‘Blocked’ jetstream to blame for freak weather in Russia and Pakistan, say scientists

A massive heatwave in Russia and the current devastating floods in Pakistan could be linked by the unusual behaviour of the jetstream, scientists believe.

The jetstream is the high-altitude wind that circles the globe from west to east and normally pushes a series of wet but mild Atlantic lows across Britain.

But meteorologists who study the phenomenon say that it is producing unusual holding patterns which keep weather systems in one place and produce freak conditions.

Enlarge   A satellite map which shows the intense heat that has built up over Russia after the jetstream has been held up due to Rossby waves

The jetstream is being held by the Rossby waves that normally produce its distinctive wave-like pattern.

Η ΜΟΣΧΑ ΑΝΑΠΤΥΣΣΕΙ ΤΟ ΣΥΣΤΗΜΑ ΠΥΡΑΥΛΩΝ S-300 ΣΤΗΝ ΑΜΠΧΑΖΙΑ

Abkhazian separatist soldiers stand in front of the debris of a Georgian military base in Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia two years ago. Photograph: Vladimir Popov/AP

Russia said today that it had deployed air defence missiles in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, sending a defiant signal to Tbilisi and the west two years after a war with Georgia.

ΤΟ ΙΡΑΝ ΕΧΕΙ ΗΔΗ 4 ΣΥΣΤΗΜΑΤΑ S-300 ΠΥΡΑΥΛΩΝ ΕΔΑΦΟΥΣ-ΑΕΡΟΣ

Iran has obtained four S-300 surface-to-air missiles despite Russia’s refusal to deliver them to Tehran under a valid contract, a semi-official Iranian news agency claimed today.

The Fars news agency, which has ties to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s most powerful military force, said Iran received two missiles from Belarus and two others from another unspecified source.

Russia, Bulgaria to set up South Stream joint venture by February 2011

Russia and Bulgaria will set up a joint venture on the South Stream project by February, 2011, the Novinite.com news portal said on Friday, citing Bulgarian Energy Minister Traicho Traikov.

Earlier on Friday Russia and Bulgaria started talks in the Bulgarian resort of Varna aimed at settling all the economic and technical details of the South Stream project’s «road map».

Russia and Bulgaria signed an agreement on the South Stream project in January 2008, and both financial and technical preparations were scheduled to be put together by mid-2010.

WAR GAME : ΤΟ ΧΡΟΝΙΚΟ ΤΗΣ ΣΥΓΚΡΟΥΣΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΑΣ-ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑΣ

Οι ΗΠΑ απαγορεύουν αυστηρά στην Τουρκία να εισβάλει στο Β. Ιράκ, απειλώντας τη με λήψη σοβαρών μέτρων. Ο νεοεκλεγείς Πρόεδρος της Τουρκίας – την επόμενη της εκλογής του, στις 16 Μαΐου 2007 ή όποτε στο άμεσο μέλλον – καλείται να χειριστεί την κρίση. Ιδιαίτερα δυνατός, θέλει να δώσει το «πολιτικό του στίγμα»!

Υπακούει στις εντολές των ΗΠΑ, καθώς δεν θέλει να συγκρουστεί μαζί τους από την πρώτη κιόλας μέρα! Ζητά, όμως σοβαρά ανταλλάγματα τα οποία, ανακουφισμένες οι ΗΠΑ, του τα προσφέρουν, καθώς απομακρύνεται το ενδεχόμενο χάους στο Ιράκ από τουρκική εισβολή! Ο νέος Τούρκος πρόεδρος εξασφαλίζει πολύ μικρής διάρκειας επιθέσεις στο Β. Ιράκ, εναντίον θέσεων του ΡΡΚ. Πραγματοποιούνται αεροπορικοί βομβαρδισμοί – βιτρίνα, χωρίς ουσιαστικά αποτελέσματα, για εσωτερική κατανάλωση και ικανοποίηση των Τούρκων.

