Russia warns West opposite crippling Iran sanctions

Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:03am EST Related News No reason to stall Iran missiles deal, Moscow saysSun, Feb 14 2010

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A senior Russian diplomat warned the West on Wednesday against trying to paralyze Iran by targeting the Islamic Republic"s energy and banking sectors with crippling sanctions.

World&&&&Russia

Russia has in recent weeks signaled growing frustration with Iran over its nuclear program, though Moscow has given few indications about what sanctions it might be prepared to sign up to in the United Nations Security Council.

The United States has said it hopes to see sanctions against Iran in a matter of weeks and Israel has pressed Russia to back crippling sanctions, though the Kremlin has steered clear of openly supporting calls for further U.N. sanctions.

Oleg Rozhkov, the deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry"s security affairs and disarmament department, said Moscow would only consider sanctions aimed at strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

"Call them what you want -- crippling or paralyzing -- we are not got going to work on sanctions or measures which could lead to the political or economic or financial isolation of this country," Rozhkov told reporters in Moscow.

When asked by a reporter what sanctions Russia might be able to support, he said: "Those that are directed at resolving non-proliferation questions linked to Iran"s nuclear program."

"What relation to non-proliferation is there in forbidding banking activities with Iran? This is a financial blockade. And oil and gas. These sanctions are aimed only at paralyzing the country and paralyzing the regime," he said.

Iran holds 16 percent of the world"s proven gas reserves and 11 percent of the world"s oil reserves, but desperately needs investment to develop them.

The United States, major European Union nations and Israel suspect Tehran is using its civilian nuclear program as cover for the development of a nuclear weapon.

SANCTIONS?

Tehran denies it is seeking to make an atomic weapon. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog added to the pressure on Iran last week, saying it feared Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability.

Russian officials this month for the first time raised serious doubts about the true nature of Iran"s nuclear activities, though diplomats say the call on sanctions lies with Russia"s paramount leader, Vladimir Putin.

Putin, who serves as prime minister after stepping down as Kremlin chief, rarely comments on Iran, although he last year warned the West against pushing Tehran into a corner.

"We do not consider the sanctions path the right one -- it pushes the situation further and further into a dead end, a dead end which can only be resolved by force and we do not support that at all," Rozhkov said of Iran sanctions.

Russia has trade ties worth $3 billion annually with Iran and weapons contracts that Israel has urged Moscow to renege on, including a deal to sell Tehran S-300 air defense systems.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday Russia would not deliver the truck-mounted S-300 missile systems -- which could protect Iran"s nuclear facilities against air strikes -- if such a sale would destabilize any region.

(Additional reporting by Conor Sweeney and Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov)

World Russia

Amy Williams slides her approach to ancestral Olympic bullion for Britain

Britain ended a 30-year wait for a solo Winter Olympic gold medal today after Amy Williams slid her way to glory in the skeleton bob.

The 27-year-old from Bath was more than half a second quicker than the rest of the field at Vancouver 2010 after the final heat.

She becomes Britain"s first gold medallist in an individual discipline at the Winter Olympics since ice skater Robin Cousins, who triumphed at Lake Placid in 1980.

Gold medalist Amy Williams is carried by Germany"s bronze medalist Anja Huber (L) and silver medalist Kerstin Szymkowiak

Winner: Amy Williams picked up Britain"s first individual Winter Olympic gold medal for 30 years today

Williams, nicknamed "curly wurly" because of her frizzy hair, hugged team-mates and wrapped herself in a Union Flag after her win at the track in Whistler, Canada

She was leading going into the fourth and final run, and held off Kerstin Szymkowiak from Germany

She also beat the home favourite Mellisa Hollingsworth, who ended up fifth - and survived a protest against the legality of her helmet

More...ROBERT HARDMAN: As Canada"s Olympics are branded "the worst ever", what lessons can Britain learn for 2012?

Her win marks Britain"s first medal at this year"s Winter Olympics. Williams" team-mate Shelley Rudman, who won a silver at Turin four years ago, missed out on the podium this year.

Williams described her triumph as "crazy". She told the BBC: "I amabsolutely speechless. It"s all a blur. I can"t even remember half ofit.

"I just came out the bottom and looked at my coach."

Fan club: Amy Williams" supporters brave the cold to cheer her on in the skeleton competition in Vancouver

But International Bobsleigh and Tobogganing Federation jury president Wolfgang Strauss said the helmet"s manufacturer confirmed the ridges were "an integral part" and it was ruled legal for racing.

Williams led from the first round, also setting the fastest time in the third heat.

Andy Hunt, Team GB"s chef de mission in Vancouver, paid tribute to her performance.

