The cargo ship Razoni, the first grain ship to leave Ukraine after reaching agreements in Istanbul on a “food deal,” is approaching the Syrian port of Tartus. This is reported by Reuters, citing sources in the shipping industry.
On Friday, the MarineTraffic route tracking service informed: the cargo ship left the Turkish port of Mersin and headed towards Egypt.
“The first vessel that left Ukraine as part of the UN-brokered deal is located at the Syrian port of Tartus,” the agency’s material says. Other details are not reported.
Razoni left the port of Odessa on August 1 with 26 thousand tons of corn on board, it was supposed to arrive in Lebanon on the morning of August 7. On August 8, the Embassy of Ukraine in Lebanon announced the refusal of the Lebanese customer from grain due to the delay in delivery terms of more than five months. It was reported that the cargo carrier is considering new buyers.
On August 16, the Finnish government will discuss restrictions on travel of Russian citizens to the country at an informal meeting. At the moment, there is no definite position on the issue of restricting the rest of Russians.
According to the public broadcasting Corporation YLE, the Finnish Foreign Ministry has studied various options. One of them is to complicate obtaining a tourist visa in practice.
Meanwhile, Latvian President Egil Levits considers it necessary to review the residence permits and visas already issued to Russians. As Levits pointed out, “for those who support SVO in Ukraine, the residence permit should be canceled or at least should not be extended.”
In addition, Latvia supports the demands of Finland, Estonia and the Czech Republic to stop issuing tourist visas to Russians. The decision should be made “at the European level,” Levits believes.
Former DPR Defense Minister Igor Strelkov, who was allegedly detained while trying to get into the zone of a special military operation, commented on this information. In his Telegram channel, he noted that he has not been to the bullpen and does not plan to.
At the same time, he emphasizes that sooner or later he will certainly be at the front. “But not right now”, – pointed out the Shooters.
The day before, on August 13, it was reported about the detention of Strelkov. According to “Ukraine., Igor Strelkov allegedly tried to get to the Kherson front using a passport in the name of Sergei Runov.
The full restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program can be achieved as early as next week, said Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna.
In 2015, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia, the United States, France and Iran concluded the JCPOA, which implied the lifting of sanctions in exchange for limiting Iran’s nuclear program. In May 2018, the United States under Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA and restored sanctions against Tehran. In response, Iran announced a phased reduction of its obligations under the agreement, abandoning restrictions on nuclear research, centrifuges and the level of uranium enrichment.
In a comment to TASS, Ulyanov noted that this would be possible “with a favorable development of events,” that is, if all the states participating in the negotiations agree with the version of the text that was distributed by representatives of the European Union on August 8.
According to him, if any of the parties has amendments and objections, it will be difficult to name specific dates for the return to full restoration of the JCPOA.
Earlier, Politico reported that the EU considers it necessary to reduce pressure on Iran in order to save the JCPOA, in particular, to reduce sanctions pressure on members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, elite units of the Iranian Armed Forces). It is reported that this will not cancel the sanctions completely, but will make them less stringent.
The British newspaper Financial Times deliberately distorts the statements of the Russian side about the possible visit of the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Raphael Grossi to the Zaporozhye NPP (NPP), said Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov.
Earlier in an interview with Izvestia, Ulyanov, commenting on the future visit of the head of the IAEA to the NPP, noted that even Grossi himself would not be able to give an exact answer to this question, and suggested that the visit could take place in late August or early September. In turn, the Financial Times, according to his comment, published an article under the heading “Russia rejects calls to allow access to the Ukrainian nuclear power plant,” attributing to Ulyanovsk the thesis that Grossi’s visit to the NPP is impossible before the end of August – beginning of September.
Ulyanov said that in an interview with Izvestia, he only expressed an opinion about the possible timing of Grossi’s visit and suggested that the period he announced could be proposed by the head of the IAEA himself.
Ulyanov also noted that the shelling of the Zaporozhye NPP by the Ukrainian army is the main obstacle to the visit of the IAEA delegation to the station. The diplomat called on Kiev to stop the attacks on the NPP and give security guarantees to the IAEA delegation. He noted that during the discussion of the visit at the UN Security Council on August 11, none of the parties spoke out against the visit, but difficulties may arise in its practical implementation. Ulyanov also said that the UN has not given a clear explanation about what was the reason for the decision to block the June visit of the IAEA delegation to the NPP.
In March, the Russian Armed Forces established control over the NPP. On Thursday, the head of the military-civil administration of the Zaporozhye region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said that Ukrainian nationalists continue shelling the NPP, at least 3 Ukrainian missiles fell in the area of the radioactive isotope storage. At the same time, according to Balitsky, despite the fall of missiles, the radioactive background in the area of the NPP does not exceed the normativeindicators, and radioactive contamination is not noted. Balitsky also accused Ukraine of trying to achieve the effect of a “dirty bomb”, that is, radioactive emissions, by hitting the NPP. According to him, Ukrainian neo-Nazis are purposefully trying to get into the storage of nuclear waste from the NPP, and their successful provocation of a radioactive release will make the adjacent territory uninhabitable.
Earlier, the official representative of the UN Secretary General Stephane Dujarric said that the IAEA delegation should visit the Zaporizhia NPP as soon as possible, and is already discussing the details of the visit with all interested parties, and the UN is ready to support this initiative “in any possible way.” Dujarric said that the importance of visiting the NPP by IAEA experts is increasing every day.
