Page 30 - bne IntelliNews Country Report: Russia Dec17

Facebook ads in the country, but the issue will have to be discussed with the US companies first, RIA Novosti reported.
Russia or Kazakhstan may have had a nuclear power station or processing facility accident , after a cloud of radioactive isotopes was detected over Russia that was a 1,000 times higher than normal radiation levels on November 22. Usually high pollution of a radioactive isotope in the Ural mountains was detected by the Rosgidromet Russian meteorological service admitted, in the first official Russian confirmation following reports of a nuclear incident in the region back in September. Earlier in November, the French nuclear safety institute IRSN said that a cloud of radioactive waste over Europe in the last week of September arrived as a result of an accident nuclear facility either in Russia or Kazakhstan.
US President Donald Trump defied his handlers at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting in Vietnam over the weekend and came out with extremely positive comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin despite the fact that the two men met only briefly. “When will all the haters and fools out there realise that having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. There [sic] always playing politics - bad for our country. I want to solve North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, terrorism, and Russia can greatly help,” Trump tweeted on November 12, setting of a storm of derision on social media.
Russia’s government has rushed through a tough new law that allows it to close down any media working in Russia in a tit-for-tat retaliation to US demands that state-owned broadcast RT register as a “foreign agent” in the US. Hastily drafted amendments passed the first of three readings in the Duma on November 15. The bill is expected to have its next two readings this week and could become law by November 17. The law gives Russia’s justice ministry new powers to ban any media outlet that receives funding from abroad. It is thought to be specifically aimed at US media outlets working in Russia in retaliation for the move against RT in the US.
An under-the-radar Chinese firm, China Energy Company (CEFC) , which had never invested earlier in Russia, has in recent months been preparing several corporate acquisitions in relation to a few Russian and international actors. CEFC announced in August plans to purchase a 14 % stake in Rosneft, part of a stake that had been acquired at end-2016 by a joint venture of the Swiss Glencore and the Qatar Investment Agency (QIA). CEFC participated in the IPO of Russian power and aluminium producer En+, as did the QIA. The Russian VTB might lend CEFC much of the money needed to finance these acquisitions. VTB earlier provided credit to Glencore and QIA in the initial Rosneft deal. In addition, VTB is a minority stakeholder in En+ and its major creditor. Glencore will also get a stake in En+ through a share swap. According to media reports, both CEFC and QIA have also negotiated about acquisitions or joint ventures with the NNK oil company, which is owned by Rosneft's former CEO Eduard Khudainatov. Both Rosneft and NNK are subject to certain US economic sanctions. The total value of CEFC's planned purchases is estimated to exceed 12 billion dollars.
The US treasury department published an amended version of one of its sanction directives on October 31 . The amendment concerns the ban of providing goods, services and technologies to certain Russian companies (including Rosneft and Gazprom) for projects to explore or produce oil in
30 RUSSIA Country Report December 2017 www.intellinews.com