Partnership With Iceland in the Works

Partnership With Iceland in the Works

By Irina Filatova

Russia plans to use Iceland’s experience to develop its market for renewable energy sources, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Monday.

An agreement may be signed with the Icelandic government to cooperate in the field of geothermal energy, he told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the Presidium meeting.

Shmatko said Iceland, which is a world leader in renewable energy, considers partnering with Russia a priority, and that the sides were discussing construction of a new geothermal power station in Russia.

He also said geothermal energy was one of the most promising renewable energy sources, with RusHydro, the country’s largest renewable energy producer, already operating several geothermal power stations.

RusHydro currently operates two geothermal power plants on Kamchatka, with an overall capacity of 62 megawatts. Last month the company signed agreements to supply energy produced by one of the plants to mining operations in the region, it said in a statement.

“Geothermal energy is not very popular in Russia, taking into account it's geographically specific,” said UralSib analyst Alexander Seleznyov. He added that Iceland was likely to share technological developments in geothermal energy with Russia.

Shmatko reiterated the government’s plan to have 4.5 percent of energy produced in Russia by 2020 come from renewable resources.

He also said the government was discussing with Iceland the construction of an energy-efficient metallurgical plant on Kamchatka.

He didn’t specify when any of the agreements with Iceland might be signed.

“We are inspired,” Shmatko said, when asked by Putin whether he saw any prospects in this partnership.

“Good man,” Putin said, smiling.

Kamchatka is rich in nonferrous metal ores, silver, nickel, copper and platinum, and has good potential for metals production, said Andrei Tretelnikov, a metals and mining analyst at Rye, Man & Gor Securities. Gold, titanium and magnesium are also mined there, he said.

“So it makes sense to build a metallurgical plant in the region — from a logistics point of view,” he said.

Police defuse bomb in Chechen capital

Police defused a hand-made explosive device outside a concert hall in the Chechen capital of Grozny on Tuesday.

It contained 6 kg of TNT, chipped iron rods, screws and a Nokia cell phone for shrapnel, a police spokesman said.

The area around the concert hall has been targeted before. In June, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the parking lot, injuring five police officers and two passers-by.

Terrorist attacks and shootouts with police are common in Russia's troubled North Caucasus republics, especially in Dagestan and neighboring Chechnya and Ingushetia.

The Kremlin has vowed to clamp down on militant groups while stepping up efforts to boost the local economy.

MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti)

Powerful explosive device found in Grozny

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15623245

26.10.2010, 10.01

GROZNY, October 26 (Itar-Tass) -- A powerful explosive device was rendered harmless in Grozny, ITAR-TASS learnt the law enforcement bodies of Chechnya on Tuesday. It was found in Dagestan Street in the city’s Lenin district, 70 meters away from the State Theatre and Concert Hall.

“The explosive device was placed in a metal box and consisted of a plastic canister filled with six kilograms of TNT and pieces of steel wire, bolts and nuts,” a law enforcer said.

Suppers of the Federal Security Service Department destroyed in a safe place.
26 October 2010, 10:01

Bomb-like object discovered near mosque in Dagestan

Makhachkala, October 26, Interfax - An object which appears to resemble a bomb has been discovered on Monday near a mosque in Makhachkala in the Russian republic of Dagestan, police told Interfax.

"A box with wires attached has been discovered by a sniffer dog. Bomb experts are working at the scene. The area has been cordoned off," a spokesman said.

The homemade bomb was equivalent to 1.5 kilograms of TNT. It was rendered safe with the help of a hydrodynamic destroyer.

26.10.2010, 00.57

MOSCOW, October 26 (Itar-Tass) – Tuesday, October 26 is an annual day of remembrance of the victims of a major terrorist act, in which a group of international terrorists took hostage almost a thousand people inside a Moscow theater and kept them virtually locked in their chairs for more than 60 hours.

A group of camouflaged men and women appeared on the stage of the Dubrovka theatrical center in downtown Moscow shortly after the beginning of the second act of the highly popular musical Nord-Ost. They made several shots in the air from submachine-guns, shouting: “Don’t you understand? That’s for real!”

The tragic day was Wednesday, October 23, 2002. The hostage-takers warned that the building had been heavily mined and that they would blow it up at the first signs of an attempt to free the hostages through the use of force.

The drama lasted through to the early morning of Saturday, October 26, when the Russian crack troops and riot police stormed the building after a knotty preparatory operation, which involved, among other things, making a hole in the wall of the ventilation shaft and pumping a potent gaseous anesthetic agent, phentanyl, into the theater’s ventilation system.

The spectators, actors and technical personnel servicing the Nord-Ost show were freed but 130 people lost their lives.