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Eastern Europe News

Maybe their pet politician got arrested and thrown into jail.
I'd bet that the foremost reason that specifically Lithuania is at the helm of this is mostly about BelAES (Belorussian atomic electrostation) that's nearly completed. Lithuania had the Ignolinsk AES that it closed on demands from Brussels that would have dominated BRELL (Bel-Rus-Est-Lit-Lat electric grid), and they attempted to build a new station to produce democratic rather than totalitarian electrons based on a French contract, but failed to do so. ... Moreover, under the EU Industrial Emissions Directive, in 2019, Estonia closed a large chunk of its electric generation capacity in Narva, while Latvia depends on electricity imports from its neighbours. So despite Lithuania's increasingly desperate attempts to form a boycott coalition against BelAES, neither Latvia nor Estonia are interested in blocking it, and neither IAEA nor EuroAtom found anything against it.
 
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I'd bet that the foremost reason that specifically Lithuania is at the helm of this is mostly about BelAES (Belorussian atomic electrostation) that's nearly completed. Lithuania had the Ignolinsk AES that it closed on demands from Brussels that would have dominated BRELL (Bel-Rus-Est-Lit-Lat electric grid), and they attempted to build a new station to produce democratic rather than totalitarian electrons based on a French contract, but failed to do so. ... Moreover, under the EU Industrial Emissions Directive, in 2019, Estonia closed a large chunk of its electric generation capacity in Narva, while Latvia depends on electricity imports from its neighbours. So despite Lithuania's increasingly desperate attempts to form a boycott coalition against BelAES, neither Latvia nor Estonia are interested in blocking it, and neither IAEA nor EuroAtom found anything against it.
Sounds like pathetic flailing regardless.
 
Maybe their pet politician got arrested and thrown into jail.
Lukashenko has seriously cleaned up the playing field ahead of the August presidential election, including throwing his main opponent Babrika in jail. Right now there are just these candidates remaining: Lukashenko.... that's it.
But that's just a formal justification. Lithuania is at a war footing with Belarus because of the Astravets NPP (known otherwise as BelAES).
 
I'd bet that the foremost reason that specifically Lithuania is at the helm of this is mostly about BelAES (Belorussian atomic electrostation) that's nearly completed. Lithuania had the Ignolinsk AES that it closed on demands from Brussels that would have dominated BRELL (Bel-Rus-Est-Lit-Lat electric grid), and they attempted to build a new station to produce democratic rather than totalitarian electrons based on a French contract, but failed to do so. ... Moreover, under the EU Industrial Emissions Directive, in 2019, Estonia closed a large chunk of its electric generation capacity in Narva, while Latvia depends on electricity imports from its neighbours. So despite Lithuania's increasingly desperate attempts to form a boycott coalition against BelAES, neither Latvia nor Estonia are interested in blocking it, and neither IAEA nor EuroAtom found anything against it.
Haha, did you watch Martsinkevich's segment on BelAES? He says basically the same.
 
Lukashanko is going apeshit

 
Lukashanko is going apeshit

Ran out of time to edit, just as I suspect:


And Lukashenko will win the election, of course.
 
Not sure how bad Covid-19 is in Ukraine but apparently Porky has gotten it.


Ukraine: Former President Petro Poroshenko has been hospitalized for double pneumonia, according to his wife. "Despite the fact that my husband has double pneumonia, he is strong-willed and is demonstrating this in the fight against the disease," Maryna Poroshenko said. The 55-year-old tested positive for the virus just a few days ago.
 
Not sure how bad Covid-19 is in Ukraine but apparently Porky has gotten it.
Ze also got it, together with his chief of staff Yermak.

But other news surprised me: Japanese companies started using the Trans-siberian railway to transport their products to Europe. According to the article, not only is it faster than a ship via the Suez, 20-27 days (that's from Vladivostok to the Polish border) compared to some 53-62 days, but it's also cheper, 4,500 - 6,000 USD per standard container, as opposed to 5,500 - 10,000 USD for the same container via Suez.
The price difference is quite surprising to me, I always thought that ship transport is cheaper than even rail.
 
Now if only the Tsars and Communists thought to have two railway tracks for each direction.
It is actually redundant. In the west, the TransSib is mirrored in the south by another railway (Moscow-Samara-Ufa-Chelyabinsk-Omsk), and in the east, there is the Baikal-Amur Mainline goes mostly parallel to the TransSib northward from Taishet. In-between, there is another southernly railway connecting Omsk and Taishet.

Some of the western southernly route actually used to be the TransSib built by the the Russian Empire; the Soviets constructed a more northerly railway early on and basically changed what's 'officially' the TransSib. Meanwhile, the BAM was constructed in the 1980s mostly because China was a huge backer of Afghanistan in the war, so TranSib being so close to the border in that section was considered a significant vulnerability.
1024px-Transsib_international.svg.png
BTW a lot of the cargo produced in Heilongjiang (northern Manchuria) now ships through Russian ports on the Pacific, which is kind of the inverse, and is also a relatively recent development.
 
Now if only the Tsars and Communists thought to have two railway tracks for each direction.
Who needs Tsars and Communists... there was a major reconstruction of both Transsib and BAM from around 2012 until now (some parts are maybe still going on, especially the new BAM tunnel around Baikal) which has doubled the transport capacity of the far east railroad system.
 
