Word: russia
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Green Air. Emirates begins nonstop service this week between Dubai and San Francisco. To make the 16-hour flight on a Boeing 777 as green as possible, the airline will fly a direct route over Russia, minimize idling time on the ground and even wash the planes before take-off to reduce drag. Emirates is also launching Airbus A380 service between Dubai and London...
...Russia is looking to the post-Georgia strategic environment, and the change of administration in Washington, as a moment to press forward with its own initiatives to reengineer the European security system along post-Cold War lines, eclipsing NATO, which is, after all, an institution based on Cold War strategic rivalry. On Thursday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev seemed to allude to skepticism Obama has expressed about the missile shield's effectiveness by calling on the new administration "to take constructive, reasonable stance, to show willingness to compromise on the most difficult issues." Moscow has also initiated a Europe-wide security...
...With the Bush administration now the lamest of lame ducks, the NATO agreement reflect desires in Europe to avoid offending Russia - especially on topics like Georgian and Ukrainian membership that many European leaders feel is an unnecessary provocation of Moscow," comments Andrew Wilson, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London. "The U.S. didn't really push too hard on the membership issue, because it knew it couldn...
...There was one key setback for Russia, though: The NATO communiqué endorsed U.S. deployment of its anti-missile system on Czech and Polish soil. Moscow views such deployments as a direct strategic challenge, and has vowed to counter them by deploying new missiles of its own near Poland. Although the Russian position enjoys some sympathy in Western Europe - France's President Nicolas Sarkozy only last month complained the U.S. missile defense system would "bring nothing to security" but would "complicate things" with Russia - there was no sign of that view in the final text agreed by NATO foreign ministers...
...that as it may, the European Union is divided between pragmatists and hard-liners on how to deal with Moscow. "Like it or not, Russia is Europe's neighbor, and it only makes sense to seek the best diplomatic and trade relations with your influential neighbors," says Laure Delcourt, a specialist on EU-Russian relations and head of research at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations in Paris. "Europe also has strategic interests with Russia the U.S. doesn't: it's overly dependent on Russian energy...