The popular world view of Brazil may be triggered by thoughts of spectacular Carnivals and skilled footballers, yet the country is also determined to be regarded as a major global power.
The most comprehensive historical review of Brazilian relations with superpower USA has been written by a University of Exeter historian and identifies how the relationship has developed over the last 200 years. (more…)
In 2010, China mined the record amount of gold in the world. The production volume of nonferrous metals in China amounted to 340.88 tons, which is 8.57% higher than a year earlier, and continues to grow. In recent years, China has consistently increased the amount of its gold reserves. Nevertheless, experts believe that China has a long way to go to reach the level of the world leading economies.
According to the China Gold Association, in 2007 China ranked first in terms of gold mining. It outran South Africa and is holding this position to this day. Starting 2004, the volume of production of the precious metal in China has been steadily growing. In 2009 it amounted to 313.98 tons. The volume of the gold imported by China within ten months of 2010 amounted to 209.72 tons, which is six times more than the year before, Rosbalt reported. (more…)
*Research project completes drilling for the year, reaching two miles below West Antarctic Ice Sheet*
On Friday, Jan. 28 in Antarctica, a research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth’s climate history reached an important milestone completing the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS). The project will be completed over the next two years with some additional coring and borehole logging to obtain additional information and samples of the ice for the study of the climate record contained in the core.
As part of the project, begun six years ago, the team, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has been drilling deep into the ice at the WAIS Divide site and recovering and analyzing ice cores for clues about how changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have influenced the Earth’s climate over time. (more…)
On the eve of the anniversary of Lenin’s death, State Duma deputy from United Russia said that Lenin’s body should be removed from the Red Square. He believes that the mummy of the leader has become a cult object of the new religion created by the Communists against his own will. What do religious leaders and community activists think about this?
State Duma deputy Vladimir Medinsky said that “Lenin is an extremely controversial political figure and his presence as a central figure in the necropolis in the heart of Russia is the extreme absurdity.” (more…)
Russia’s computer security company Kaspersky Lab, the fourth-largest global antivirus vendor, sold a large shareholding to US-based private equity firm General Atlantic. GA will become the second-largest shareholder of the Russian company, giving Kaspersky Lab an opportunity to improve its positions on the US market. The financial details of the deal have not been exposed yet, although it reportedly goes about 15-17 percent of the shares of the Russian company evaluated at $200 million. (more…)
Russia has finally decided to purchase two Mistral helicopter carriers from France in the total amount of 1.37 billion euros. It is not the first time when Russia concludes defense deals with France. However, the Mistral deal is the largest one in Russia’s recent history when Russia purchased military hardware from a foreign state. (more…)
Russia is ready to build a nuclear power plant in Egypt at its own expense, to manage the plant, and even find markets for the electricity. Early next year Egypt is expected to announce a tender for the construction of nuclear power plant with the capacity of 1 GW 150 km from Alexandria. Russia’s Rosatom will participate in the tender.
A meeting of Russian-Egyptian intergovernmental commission on trade, economic and scientific-technical cooperation was held on Monday. From the Russian side it was chaired by the Minister of Industry and Trade Viktor Khristenko. (more…)
U.S. accused of sending spies to Russia, Britain, France, China and UN Secretary General
UN Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, and diplomats from Russia, Britain, France and China in the Security Council were monitored (spied on) entities by order of the Secretary of State of the United States, Hillary Clinton.
The charge is from Wikileaks, a website dedicated to revealing the secret military documents of the U.S. and other countries. The site has already released 400,000 secret documents about the war in Iraq and 90,000 confidential reports on abuses in Afghanistan. (more…)