It seems that the Rzeczpospolitan pressure against Belarus is bearing some fruit. A while back, Tikhanovskaya has proposed that Lithuania close the Klaipėda port for Belorussian products. Instead, there is news of a new agreement between Belarus and Russia for the transit of Belorussian oil products through the Russian ports in Leningrad Oblast, with the document dated 25 Jan 2021:
On the signing of the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Belarus on the organization of cooperation in the field of transportation and transshipment of oil products of the Republic of Belarus, intended for export to third countries through seaports of the Russian Federation
This includes take-or-pay provisions, with producers declaring their intended cargo amount 15 days in advance by quarter and by month, with ±5% allowed deviation from their declared amount by month and ±10% by quarter.

However, so far the planned total for 2021-2023 is 9836 kilotons, so in yearly terms this is about 30% of the typical amount of Belorussian exports of oil products. Still, this is more bad news for Lithuanian ports and railroads. And Baltic Tigers generally, since Russia has already been aggressively moving all the exports it can to domestic ports.
 
Well, Luki seems to be much more decisive about preventive measures against potential sanctions than Russia usually is. Good for him, no need to wait until Belarusion export is seriously f-ed up by Lithuania actually stopping it.
 
Well Belarus is a much smaller country with smaller interests. Russia only started insisting on local manufacture after 2014. And even then a lot of goods are Chinese dependent.
 
Well Belarus is a much smaller country with smaller interests. Russia only started insisting on local manufacture after 2014. And even then a lot of goods are Chinese dependent.
I'd say that the main difference is (or was?) that Russian elites were much more connected to the global economy. In Belarus much of the industry (allegedly) belongs to Luki's extended family, and since they've been under sanctions for the last 20 years, they have to be much more disconnected from the West - which allows them to react more seriously on Western pressure. This can be a good indicator of how will Russia react in the future, should the sanctions pressure keep increasing. As the economic connection gets weaker, the motivation to keep it will also get weaker - and so will the impact of potential new sanctions.
 

Wadim Lynjew, who heads up the lab at the Shostakovich Hospital where I got my two shots, said that people who have been vaccinated react differently to those with COVID-19, depending on the viral load they're exposed to. If one comes in contact with someone who is only mildly sick, one often doesn't feel anything. But if one is confronted by a high viral load, one doesn't get as sick after getting vaccinated.

That's exactly what happened to me. I was exposed to a lot of the virus when I visited my grandmother but didn't really get sick because of the antibodies in my system. My grandmother had it much worse but is now feeling better and I'm happy to report that her most recent COVID test was negative.

I was tested for antibodies a few days after returning from St. Petersburg and had the results the next day, which according to Dmitri Denisov, the medical director of the Helix Lab, were good results. Especially when compared with others who were vaccinated or had COVID-19.

What seems to be certain is that my antibodies are due to my Sputnik V vaccine and not the result of a cold I had had. I wouldn't have been able to build up so many antibodies so fast if that were the case.
 
I remember an article about a journalist from Medusa who also took part int the stage 3 trial of Sputnik-V. She described all the horrible side effects of getting the vaccine, and then it turned out that she received the placebo... :)
Anyway, a semi-positive article about something Russian in DW, that's not an accident. It looks to me like Germany is preparing people for the eventuality that they will produce and use also Sputnik-V, since AstraZeneca has problems with producing the vaccine in sufficient numbers.
 
I mean, technically, both are Adenovirus delivery vector vaccines. The only technicality is the RNA used to stimulate an immune response.

Honestly, the fracas surrounding the entire EU vaccine procurement is an absolute shambles. And I were conspiracy theorist, something or someone seems to have deliberately sabotaged the delivery.

But that's assuming they can't be that incompetent. It looks to me that AstraZenca somehow overpromised and underdelivered by orders of magnitude.
 
something or someone seems to have deliberately sabotaged the delivery
You have no idea how effective we can be at sabotaging ourselves. If you knew what's going on here in Slovakia regarding our government's covid response (or lack thereof) in the 2nd wave... it would be hysterical if it weren't killing people every day.

But that's assuming they can't be that incompetent. It looks to me that AstraZenca somehow overpromised and underdelivered by orders of magnitude.
It's becoming part of our European culture to consider ourselves the height of all creation, saying that we can do anything and nothing is a problem for us, and then when it's obvious that we've once again f-ed up, either ignore the facts and declare a victory anyway, or blame the Russians. No self-reflection allowed, because we're so great that it would be just a waste of effort. I'm not kidding, exceptionalism is evidently infectious and we caught it from the US.
 
Meanwhile as you say...


Germany's Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn has hinted that coronavirus vaccines from China and Russia could be used in Europe to overcome the current deficit of doses.

"Regardless of the country in which a vaccine is manufactured, if they are safe and effective, they can help cope with the pandemic," Spahn told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper on Sunday, adding that they must be approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The minister said he sees no fundamental obstacle to the use of Chinese and Russian COVID vaccines.

Russia announced Friday it would be able to supply 100 million doses of its Sputnik V vaccine to the EU in the second quarter of the year, which would allow some 50 million people to be vaccinated. The application for approval of the vaccine has already been submitted to the EMA.
 
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