He said: "It was absolutely extraordinary. It"s a great night for Amy, and great night for Team GB. We are delighted for her.

"Right from the outset she was in the lead and she maintained that throughout. It"s just an extraordinary achievement."

Mr Hunt also praised her focus after the protest was made.

"She absolutely kept her cool and kept her focus and look what she delivered."

UK Sport chief executive of UK Sport John Steele added: "It takes a lot of endeavour, sacrifice and team work to become an Olympic champion and I would like to congratulate Amy, British Skeleton and all those behind the scenes who have contributed to this success."

British Skeleton received a record 2.1m of lottery and exchequer funding for Vancouver through UK Sport.

Conservative understanding could separate Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg warned

Tom Baldwin, Chief Reporter & , : {}

Nick Clegg is being warned that an try to set upon a grave understanding with a minority Tory supervision after the subsequent choosing risks dividing the Liberal Democrats.

At his partys open conference, that starts in Birmingham today, Mr Clegg will once some-more outline policies that he pronounced would form the basement for negotiations if the Lib Dems hold the change of energy in a hung Parliament.

Senior celebration figures, together with a little close to the leadership, have told The Times, however, of regard over how far he could lift the celebration in to an fondness with David Cameron.

There is additionally difficulty about either a understanding would be theme to the ostensible 3 times close imposed in 1998 on Paddy Ashdown, as the personality then, when he was thought to be deliberation a bloc with Labour.

Related LinksLib Dem aims to go from porn to ParliamentLib Dems in quandary over understanding with ToriesLabour hints at Liberal Democrat agreement

The design diction of this rule, disclosed usually after steady inquiries to Liberal Democrats domicile this week, sets a high club for clearing any estimable offer that could affect the partys autonomy of domestic action.

If Mr Clegg unsuccessful to secure await from 3 buliding of his MPs and the partys sovereign executive, he would be forced to win the subsidy of a infancy of representatives at a special conference.

A orator for the Liberal Democrats reliable yesterday that checks have already been done on the accessibility of a accumulation of venues for such an puncture assembly of the celebration in May.

Although a little of Mr Cleggs frontbench group contend that this order relates usually to coalitions, others demand that it would additionally cover a looser agreement in that the Liberal Democrats upheld a Budget and key planks in a legislative programme for a minority government.

Steve Webb, the partys work and pensions spokesman, who is on the left of the party, said: The personality cannot simply confirm this himself, that is what the 3 times close is all about. We have to discuss these things as a approved party.

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, as the former Lib Dem personality is right away known, indicated that Mr Clegg should not feel as well firm by the restrictions that were imposed on him twelve years earlier.

It was a prolonged time ago, he said, adding that a little of those who were ostensible to know what it meant were right away dead. One of them might have been me, but I cant remember.

With perspective polls consistently indicating to a hung Parliament in new weeks, Mr Clegg has sought to defuse conjecture over what he would do by observant that the celebration with the greatest charge would have the dignified right to form a government.

Sources close to the Lib Dem leader, however, have additionally done solid that he would find it formidable to work with Gordon Brown and was not tender by the Prime Ministers new acclimatisation to electoral reform. Last year Mr Clegg said: I think Labour has to go in to antithesis prior to it reinvents itself.

Hints of a Lib Dem-Tory agreement bluster to put him at contingency with a little of the MPs who face extreme hurdles from Conservatives at the election, as well as left-leaning activists. A ComRes/BBC check of Lib Dem councillors last year referred to that 31 per cent lucky a understanding with Labour in the eventuality of a hung Parliament, twice the suit who would fan with the Conservatives.

Thought is already being since inside of both the Conservative and Lib Dem leaderships to either Mr Cameron could oversee by creation ad hoc agreements with MPs from not as big parties.

But Lord Razzall, the Liberal Democrats commercial operation orator and the arch strategist at the prior election, said: The elephant in the room will be the mercantile situation. If there is no probability of fast supervision you could have a run on sterling, a fall in the batch marketplace and doubts about the AAA rating. The vigour would be on.

No choice can be ruled out, but it is improved for the nation if we dont have a short-term agreement that will lead to instability. Nick Clegg has done that clear.

In an talk with The Independent yesterday, the celebration personality indicted the Tories of formulating fears in the City about a hung Parliament and pronounced that his priority would be to action as a guarantor of mercantile stability.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, is already formulation to introduce fifteen billion of cuts prior to the Budget. He pronounced on Sunday: The open are unequivocally fed up with slight short-term politics. They wish to see parties climb on top of that. We could work with alternative parties. Why not?