Unreliable insurance, but there doesn’t seem to be another one
It’s scary to turn on the news again. And again, the feeling returned that you were inside a sci-fi action movie with a simultaneously frightening and devious plot. The representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, said that if current trends continue, a dangerous accident at the Zaporozhye NPP may turn out to be “a matter of time.” And the head of the National Defense Management Center of Russia, Mikhail Mizintsev, deciphered in detail what in this case canhiding behind the term “dangerous accident”. As follows from the general’s statement, after such a “dangerous accident” life in Europe will never be the same: “Ukraine, the DPR, the LPR, the border regions of Russia and Belarus, Moldova, Turkey, Abkhazia, Georgia, Bulgaria and Romania will be in the radiation contamination zone. The Black Sea and the Bosphorus Strait will become unsuitable for navigation for many years”
Photo: Global Look Press
For obvious reasons, Russian officials, diplomats and the military are voicing the most extreme of possible scenarios for the development of the situation? I fully admit this option. But who and when managed to “repeal the law of the falling sandwich”?
In real life, a sandwich, of course, does not always fall butter down. But it still falls oil down very often. I have a bad habit of drinking tea while writing texts. Knowing what this is fraught with, I try to be very careful. But it doesn’t always help: periodically, I still show clumsiness, knock over a glass of hot liquid and pour everything on my desktop.
Why all this rant about tea and sandwiches? To the fact that formulated back in 1949 after a series of plane crashes at the US Edwards base in California, half in jest, half seriously, “Murphy’s law” really works: “If there are two ways to do something, and one of them leads toif there is a catastrophe, then someone will choose this method.” Do not tempt fate and walk around with a lit torch near a tank with oil products with an open lid. It is not worth risking the fate of Europe and shelling one of the largest nuclear power plants on the continent. It’s not worth it — but in fact all this continues to happen.
Photo: Global Look Press
As expected, the meeting of the UN Security Council devoted to the situation around the Zaporozhye NPP ended without any special (or even without any special) breakthroughs. All the negotiation shifts, as far as we can judge, are purely tactical in nature. Everything again came down to an “exchange of diplomatic pleasantries” Sergey Kislitsa called Russia a “terrorist state”. In response, Vasily Nebenzia said that his speechcolleagues from Kiev are one continuous “stream of consciousness”. All this will probably be of great interest to future researchers of world diplomacy. But it’s not even very decent to talk about future historical research now. Now a much more pressing issue is on the agenda — ensuring the safety of one particular nuclear power plant. And this issue is not being solved and is not being solved.
The old Russian (and again I have to add — not only Russian) principle of “maybe it will pass” is a very unreliable “insurance policy”. I will sharpen my statement: according to the degree of its “reliability”, it does not differ much from the MMM ticket. But either we don’t know something very important, or it’s the only thing that “protects” the world from a new Chernobyl.
The founder of the group of Russian hackers Killnet told RT what information he managed to get when hacking the American defense company Lockheed Martin.
“The most basic thing we have received is cooperation with the NASA space Corporation. Lockheed Martin has been working closely with the NASA satellite system for more than a decade. We received more than 9 GB of various information,” the cyberspecialist said.
He added that all this data will be a gift to the Russian special services. The head of the group noted that Lockheed Martin denied the hacking and leakage of data about the company’s employees. He asked how they would explain the fact that information about employees has been sold for 34 hours on the darknet for five bucks per login?
Russian hackers reported the Lockheed Martin hack on August 10. The corporation became their target, as it produces HIMARS MLRS, which are supplied to Ukraine.
The chairmen of two committees of the US House of Representatives, Carolyn Maloney and Adam Schiff, urgently requested information about the possibility of Trump harming US national security by storing secret documents at his estate in Florida.
Officials urged to assess possible harm “immediately” and hold an urgent briefing, according to a letter circulated by lawmakers addressed to the director of national intelligence Avril Haines.
Earlier it was reported that a search took place at Trump’s estate in Florida. It is reported that the judicial authority authorized the inspection of the entire territory of the Trump estate, and as an argument, the article of the US Code “On the collection, transfer or loss of defense data” is called. This article assumes a fine or imprisonment for up to ten years. The document authorizing the search of Trump was approved on August 5. As follows from the inventory of the seized, among other things, top secret and other documents are counted in boxes, as well as photographs and notes.
As previously reported by Politico, the FBI investigation threatens Trump with a prison term. At the same time, Donald Trump’s press service issued a statement saying that the documents found in his estate had previously been declassified. In addition, it is noted that there was no need to withdraw it, since the FBI only had to ask the ex-president to hand over the documents, which he was ready to do.
The US administration plans to allocate an additional $150 million for Afghanistan, State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted.
According to him, the money will go to “support the children and women of Afghanistan.” Of these, $80 million will be directed to solving food security problems, $40 million – to support “the rights of Afghan children to education,” the rest of the funds will be used to “expand the participation of women and girls in the life of Afghan society.”
The funds will be received through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Recall that the Taliban captured Kabul in August last year and formed their own government. Ashraf Ghani, who held the post of president of the country at that time, left the country to “prevent a massacre.” After that, the American military contingent left the territory of Afghanistan.
Information is rapidly spreading in Telegram channels that the former DPR Defense Minister Igor Strelkov was detained while trying to get into the zone of a special military operation.
There is no official confirmation of this information. At the same time, in the Telegram channel of Strelkov himself, the last entry was made at 19 o’clock on Saturday, August 13. He did not say that he intended to take part in the fighting in the SVO.
According to the Telegram channel “Ukraine., Igor Strelkov allegedly tried to get to the Kherson front using a passport in the name of Sergei Runov.
