has long been a tightly controlled hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by an economic gap between many Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han migrants who now are the majority in most key cities, including Urumqi. There were attacks in the region before and during last year's Summer Olympics in Beijing.
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  • The government has blamed Sunday's killings on exiled Uighurs seeking independence for their homeland, especially Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman and activist now living in exile in the United States.
  • "This was a massive conspiracy by hostile forces at home and abroad, and their goal was precisely to sabotage ethnic unity and provoke ethnic antagonism," the Communist Party boss of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, said in a speech.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Kyrgyz MPs vote to shut US base - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7898690.stm

Russia US Afghanistan Kyrgyzstan Manas Air Base Uzbekistan Robert Gates

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Kyrgyzstan's parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favour of closing a strategic US air base that supports US and Nato operations in Afghanistan.
  • Mr Bakiyev announced the closure plan earlier this month in Moscow, where Russia pledged $2bn (£1.4bn) in aid.
  • Bishkek denies any link between the move to shut the base and Moscow's aid. The president said earlier this month that the US refusal to pay an adequate rent was behind the decision.
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  • Thousands of US soldiers pass through the Manas base every month on their way in and out of Afghanistan.
  • It is also home to the large tanker aircraft that are used for in-air refuelling of fighter planes on combat missions, and it serves as a key supply hub.
  • For Russia, on the other hand, its closure would be a diplomatic victory as it seeks to reassert its influence in former Soviet republics, analysts say.
  • "I think that the Russians are trying to have it both ways with respect to Afghanistan in terms of Manas," US defence secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday, on his way to Krakow to meet his Polish counterpart.
  • "On one hand you're making positive noises about working with us in Afghanistan and on the other hand you're working against us in terms of that airfield which is clearly important to us."
  • On Tuesday, the US commander for the Middle East and Central Asia, General David Petraeus, held talks in Uzbekistan, which has rail links with Afghanistan. The US has already reached deals with Russia and Kazakhstan to send non-military cargo to Afghanistan using their rail networks, but the supplies would have to go through Uzbekistan. The US used to have an air base in Uzbekistan that served troops operating in Afghanistan. But Uzbek authorities closed it in 2005 after criticism from the US and EU over a crackdown on a mass protest in the town of Andijan.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | US finds new Afghan supply route - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7901071.stm

US Afghanistan Kyrgyzstan Manas Air Base

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The US will be able to take non-military supplies bound for Afghanistan through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, a US commander has said.
  • The US had previously announced it intended to transport supplies to Uzbekistan through Russia and Kazakhstan.
  • "Tajikistan has given permission to use its railways and roads for the transit of non-military cargoes to Afghanistan," Harnitchek told Tajik state media. "We plan to transport 50 to 200 containers every week from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan and further to Afghanistan."
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  • The US recently invested millions of dollars in a bridge connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which will almost certainly be used to transport the supplies.
  • The announcement follows a decision by Kyrgyzstan to close a US air base - the only US military base in Central Asia.
  • It comes after Kyrgyzstan accused the US of not paying enough to rent the air base at Manas, near the capital city of Bishkek.
  • The licence to close the base was signed into law this week by Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The Kyrgyz foreign ministry said on Friday that it had officially issued an eviction notice giving the US 180 days to vacate the area.
  • Analysts have suggested that Kyrgyzstan's leaders will not carry out their threat to evict the US, but are using the law as a bargaining chip to get more rent money from Washington. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates sought to play down the Kyrgyz spat on Thursday, saying the US was open to negotiation on the rent. "We are prepared to look at the fees and see if there is justification for a somewhat larger payment," he told a news conference.
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