By Le Figaro with AFP

Posted 2 hours ago, Updated 2 hours ago

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre visits Equinor’s LNG plant in Melkoeya near Hammerfest on January 31, 2023. Ole Berg-Rusten / NTB / AFP

Thanks to the multiplied gas revenues from the Ukraine conflict, Norway is not a “war profiteer”, defended its prime minister in an interview with AFP on Wednesday a few days before a new aid plan in Kyiv.

Questioned in the Norwegian Arctic after visiting a gas liquefaction plant near Hammerfest, Jonas Gahr Støre dismissed accusations from those who want Oslo to do more for Ukrainians and suggested his country would soon become one of the first donors .

TO HAVE IN ADDITION – Gaz: “We are safe for this winter, the blackmail of Russia has failed” starts Ursula von der Leyen

“Norway is in full swing”

“That’s an idea that I categorically reject,” says the prime minister. His government intends to present a “multi-year aid package” in favor of Ukraine and poorer countries affected by the consequences of the war, such as rising grain prices.

Also readHow the war in Ukraine penalizes gas in favor of coal

This plan “will help them maintain their civilian infrastructure, hopefully one day rebuild a free Ukraine, and at the same time provide them with military support,” stressed the head of government. The exact quantity and content will be announced “early February”.

It is wrong to claim that his country is profiting inappropriately from the war in Ukraine, as the Polish Prime Minister in particular has argued. Norway has been working hard to offset the collapse in Russian gas supplies to Europe since last year, the prime minister said. It has emerged as its leading supplier, increasing its exports by 8 to 10%, helping the continent spend the winter warm.

budget surplus

It fills its coffers on the side: This year the government is forecasting a record budget surplus of 1.127 billion kroner (104 billion euros), driven by rising oil and gas revenues. A sum that will complement the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which is already the largest in the world with assets of more than 13,400 billion kronor.

“For 50 years Norway has explored and exploited energy resources, oil and gas at its own risk,” argued Jonas Støre. “Norway does not set the prices.”

The rise in gas prices, the Norwegian leader points out, is also reflected in rising electricity bills for Norwegian families and businesses, “which is a big challenge for us politically” in a country that is spinning, heating up and moving far towards electricity .

TO HAVE IN ADDITION – Gas: Qatar becomes a partner of TotalEnergies in the exploration of hydrocarbons off the coast of Lebanon

2023-02-01 12:46:00

More corruption cases in Ukraine’s administration: senior defense official charged

A senior official from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and two former Ministry officials have been charged by the Prosecutor General’s Office embezzling large sums of money and other crimes: Ukrainska Pravda is reporting today, citing law enforcement sources. The current official is Volodymyr Tereshchenko, Deputy Head of the Ministry’s Foreign Economic Activities Coordination Department, who at the time of the events held a senior position at the state-owned Promoboronexport company, which operates in the defense sector. Tereshchenko, was accused of embezzlement in the amount of about 1.23 million euros. The other two suspects are the former Deputy Secretary of Defense, Vyacheslav Shapovalovand the former deputy director of the State Procurement Department of the Department of Defense, Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. The former deputy minister is suspected of failing to provide some units of the armed forces with personal protective equipment worth more than a billion hryvnia (over 25 million euros). Khmelnytskyi was accused of embezzling around 107.8 million hryvnia ($2.7 million) in state funds and supplying 5,700 substandard bulletproof vests to armed forces units. Ukrainska Pravda also reports that Ukrainian police searched the oligarch’s house today Igor Kolomoisky, a well-known billionaire sanctioned by the United States and allegedly stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the National Economic Security Bureau conducted searches in the central-eastern city of Dnipro this morning. According to a police source, the operation is linked to Kolomoisky’s embezzlement of 40 billion hryvnia ($1 billion) worth of petroleum products and evasion of tariffs on large sums.

02/01/2023 12:43:33

Russian journalist condemned for denouncing the bombing of the Mariupol hospital

Well-known journalist and former Russian MP Alexander Nevzorov was sentenced in absentia by a Moscow court eight years imprisonment because he was found guilty of dissemination “Misinformation” about the Russian military operation in Ukraine, notably the accusation by Russian forces of deliberately bombing a children’s hospital in Mariupol. This was reported by the Russian authorities. Nezvorov, who has since left Russia and did not attend the hearings, was charged in March last year with, among other things, “publishing false photos of civilians affected by the bombing.” The 64-year-old journalist has a YouTube channel that is followed by almost two million users. After the start of the military operation in Ukraine, the Russian authorities passed a new law providing for severe penalties for spreading what Moscow considers false or defamatory messages against the armed forces. Several activists and journalists have already been convicted under the law.

02/01/2023 11:33:56

Kremlin supports cuts in Abrams tanks

The Kremlin welcomes the proposals put forward by a private company in recent days, an actor and some regional governors to pay the military a reward for every American Abrams tank destroyed in Ukraine. The spokesman said Dmitry Peskov. “Western tanks will burn, and thanks to rewards from business and regions, the number of enthusiasts will grow” ready to destroy them, said the spokesman, quoted by the RIA Novosti agency.