A expected condition of any understanding would be a guarantee from Mr Cameron that he would not try to win an altogether infancy by job a second cut and run choosing inside of eighteen months or dual years.

I think fortitude is so critical that people are entitled to design that they are not going to be all the time asked to go behind on a dull Thursday afternoon to opinion again and again and again, Mr Clegg pronounced this month.

Lord Greaves, a maestro of Liberal grassroots activism, however, likely that an agreement with the Conservatives would fundamentally means a lot of agitation.

He said: The routine of democracy inside of the celebration would come in to play. Whatever we confirm will see a little people in observant they dont most similar to it there will be a little who contend they unequivocally dont similar to it.

hair wig

Prime Minister expresses regard as Portsmouth go in to administration

Philippe Naughton and Ben Smith & , : {}

Gordon Brown voiced his regard currently for the pang inflicted by football clubs who destroy to control their finance management as Portsmouth became the initial Premier League bar to go in to administration.

The South Coast bar went in to intentional administration, avoiding liquidation, but perceived an involuntary nine-point chastisement that all but guarantees the relegation.

As the administrators who have to organize Portsmouth"s sale got down to work, the Prime Minister"s central orator described it as "a unhappy day for a great club".

He added: It is a make a difference for particular clubs and the HMRC, but this issue of essential manners and governance has been lifted by Andy Burnham, when he was (Secretary of State) at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Times Archive, 1939: Portsmouth"s crater delight

Scoring 4 goals is surprising in any FA Cup final, but Portsmouth were well value their feat

Portsmouth again champions, 1950 Newcastle United 0, Portsmouth 5, 1949 Portsmouth 7, Racing Club de Paris 1, 1933 Related LinksPortsmouth reaction: a unhappy day for British footballPortsmouth set for relegation after entering administrationPortsmouth proceed plans for the prolonged tenure MultimediaDEBATE: Should Premier League share blame?

We sojourn endangered that fans and communities of football clubs similar to Portsmouth shouldnt humour since of the incapacity of clubs to control their finance management properly. This is a great bar and we goal they will be means to lapse to their former glories.

Clubs similar to Portsmouth have a extensive internal following. Its a great bar with lots of people who suffer examination them. If they are no longer means to fool around football, it is a unhappy loss for the internal community.

No 10"s countenance of await will come as meagre satisfaction for tens of thousands of Portsmouth fans where were entrance to conditions currently with the awaiting of hold up in the Championship and could nonetheless see the club"s 112-year story ended.

Andrew Andronikou, the director brought in to save Portsmouth, has appealed to the club"s fans to be patient. "Please bear with us," he said. "Our target is to control the administration department department on an wholly pure basis. Please stay at the back of us, I guarantee that we will save your club."

Andronikou additionally suggested that the bum bar will have to sell players to survive. "There will be no firesale," he said. "But we will have to sell one or dual players and we will be articulate to the Premier League to try to get a benefaction from them. I have a shortcoming to all the creditors and I will try to maximize their positions."

It is thought doubtful that the League will determine to his ask to sell players outward the window.

However, Portsmouth have been increased by the headlines that Avram Grant will sojourn as physical education instructor until the finish of the season. "I have oral to Avram and it would be really genuine to begin seeking for a new physical education instructor now," Andronikou added. "He will stay until the finish of the season, I"m a organisation follower in receiving small steps. Avram has finished a really great pursuit in formidable resources and I only wish him to concentration on handling the group over the subsequent twelve games."

On a gloomy day for football finances, hours after the tumble of Portsmouth it was reliable Chester City have been diminished from the Football Conference with evident outcome after a assembly of the league"s part of clubs.

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Neil Warnock takes over as physical education instructor at QPR Football League

Gary Jacob & , : {}

Neil Warnock has been allocated Queens Park Rangers physical education instructor after they concluded last night to compensate Crystal Palace remuneration of �560,000.

Warnock has concluded to a understanding until the finish of the 2012-13 deteriorate value �1.2 million a deteriorate to take assign of the Coca-Cola Championship club, starting with the home compare opposite West Bromwich Albion on Saturday. His assistants and multiform backroom staff are to stick on him. Steve Coppell and George Burley are between the names being deliberate for the post at Palace until the finish of the season.

I am gay to be fasten a bar with the story that QPR has, Warnock said. As a manager, Loftus Road is regularly a place I desired since of the illusory ambience there.

Looking from afar, I hold this is the undiluted time for me to come in, with the new make up and authority in place. Together we can give the bar the fortitude that it needs. I am unequivocally looking brazen to the plea thats in front of me.

