Syria’s government said Wednesday it had signed an oil and gas deal with a Russian company, prompting claims from the Syrian opposition that Damascus is “swapping the country’s riches for Russian weapons”.
The agreement was signed by Syrian Oil Minister Suleiman Abbas and the Russian Soyuzneftegaz company, allows for the first-ever exploration off the war-ravaged country’s Mediterranean coast.
The exploration will cover an area of 2,190 square kilometres (850 square miles) off the Mediterranean port city of Tartous, where Russia also has a military base.
MOSCOW - A 20-year-old deal that has powered American homes while
reducing the risk of Russian nuclear material falling into the wrong
hands approached its end on Thursday when the final shipment of uranium
left St Petersburg for Baltimore.
Under the 1993 HEU Purchase
Agreement, Russia downblended 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium
(HEU) from nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium and sent it to the
United States, where it was made into fuel for nuclear power plants.
Over
much of the life of the deal, it was used to generate roughly half of
all commercial nuclear energy produced in the United States, or nearly
10 percent of all US electricity, according to the US Energy Department.
