Russian KAMAZ Truck Racing Team Leads Dakar-2009 Motor Rally

The Russian KAMAZ-Master truck racing team has taken the lead in the Dakar-2009 motor rally. On Thursday, two of the three Russian crews won the 625 kilometre (388 miles) sixth stage of the rally from San Rafael to Mendoza, in Argentina. Leading the race were the crews of Vladimir Chagin and Firdaus Kabirov, with their main rival, the crew of the Dutchman Gerard de Roy, trailing 26 minutes behind. Following the sixth stage, Kabirov moved to the lead in the truck team placing. Chagin is now second-best. The stage route ran in the foothills of the Andes at quite an altitude above sea level. This called for special piloting skills, to prevent the vehicles’ engines from shutting sown in the thin mountain air. The Russian team lived up to their fans’ expectations.

The Dakar motor rally is one of the world’s most prestigious automobile meets, and this year’s is the 31st in succession. It is for the first time in 30 years that the rally was held in South America, rather than in Europe and Africa. The previous rally was cancelled because of terrorist threats. Dakar-2009 started in Buenos Aires on the 3 January, with the track running from Argentina to Chile and back. The track length exceeds 9,500 kilometres (5.900 miles). More than 830 racers started in 500 vehicles, including motorcycles, quad bikes, cars, and trucks.

Today, on Friday, the racers will attack the seventh of the 14 legs of the race from Mendoza, Argentina, to Valparaiso, Chile. The stage track length is 816 kilometres (507 miles). The resultant high-speed track section is 419 kilometres (260 miles) long. The racers will have to compete in extreme conditions, such as sand dunes similar to those in the Sahara Desert, cross the Andes at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,842 feet) above sea level, and, then, cross into Chile. Firdaus Kabirov commented on the rally, “The main problem is clouds of road dust. You have to bend over backwards to manage to catch up with the truck in front. Besides, the overtaking makes you lose your time and makes things risky. All this will make Dakar-2009 largely different from the old Dakar rallies in Africa”. On 14 January, the race will return to Argentina, and it shall finish in Buenos Aires on the 18^th.

9 January 2009

Yevgeni Kryshkin

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=rus&q=96908&cid=25&p=09.01.2009

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Serbian President Tadić Instructed His Country’s National Gas Company to Sue the Ukraine

Serbian President Boris Tadić (1958- )

Serbian President Boris Tadić instructed his country’s national gas company to sue the Ukraine for damages in connection with the latest gas row. He said that Serbia and other European gas customers are victims of irresponsible behaviour on the Ukrainian side.

12 January 2009

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=38558&cid=219&p=12.01.2009

Editor’s Note:

Short, but, eloquent. The American policy in the Balkans is going down the toilet due to the feckless actions of the Orangies. It seems as though the edifice built in the 90s and 00s by Clinton and Bush II was a “house built upon the sand”. All those familiar with the Good Book know how that one ended! “Them whom the gods would destroy, first, they make them mad”. Ponder on that…

BMD

Archbishop Mark Arndt of the ROCOR Believes It Feasible To Set Up a United Russian Church Metropolitan District in Western Europe

Archbishop Mark Arndt of Berlin, Germany, and Great Britain (1946- )

The creation of a united Russian Church metropolitan district in Western Europe is “quite feasible”, Archbishop Mark Arndt of Berlin, Germany, and Great Britain (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR)) said. “His Holiness, the late Patriarch Aleksei of Moscow and all the Russias spoke out concerning such a body. Even though we were not even in canonical communication then, he agreed to participate in discussions on the question”, the website Sedmitza.ru quoted Archbishop Mark as saying.

Vladyki Mark noted that, at the present moment, the dioceses and parishes in Western Europe “are not very well coordinated. Some dioceses partially overlap each other, which creates an abnormal situation. It would be better for us to have one organisation, where everything would be united and we would operate in a conciliar manner”, Archbishop Mark believed. In his opinion, this question was earlier discussed with certain hierarchs and some of the laity, but, “A wide-ranging and multifaceted discussion has not yet taken place. It seems to me that, sooner or later, it will be necessary for us to take up the problem of establishing a metropolitan district in the Western Europe”, Vladyki Mark noted.

12 January 2009

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=28204

Editor’s Note:

A united Russian church in Western Europe… slava bogu! Now, what about the USA, Canada, and Australasia? It is time for unity there too! The OCA has to discard the stinking rags of its “autocephaly” and put on the garment that the Mother Church has lovingly preserved for it. Schmemann’s Folly has to be given decent burial, for it is decomposing and reeking to high heaven. As I have said often enough in the past, we can have “autocephaly”, or, we can have unity. I choose unity! What about you?

BMD

Gazprom said Kiev Signed a Gas Transit Deal, Dropping Earlier Conditions

Energy Minister Igor Sechin (1960- ) (left) with President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- ) (right)

The Ukraine signed a deal on monitoring Russian natural gas transits to Europe, removing its earlier conditions, Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Monday. “A Gazprom delegation held talks in Kiev this morning”, the company said in a statement. “The Ukraine signed the regulations for the monitoring of natural gas transits via Ukraine without any conditions”.

On Sunday, President Dmitri Medvedev said that a three-party deal to resume Russian gas supplies to the EU via the Ukraine was not valid as Kiev added its own amendments to it. Medvedev described the amendments as “a mockery of common sense”. On Monday, a Russian government official said that Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko, and senior Gazprom officials, led by CEO Aleksei Miller, were going to Brussels for talks on the gas dispute. Energy ministers from the 27 EU member-states will hold an emergency meeting later on Monday to discuss the crisis over disrupted Russian gas deliveries.

Supplies have been cut off for almost a week as Russia accused the Ukraine of siphoning off gas bound for Europe. Moscow said it would restore supplies when the monitoring deal was signed by all the sides and monitors are in place. The two countries failed to resolve their dispute over payments for Russian gas before New Year, and Russia cut off shipments to the Ukraine on 1 January, which led within days to a complete halt in gas transit to Europe.

12 January 2009

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090112/119435699.html

Editor’s Note:

What unmitigated gall the Orangies possess in spades! They expect discounts from Russia without offering any quid pro quo in return. In addition, they have no intention of paying their back arrears to Gazprom unless they are forced. Certainly, there is blackmail here, but, not on the part of Russia! Do not forget that the ideological godfathers of the Orangies (and the whole Galician Uniate nationalist cabal) are Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevich, both of whom were convicted murderers and Nazi collaborators.

Indeed, there is no equivalence between Russia, a true nation-state, and the Ukraine, which is a jumped-up fraud. There was no Ukrainian statehood prior to 1991, and the entire area of “Ukrainian” settlement is nothing other than the area of Russia that fell under the occupation of the Polish Commonwealth in the late Middle Ages. In fact, a great deal of what is passed in the media and open-source outlets such as Wikipedia (and OrthoWiki) is nothing but nationalist propaganda. For instance, the so-called “Ukrainian Catholic Church” was not called such prior to 1946. I remember holding in my hands an official publication of the Congregation for the Eastern Rites published in that year covering all of the Roman Catholic “Eastern Rites”. It made the point that there was a Ritus Rutheniensis (Ruthenian Rite), with no mention of a “Ukrainian Rite” at all. In short, most Ukrainian nationalist propaganda has absolutely no basis in fact, and all decent people must refute it. Russia stands for the right here, and must be supported.

BMD