Μετά από δυο μήνες, η Τουρκία μεταφέρει πολλές μονάδες του Στρατού της από την Ν/Α Τουρκία στη Θράκη και τα παράλια της Μ. Ασίας. Κατόπιν έντονης μυστικής διπλωματίας, καταφέρνει και λαμβάνει την υποστήριξη και την ανοχή των ΗΠΑ, για την δημιουργία ενός ελεγχόμενου «θερμού επεισοδίου» με την Ελλάδα, στο ύψος του 25ου παράλληλου, στο μέσο σχεδόν του Αιγαίου.

Η ΒΟΥΛΓΑΡΙΑ ΣΤΗΡΙΖΕΙ ΤΟΝ ΡΩΣΙΚΟ ΑΓΩΓΟ South Stream ΜΕΤΑ ΑΠΟ «ΑΔΕΛΦΙΚΗ» ΕΠΙΣΚΕΨΗ ΤΟΥ ΡΩΣΟΥ ΑΝΤΙΠΡΟΕΔΡΟΥ Viktor Zubkov

ΟΙ ΑΜΕΡΙΚΑΝΟΙ ΑΝΤΙΔΡΟΥΝ «ΝΕΥΡΙΚΑ»

Russia’s threat to exclude Bulgaria from its planned South Stream gas pipeline has worked, Russian daily Kommersant wrote yesterday (7 July), as a Moscow envoy obtained Sofia’s consent for a »roadmap» to speed up the Kremlin-favoured project. The USA reacted nervously.

The visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov to Sofia on 6 July was crowned by an unexpected breakthrough: the Bulgarian government stated for the first time in public that it would not give up the South Stream project, Kommersant writes.

The article’s title, ‘Bulgaria: Brotherly to Gazprom’, plays with the ‘brotherhood’ catchword widely used in communism to describe Soviet-Bulgarian relations.

Call the politburo, we’re in trouble

Mark it on your calendar. It seems we’ve finally entered the Soviet era in America.

You remember the Soviet Union, now almost 20 years in its grave. But who gives it a second thought today? Even in its glory years that «evil empire» was sometimes referred to as «the second superpower.» In 1991, after seven decades, it suddenly disintegrated and disappeared, leaving the United States – the «sole superpower,» even the «hyperpower,» on planet Earth – surprised but triumphant.

The USSR had been heading for the exits for quite a while, not that official Washington had a clue. At the moment it happened, Soviet «experts» like Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (then

director of the Central Intelligence Agency) still expected the Cold War to go on and on.

Medvedev Pushes Ruble Reserve Currency to Cut Dollar Dominance

By Paul Abelsky

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Russia wants the ruble to be one of the world’s reserve currencies as President Dmitry Medvedev renews his push to reduce the dollar’s dominance and make Moscow a global financial hub.

“Only three, five years ago it seemed like a fantasy” to create a new reserve currency, Medvedev said yesterday in a speech in St. Petersburg, Russia. “Now we are seriously discussing it.”

Russia Seeks Chinese Alliance for «New World Order»

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In another move towards global dominance, Russia is proposing a «currency alliance» with China that would dump the dollar as a reserve currency in the two countries spheres of influence. The new currency could be the Russian Rubal, or something both China and Russia agree on.

Russia wants the ruble to be one of the world’s reserve currencies as President Dmitry Medvedev renews his push to reduce the dollar’s dominance and make Moscow a global financial hub.

“Only three, five years ago it seemed like a fantasy” to create a new reserve currency, Medvedev said yesterday in a speech in St. Petersburg, Russia. “Now we are seriously discussing it.” (Source)

Sanctions Loom for Bulgaria over Burgas-Alexandroupolis Oil Pipe

The agreement to build the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil line was signed by Russia, Greece and Bulgaria in March, 2007. File photo

Bulgaria will face economic sanctions if the cabinet pulls out of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis project, according to Plamen Rusev, Director of the Bulgarian branch of «Trans-Balkan Pipeline” which is to build the oil line.