02/01/2023 11:32:58

Kremlin: New missiles will exacerbate escalation

The new American supplies to Ukraine, including all long-range missiles, “will not change events on the ground,” but will only help exacerbate the escalation, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted by RIA Novosti agency.

02/01/2023 09:37:55

Kyiv: “Russians are razing Bakhmut to the ground”

“The Russians are racing to the ground Bachmut, in eastern Ukraine, is a total ruin, they kill everyone they can find. We carefully document all war crimes. They will be held responsible for everything,” the head of the Ukrainian military administration of the Donetsk region Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote in Telegram.

02/01/2023 09:32:31

Biden could meet Zelenskyy in Poland

US President Joe Biden could meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Poland. This was reported by the Polish newspaper “Dziennik Gazeta Prawnà”, citing a diplomatic source in Kyiv. The US President was due to make a trip to Europe on the occasion of the February 24th anniversary. Zelenskyy intends to submit his 10-point peace plan to Biden, including the creation of a special tribunal to investigate war crimes by the Russian occupiers. At the same time, arms negotiations for Ukraine are being conducted.

02/01/2023 08:29:51

Netanyahu: “If the parties ask for it, he is ready to mediate in Ukraine”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu He said he was ready to mediate between Russia and Ukraine if both parties and the US asked him to. “If it is requested by all relevant parties – he said in an interview with CNN – I will certainly consider it, but I do not propose it.” Then he added that there had to be “the right times and the right circumstances”. The prime minister then announced that he had been contacted as a mediator last February, immediately after the Russian invasion, but had declined. “I have a rule – he said -: one prime minister at a time”.

02/01/2023 06:36:48

Media: “US prepares long-range missiles”

the United States They are preparing more than $2 billion in military aid to Ukraine, which will include long-range missiles and other ammunition and weapons for the first time, some media outlets reported, citing Portal. Military aid, two American leaders say, is expected to be announced as early as this week. They are also expected to contain support equipment for Patriot air defense systems, precision guided munitions, and Javelin anti-tank weapons.

South Korea was the largest recipient of capital from this Indochinese nation with $125.1 million, 98.7 percent of the total, followed by Thailand ($1.5 million) and Laos ($140,000), the Foreign Investment Agency said.

On the other hand, according to the company, Vietnam expects to attract between $36,000 and $38,000 million in foreign direct investment (FDI) over the course of this year.

This Southeast Asian nation took in $1.69 billion in January, down 19.8 percent year-on-year, according to estimates by the Department of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Department.

However, experts pointed out that this decrease in registered and even disbursed FDI capital still does not reflect the general trend of investment flows, since at the beginning of the year there were two long public holidays and therefore fewer working days.

In January, 153 new projects were licensed here with an estimated payout of $1.2 billion, representing a 48.5 percent increase in the number of ventures and 3.1 times the share capital compared to the previous year.

These numbers confirm foreign investors’ confidence in Vietnam’s investment environment, they added.

Most of the capital (651.9 million greenbacks) was used for projects related to the wholesale, retail and repair of cars and motor vehicles, accounting for 54.1 percent of the total.

In terms of FDI capital transacted in the first month of the year, news outlet VN Express International detailed an estimate at $1.35 billion, down 16.3 percent from the same period in 2022.

Processing and manufacturing saw the highest inflow at $1,000.050 million (77.6 percent of the total), while production and distribution of electricity, gas, hot water, steam and air conditioning brought in $122.7 million and real estate brought in 81.7 million dollars.

ode/mpm

How should the EU react in competition for promising industries with countries like the US and China? European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will present proposals on this issue on Wednesday. Since the Washington government has decided to provide huge economic aid, it is feared in the EU that companies could establish new locations in other regions of the world and reallocate jobs there if they are not also subsidized here.

Specifically, the requirements for state aid in the EU are expected to be further relaxed in the future, as can be seen in the draft available to the German news agency dpa. So they should be awarded for more technologies, be higher than before, and awarded for a longer period of time. At the same time, the EU Commission wants to strengthen green energy production in Europe with the initiative. EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who is responsible for competition, also wants to come out with more details on Wednesday.

Fear of disproportionate benefits

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) said on Tuesday that decisive improvements must be made, particularly with regard to state aid rules. Other EU countries, on the other hand, are concerned about the rules being relaxed too much. They fear that big countries like Germany could invest significantly more tax money and thus create disproportionate advantages for themselves and their companies.

The finance ministers of Ireland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Slovakia have recently warned that European competitiveness is not based on permanent or excessive and untargeted state aid. This can lead to states trying to outdo each other, which is not acceptable for individual member states.

Proposal against the “deterioration of competitiveness

The EU Commission’s draft also emphasizes that China has announced investments in clean technologies of more than 280 billion US dollars (about 258 billion euros). With the so-called Reduction of Inflation Act, the US is mobilizing more than 360 billion dollars for similar projects. “I see this as an incentive for Europe to do more now and become faster and better at promoting green technologies,” said Habeck.

“The EU Commission has finally recognized the urgency to do something about Europe’s deteriorating competitiveness,” said Fredrik Persson of the Business Europe interest group. According to the lobbyist, von der Leyen is showing leadership with his proposal. (apa, dpa)