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The leaders of China and Kazakhstan have agreed to finance and build a network of pipelines to supply the world's fastest-growing major economy with oil and gas from the Caspian Sea region. "The Caspian will be linked to western China," Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev told reporters in the capital Astana on Saturday after meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao. "These are major projects, and today we reached agreement on these issues." Kazakhstan's Atasu-Alashankou oil route will be extended and a gas link from Turkmenistan to China through Kazakhstan will be built, Bloomberg News quoted Nazarbayev as saying. The gas link...

Poland wants energy corridor from Caspian WARSAW, Poland, March 22 (UPI) -- Polish President Lech Kaczynski's visit to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan is expected to focus on the building of a crude oil transportation corridor from the Caspian Sea. "One of the elements of such cooperation is cooperation in the energy sector," Piotr Naimski, the deputy economy minister who is in charge of diversification of sources of energy supplies, said Wednesday. "We hope that Kazakh authorities will be able finalize their decision on the country's involvement in the Odessa-Brody-Plock project which truly may (be) called the Aktau-Georgia-Black Sea-Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk project." The comments...

ANKARA: The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline - a $4 billion US-backed project to supply oil to Western markets - will be officially inaugurated Thursday with a high-profile ceremony in southern Turkey. The conduit will carry oil from the Caspian Sea fields, the world's third largest reserves, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, by-passing Russia's energy web, as well as US foe Iran, and easing Western reliance on Middle East crude supplies.One of the longest in the world, it stretches over 1,774 kilometers from the Azeri capital of Baku via Georgia to Ceyhan, the terminal on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, from where tankers...

US bypasses Russia with BP pipeline By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow (Filed: 09/06/2006) Washington scored a significant victory in its contest with Moscow for influence in Central Asia yesterday when Kazakhstan agreed to start pumping oil to the West through a British Petroleum pipeline that bypasses Russia and Iran. The deal, secured largely because of a personal visit to Kazakhstan last month by Dick Cheney, the United States vice-president, will infuriate the Kremlin. But there will be secret relief in European capitals, where there is growing concern over Russia's apparent willingness to use its vast energy supplies as a political...

The worldwide trade in caviar and other products that come from the wild sturgeon has been banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. A spokesman said the decision was imposed for scientific reasons connected to dwindling stocks of sturgeon, and to bring an end to illegal poaching in the Caspian Sea. Every year the organisation approves fishing quotas for sturgeon proposed by nations from the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Danube regions. Now it is asking for confirmation about stocks of the fish before it can agree to new catches, saying exporting countries should adopt a...

Sun 4 Dec 2005 Why the humble Kazhak voter counts in the global oil game CHRIS STEPHEN IN ASTANA AN ELECTION in Kazakhstan might not appear to be of global significance, but this weekend world leaders will be focusing on events in the Central Asian state. The reason for the interest in today's presidential vote is not in the capital, Astana, but under a patch of sea thousands of miles away. Beneath the murky waters of the Caspian Sea sits the world's second largest oil field - discovered just four years ago and about to be opened for business,...

Tehran, 28 September 2005 (CHN) -- Archaeological excavations in Gohar Tepe, in Mazandaran province in Iran, has led to the discovery of the remains of the statues of some cows which were most probably used in religious ceremonies. The discovery of these sculptures indicates that the people of the region worshiped cows 3000 years ago. Mazandaran is one of the most ancient provinces in Iran. Archaeological excavations indicate that the province has been inhabited by human beings since 400,000 years ago until the present time, and that around 5000 years ago, urbanization flourished in the area. Gohar Tepe is a...

Cohiba cigars move over: the new gift of choice between wealthy American gourmets with a penchant for illegal luxuries may soon become beluga caviar. From today, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is suspending imports of beluga sturgeon caviar and meat from the Caspian sea basin, including Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The decision comes after those countries failed to submit laws and plans for conserving the species, which was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act last year. Black Sea countries, which also produce beluga caviar, could face similar measures in the future. Conservationists applauded the decision....

Sep 23, 2005 — BAKU (Reuters) - The United States is to help its Caspian Sea ally Azerbaijan build a radar station on its border with Iran and another near Russia, a U.S. embassy official said on Friday. The Pentagon has said its aid is to help Azerbaijan's navy protect offshore oil deposits and to combat terrorism. Iran has been angered by U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan in the past. "The United States has provided funds for the construction of radar stations in Astara, on the border with Iran, and in the southern Greater Caucasus mountains, on the border with...

As growing concerns about dwindling global reserves help maintain oil prices close to the $50 a barrel mark, a major supply route linking newly developed oil and gas fields in the Caspian Sea with western markets is due to be opened. The pipeline is expected to spark an economic boom in Baku Within the next few weeks, oil from the Caspian will start flowing into a 1,762 kilometres long pipeline. The pipeline will run from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, via near Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and across eastern Turkey to the port of Ceyhan, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast....

It is playing a key role in curbing and caging North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. It played a key role in disarming Libya, discovering and rolling up the Pakistani A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network, and has become a framework for international military and police exercises organized by the United States. Its membership includes most of the world's largest economic powers, most of the world's largest military powers, and most of the most influential states on earth. The United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Russia, the Netherlands, France, Australia and Germany are among its 15 member states, and it is one...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

MOSCOW, Aug 10, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov raised the possibility on Saturday of creating a multinational defense force in the resource-rich Caspian Sea, a Russian news agency reported. "I can't exclude the creation in the Caspian of a military group which would include Russia, Kazakhstan and other Caspian Sea countries," Ivanov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. Ivanov is currently in the Caspian Sea city of Kaspiisk in Russia's Dagestan region to observe large-scale naval maneuvers in the disputed Caspian waters. The former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are also...

Moscow May 24. The Russian and U.S. Presidents, Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush, agreed today to launch a ``new energy dialogue'' that could reduce U.S. dependency on West Asian oil supplies and provide a major boost to the Russian economy. ``World economic growth depends on the stability and reliability of energy supplies,'' they said in a joint statement. Russia is ``one of the biggest world energy suppliers, and in order to increase international energy security and (market) stability, we have agreed to launch a bilateral energy dialogue,'' the statement said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency. Enhanced Russia-U.S....

NATO official says the alliance is willing to help solve ecological problems affecting Caspian Sea Tue May 7,12:43 PM ET By AIDA SULTANOVA, Associated Press Writer BAKU, Azerbaijan - NATO (news - web sites) offered its help on Tuesday to resolve the ecological problems that are threatening the resource-rich Caspian Sea. Jean Fournet, NATO's deputy general secretary for science and environment, told a two-day conference in the Azerbaijani capital that the military alliance could help bring together experts to provide advice to the five Caspian Sea states. "As you know, the interest of NATO in organizing such seminars is to...

<p>ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan - The leaders of the five states bordering the oil-rich Caspian Sea appeared as far apart as ever as they opened a summit Tuesday on how to the divide its underwater mineral bounty.</p> <p>In their opening statements, all five presidents called for the fastest possible solution, but stuck to their old positions that have prevented them from defining the sea's legal status for a decade.</p>