By Vestnik Kavkaza
The Washington Times today continues to discuss relations between Russia and Hungary in an article "From Russia with love: An energy deal for Hungary." Russia has offered Hungary a deal that forced the Hungarian prime minister to call the Russian leader a benefactor. And not without reason, as 80 percent of Hungary's gas comes from Russia. Hungary is able to distinguish politics from business and is not going to miss an opportunity which presents itself. At the moment, a possibility has opened for building a new plant to generate electricity. Moscow, in turn, has decided to cease dependence on the decisions of Europe regarding Russia, and begun looking for allies. In recent weeks, Russia has made it clear to Greece that it is ready to cooperate with this country. As a result, at the end of the month an agreement on economic relations will be signed.
But at the moment, Europe is concerned about Hungary, which is an EU member loyal to Russia, which gives to it decisive leverage over the European Union. Some senior Western officials believe that the rapprochement between Russia and Hungary, Greece and Bulgaria, is part of a "clever" plan. European experts fear that Russia will have a significant impact in the European Union that would nullify all the efforts of European leaders to create a powerful and independent state. In connection with the fairly confident political course of Moscow and the change of the views of many European politicians towards Russia, even the world media have adopted a moderate tone towards the Russian Federation.
The English edition of The Daily Mail talks about the problems associated with the Iranian nuclear talks. "Good or bad Iran nuke deal? Israel vs. the US administration? Israel against the US administration". Israel stands for tightening the nuclear deal with Iran, and it has a good reason for it. Prime Minister Netanyahu is very concerned that Iran will be able to develop nuclear weapons without the knowledge of the world community. To convince the US to be steadfast in their attitude towards Iran, Netanyahu will speak to the US Congress on March 3. Tightening the inspection regime is a very dangerous measure, as Israel itself has acquired nuclear weapons illegally. At the same time, Iran's nuclear program could further undermine the unstable Middle East strategic management system. Many experts claim that by gaining control over Iran's nuclear program they will be able to prevent all the dangerous steps of Iran from the point of view of the Western political community
The main problem lies in the fact that Iran denies developing nuclear weapons and states that only enriches uranium for nuclear power plants. Negotiations on a limited supply of uranium fuel are not satisfying for the Iranian leadership. Western countries fear that any delay in reaching an agreement could give Iran time to ship most of the enriched uranium and still produce nuclear weapons.
The international edition of Forbes analyzes the Russian economy in an article "The Russian economy: good, bad, and everything in between" Against the statement of the West that Russia's economy breaks down sector by sector, the facts suggest another picture. At the macro level, the indicators are very encouraging, for example, total output increased by 0.9% compared with January last year. Although imports declined, natural resource extraction and total gas, water and electricity companies indices rose by 1.5 and 1.2% respectively. Due to the restrictions on the import of products of western production, Russia has increased domestic production. The reduction in imports of the Western automotive industry has led to increased volumes of domestic producers. Import substitution is in full swing. That is, in fact, the Russian economy is undergoing the change, not rotting, which will eventually allow Russia to remain at the same level. These data are not consistent with the Western thesis that "the whole rotten structure will soon come crashing down!"