Related LinksWarnock set to contend farewell to PalaceWarnock staid to turn QPR physical education instructor

Warnock will turn Rangers" seventh manager, incompatible a raft of caretaker managers, in less than 3 years. The bar are looking to reconstruct after a violent duration that has additionally seen the depart of Flavio Briatore as chairman.

Warnock, 61, had been in assign of Palace since Oct 2007 and has additionally had spells at Sheffield United - whom he guided to the Premier League - Bury, Oldham Athletic, Plymouth Argyle, Huddersfield Town, Notts County and Scarborough.

Ishan Saksena, the QPR chairman, said: "Neil was regularly the series one aim and so we are gay to make known him as the manager. He has good experience in English football and a unusual lane record. I hold he is the right man to assistance QPR grasp the ambitions. Neil will be since the full await of the board, and I know the fans will give him their full subsidy as well."

Mick Harford, the caretaken manager, and his partner Tony Coton have stepped down from their particular roles. Harford said: "I was some-more than happy to assistance the bar out when they asked me, and I did the most appropriate I could during my time in caretaker charge. The bar needs an experienced physical education instructor in sequence to move forward, and I instruct Neil each success.

"He has assimilated a illusory football bar with shining supporters, and I unequivocally goal he does well."

High cost could hindrance Browns breeze plantation plan

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor & , : {}

Government plans to beget one third of Britains physical phenomenon from hulk offshore breeze parks by 2020 could be scrapped since of the immeasurable costs involved, according to the head of Britains greatest application company, as well as a key investor.

Sam Laidlaw, arch senior manager of Centrica, the owners of British Gas, pronounced it was misleading either the intrigue to set up an estimated 10,000 breeze turbines opposite swaths of the North and Irish seas would ever go ahead.

He pronounced that Centrica, that was awarded one of the 9 supposed Round Three growth zones last month, would ensue usually if the mercantile conditions are right, citing high costs for turbines and alternative apparatus as well as singular supervision monetary support.

To encounter the Governments targets, Round Three has to be mostly built out ... [but] the not a since that they will go ahead.

Related LinksJobs progress from turbines could go overseasEurope"s immature appetite prophesy puts UK in dim

The programme that has the personal subsidy of Gordon Brown is a cornerstone of the Governments renewable appetite policy.

Maria McCaffery, arch senior manager of the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), pronounced that breeze farms would be necessary if Britain was to have a possibility of assembly the aim of generating thirty per cent to 40 per cent of the physical phenomenon from renewable sources by 2020.

She pronounced that building a whole the breeze farms would cost an estimated �100 billion and emanate 70,000 jobs in the UK.

Mr Laidlaw pronounced that the economics of generating physical phenomenon from offshore breeze turbines in low H2O up to 200 miles offshore remained questionable. He pronounced that larger foe was indispensable in between turbine suppliers, whilst some-more Asian manufacturers would need to come in the marketplace to expostulate down costs.

The Round Three growth section awarded last month to Centrica covers 2,200 block kilometres in the Irish Sea off the Anglesey seashore and is one of 9 such leases sole to developers by the Crown Estate, that owns the British seabed. If developed, the Centrica windfarm alone would be able of generating 4.2 gigawatts of renewable appetite sufficient appetite for some-more than 3 million homes.

However, the cost of you do so could be as high as �14.7 billion, according to industry estimates.

If built, the sum generating genius of all the Round Three projects put together would be 40 gigawatts some-more than half of stream generating genius from all of the UKs appetite stations, breeze farms and hydroelectric schemes.

However, Citigroup has estimated that the cost of installing one megawatt of offshore breeze is about �3.5 million rounded off five times the cost of building a whole a gas-fired appetite hire with the same capacity.

Offshore breeze farms beget physical phenomenon usually 40 per cent of the time.

Only about 1 per cent of the worlds breeze turbines are offshore and about half of those are around the shores of Britain.

Centrica, that plans to deposit �1.5 billion a year in new appetite generating apparatus and gas storage until 2020, is building a whole a 75 turbine breeze plantation off the Lincolnshire seashore at a cost of �725 million.

The remarks from Mr Laidlaw came as Centrica denounced a 7 per cent dump in organisation increase for 2009 to �1.86 billion.

Profits from the British Gas sell multiplication soared 58 per cent to a jot down �595 million. It lifted the full year division by 4.9 per cent to 12.8p.

British Gas pronounced it had recruited a serve 141,000 customers, bringing the sum last year to 15.7 million.

Mitsubishi joins UK expostulate towards turbine power

Labours long-promised complicated investment in immature jobs to spin Britain in to a powerhouse of breeze appetite production is commencement to take figure with the assistance of the Japanese (Robert Lea writes).

Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, and Ed Miliband, Energy Secretary, yesterday voiced a joining of up to �100 million from Mitsubishi to set up a breeze turbine investigate and growth centre in the North East.

If successful, it could lead to the building a whole of a production plant contracting 1,500 and provision the appetite companies. They are being speedy by the Government to make thousands of offshore turbines in the North Sea and elsewhere around the coast.

With tellurian breeze turbine leaders such as Vestas, Siemens and General Electric so far snubbing Britain as a production centre, the Government has sealed an agreement that will see Mitsubishi exam outrageous 100 metre-long turbines able of producing 6 megawatts of physical phenomenon which, if they work, would be the largest breeze turbines so far constructed anywhere in the world.

The Government is pledging �48.5 million to the plan and a contrast site off the Nortumbrian seashore at Blyth that will primarily occupy 200.

Camping in Rajasthan Travel The Observer

Golden wonder: a camel sight skirtsthe fairytale city of Jaisalmer. Photograph: Nicholas DeVore/Getty Images

A seasoned camper – or a fool for low mark – I"ve outlayed large uneasy nights underneath board dreaming, mostly literally, of an additional span of hosiery for my frostbitten toes. So on my initial night at the Serai oppulance dried stay nearby Jaisalmer – after a massage, a steaming-hot showering and an dusk of song and cooking underneath the stars – when I outing in to bed in my pre-heated tent to find a prohibited H2O bottle, I feel indeed indulged.

The Serai is my third stop on a week"s debate of oppulance tented practice in the Rajasthan desert. Each customary apartment in the stay is pitched on a bottom of golden Jaisalmer mill covering some-more than 1,000sq ft, and facilities a sitting room, a bed the distance of a judo pad and a lavatory with a plumbed toilet, identical tiwn sinks and shower. The porch final that you watch the nightfall armed with a GT – systematic by toll one of the bedside bells. Four suites additionally have in isolation fallen pools, whilst the Royal Suite comes with the own butler.

Luxury camps have turn the hippest approach of experiencing Rajasthan, dear by celebrities, honeymooners and peace-seekers alike. Over the past decade some-more than a dozen have sprung up in the state"s dried and jungle areas, but the Serai"s opening late last year took the turn of loftiness to silly new heights. Largely eco supportive and built by internal workers utilizing internal materials, the camps are a comparatively guilt-free approach to suffer the satisfaction and wildlife of the desert. But their singular interest positively lies in their clarity of nostalgia. "Tents have been an necessary piece of outward hold up in India given the 15th century," explains Jaisal Singh, the Serai"s owners and the man who launched Rajasthan"s initial oppulance camp, Sher Bagh, in 1999 in the Ranthambore inhabitant park, outward Jaipur. "If a viceroy was on vacation a state and the bedrooms were full, they"d put up a tented city for the alternative guests."

I began my outing 40km south of Jodphur at Mihirgarh ("the sun"s fortress"), a new boutique road house with 9 away flashy bedrooms and a beside stay comprising 7 large, well-lit tents. It is often used as a lazy place for those enjoying speciality horseback safaris, and counts Madonna in between the past guests. At night, a undiluted crescent moon peeks on top of the well-developed golden installation as it rises alluringly out of the dried and it"s transparent that the windy refuge will capture pleasing types.

After a day in the busy crowds of Jodhpur I"m behind in the wilderness, scrambling over high dunes with a moustached Jeep motorist in khakis and beret who seems to think he"s James Bond"s getaway guy. He"s essentially my licensed operator to Manvar, a stay set in a five-acre review in between Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.

Moti Singh Rathore, the owners of Manvar, says Rajasthan is well known for 3 things: "hospitality, pleasing women and empty landscapes equivalent by charming clothes". All 3 are in justification that dusk as we float camels out in to the dried to watch the sunset, whilst a sole piper silhouetted opposite the sky entertains and, rather incongruously, the camel drivers proceed content messaging. Around the campfire we"re wooed with internal singers and dancers, tandoori snacks and a firework display. That night, I deposit in to a pacific sleep, severely deliberation the early early retirement of my smashed two-man tent.

How to get there

A seven-day Boutique India channel from Bales Worldwide (balesworldwide.com, 0845 057 0600) costs from £2,295 per person, formed on dual pity a twin/double room. Price includes general and made at home flights with Jet Airways (jetairways.com), dual nights each at Mihir Garh, Manvar Desert Camp and the Serai, as well as in isolation transfers, in isolation sightseeing with internal English-speaking guides, and multiform meals.

Visit guardian.co.uk/travel for some-more recommendation and transport suggestions