The trucks are made by a German company, Putzmeister, for building skyscrapers. The Soviets also used eleven of them to help dump concrete on the failed Chernobyl nuclear plant about 25 years ago.
The 26 wheeled trucks can be operated by remote control. You know the situation at Fukushima Daiichi is bad when so many other countries get directly involved to help control the crisis.
Russia just delivered two Mi-35P (P for Peru?) Hind E attack copters to Peru.
Officially Peru is using the helicopters in their drugs war.
In 2010 Peru signed a $108-million contract for six Mi-171 Hip H multi-role helicopters and two Mi-35 helicopters. The Mi-35 is an improved version of the infamous Mi-24 Hind, and the Mi-171 is an improved version of the Mi-17.
Who better to know when a nuclear situation is real bad, then those who dealt with Chernobyl. Russia, back then part of the now extinct Soviet Union when the Chernobyl disaster happened, says Japan is in trouble.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says the situation at Fukushima Daiichi is showing no signs of improvement. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says the situation is still out of control.
From the very beginning of the nuclear disaster in Japan, Russian nuclear engineers have warned that the type of design used at Fukushima Daiichi (by the way, designed by General Electric) is dangerous if damaged in a natural disaster. Basically it can not be saved.
Russia is offering a ‘water cleaner’ used on decommissioned nuclear submarines, to Japan.
State-run Rosatom corporation, which is involved with taking apart old nuclear submarines, has a device that ‘cleans’ low level radiation from water. TEPCo has to periodically release low level radioactive water into the ocean, to maintain operational safety at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Also, Reactor 2 continues to dump high level radiation contaminated water into the ocean. However the Russian water cleaner can not handle the higher levels of radiation.
The Russian water cleaner is a 65 meters (213 feet) long floating platform that was build with money from Japan. Rosatom officials say they are ready to tow it to Japan, if requested.
“the need to adapt [to the time change] is connected with stress and illnesses.”-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
This spring is the last time Russia will change its clocks. Come October they’ll be no daylight savings to deal with. In 1981 the Soviet Union started a daylight savings program. Russia continued the program, but more and more health studies, in Russia, are pointing to daylight savings as a cause of stress. Other scientists question those studies.
That fact is that, even here in the United States, a lot of people hate daylight savings.
In the U.S. the idea of daylight savings has been around since Benjamin Franklin. Since 1916 many countries have been experimenting with it. And many of them think it’s time to get rid of it.
The majority of the lower house of the Russian Duma (Parliament) approved a resolution condemning the military action against Libya, and demanding it be stopped.
“The State Duma expresses concern over the scale and form in which the military force is used against Libya and calls for parliaments of France, Great Britain, United States, Italy, Canada and other states that are conducting the military operation to assist the immediate end of combat that damages the peaceful Libyan infrastructure and most importantly causes new casualties among civilian population.”
Russian politicians point out that UNSCR 1973 does not have specific limits on military action. Also, each of the UN coalition members are interpreting it differently, which is why the operation looks so haphazard.
This lack of specifics in the UN resolution is partly why President Obama is still trying to work out who will take the lead from the U.S., days after he told Congress that the U.S. involvement would end in a few days.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared that Russia is willing to mediate peace talks in Libya. Medvedev believes the conflict will not be resolved quickly, despite what President Obama said.
Russia abstained from voting of UNSCR 1973 not because they were against a no fly zone, but because the language of UNSCR 1973 did not sound like a no fly zone resolution.
Even if there was a team put in place for peace talks, the militant rebels have stated that they do not want to talk peace. The announcement came from the National Council of Libya, which proclaimed itself to be the country’s new government and has already established ties with foreign powers. The European Union has already recognized the “self proclaimed government” (gee what happened to democratic elections?).
Russia has fired its ambassador to Libya. No official reason given so far.
A Russian newspaper speculates the ambassador was fired for failing to understand Russia’s interests in Libya.
Russia is against the UNSCR 1973.
A Libyan government official said they will discuss oil contracts with China, India, Russia and Brazil.
This is to gain support against “neo-crusaders”, taking military action against Libya, through the UN resolution.
China has already condemned the military operation against Libya. 20,000+ Chinese were evacuated from Libya at the end of February.
Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh said he wanted to see Libyans make their own decisions “free of outside interference.” India evacuated 18,000 workers from Libya.
Will Russia resume weapons sales to Libya? Russia stopped weapons sales, but only on the condition that military action would not be taken against Libya. “In Moscow, we regret this armed action within the hastily passed UNSCR Resolution 1973,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.
Brazil’s newly elected president, Dilma Rousseff, said Brazil expects more of the United States, criticizing American protectionism. Brazil opposes military action against Libya. Brazil has also evacuated citizens from Libya.
Brazil, Russia, China and India are now the world’s strongest economies.
Alexei Arbatov, the head of the International Security Center of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said attacking Libya will prove that obtaining WMDs is necessary to keep from being attacked by the West.
“An attack against Libya would be a gift for all violators of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. If Libya becomes an object of a military operation, it will lead some countries to believe that no one would think of threatening Gaddhafi with a military operation now if he had not voluntarily given up his nuclear program several years ago.”
In order to receive financing from western countries, and gain favor from western governments, Gaddafi revealed his WMD program and allowed international inspection and dismantlement of that program. That’s why President Bush Jr removed Gaddafi from the terrorist list. Now the West is about to attack him.
Arbatov says “This will lead Iran, Syria, and some other countries violating the non-proliferation regime to make a new powerful step towards obtaining nuclear weapons.”