South Korea and Poland are set to evaluate the feasibility of constructing four 1,400-megawatt nuclear reactors in Patnow.
According to ministries from both countries, Seoul and Warsaw have signed outline agreements to develop nuclear power in Poland, as Poland strives to phase out coal and reduce carbon emissions and South Korea seeks to revitalise its nuclear industry.
Poland’s ZE PAK and PGE and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) will assess the viability of building four 1,400-megawatt nuclear reactors in Patnow, central Poland, using South Korean technology, the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Monday in a joint statement with the Polish Ministry of State Assets.
The companies, with government backing, intend to prepare a preliminary development plan for the plant by the end of this year, they said in a statement.
Since the election this year of President Yoon Suk-yeol, who pledged to revive the country’s nuclear power industry, South Korea has stepped up efforts to win nuclear power plant export orders.
If a final deal is signed, it will be “an achievement supported by the Korean government’s firm determination and policy to export nuclear plants”, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Chang-Yang Lee said.
Defence partnership
During his visit to South Korea, Polish State Assets Minister Jacek Sasin also discussed enhancing Poland’s defence partnership with Seoul, he said on Twitter.
“We welcome the information that ZE PAK and PGE have entered into talks with KHNP, which will further strengthen relations between Poland and South Korea,” Sasin was quoted as saying in a statement.
ZE PAK, owned by billionaire Zygmunt Solorz, produces energy mainly from lignite but plans to phase out coal by 2030 and produce energy only from renewable sources afterward.
Monday’s agreements follow an announcement on Friday when Warsaw said US firm Westinghouse Electric Co will build the country’s first nuclear power plant in northern Poland.
Even though a new liquefied natural gas project off the western coast of Africa is barely 80 percent finished, the potential of a new energy source has already attracted the attention of the governments of Poland and Germany.
The initial field near Senegal and Mauritania’s coastlines is expected to contain about 15 trillion cubic feet (425 billion cubic meters) of gas, five times more than what gas-dependent Germany used in all of 2019. But production isn’t expected to start until the end of next year.
That won’t help solve Europe’s energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Still, Gordon Birrell, an executive for project co-developer BP, says the development “could not be more timely” as Europe seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian natural gas to power factories, generate electricity, and heat homes.
“Current world events are demonstrating the vital role that [liquid gas] can play in underpinning the energy security of nations and regions,” he told an energy industry meeting in West Africa last month.
While Africa’s natural gas reserves are vast and North African countries like Algeria have pipelines already linked to Europe, a lack of infrastructure and security challenges have long stymied producers in other parts of the continent from scaling up exports.
Established African producers are cutting deals or reducing energy use so they have more to sell to boost their finances, but some leaders warn that hundreds of millions of Africans lack electricity and supplies are needed at home.
Challenges to exports
Nigeria has Africa’s largest natural gas reserves, said Horatius Egua, a spokesman for the petroleum minister, though it accounts for only 14 percent of the European Union’s imports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, that comes by ship.
Projects face the risk of energy thefts and high costs. Other promising countries like Mozambique have discovered large gas reserves only to see projects delayed by violence from armed groups.
Europe has been scrambling to secure alternative sources as Moscow has reduced natural gas flows to EU countries, triggering soaring energy prices and growing expectations of a recession. The 27-nation EU, whose energy ministers are meeting this week to discuss a gas price cap, is bracing for the possibility of a complete Russian cutoff but has still managed to fill gas reserves to 90 percent.
European leaders have flocked to countries like Norway, Qatar, Azerbaijan, and especially those in North Africa, where Algeria has a pipeline running to Italy and another to Spain.
Italy signed a $4bn gas deal with Algeria in July, a month after Egypt reached an agreement with the EU and Israel to boost sales of LNG. Angola also has signed a gas deal with Italy.
While an earlier agreement allowed Italy’s biggest energy company to start production at two Algerian gas fields this week, it wasn’t clear when flows would start from the July deal because it lacked specifics, analysts said.
Fossil fuels vs gas reserves
African leaders like Senegalese President Macky Sall want their countries to cash in on these projects even as they’re dissuaded from pursuing fossil fuels. They don’t want to export it all either — an estimated 600 million Africans lack access to electricity.
“It is legitimate, fair and equitable that Africa, the continent that pollutes the least and lags furthest behind in the industrialisation process should exploit its available resources to provide basic energy, improve the competitiveness of its economy and achieve universal access to electricity,” Sall told the UN General Assembly last month.
Algeria is a major supplier — it and Egypt accounted for 60 percent of the natural gas production in Africa in 2020 — but it can’t offset Russian gas to Europe at this stage, said Mahfoud Kaoubi, professor of economics and specialist in energy issues at the University of Algiers.
“Russia has an annual production of 270 billion cubic meters [9.5 trillion cubic feet]— it’s huge,” Kaoubi said. “Algeria is 120 billion cubic meters [4.2 trillion cubic feet], of which 70.50 percent is intended for consumption on the internal market.”
This year, Algeria is forecast to have piped exports of 31.8 billion cubic meters (1.1 trillion cubic feet), according to Tom Purdie, a Europe, Middle East, and Africa gas analyst with S&P Global Commodity Insights.
“The key concern here surrounds the level of production step-up that can be achieved, and the impact domestic demand could have” given how much gas Algeria uses at home, Purdie said.
Cash-strapped Egypt also is looking to export more natural gas to Europe, even regulating air conditioning in shopping malls and lights on streets to save energy and sell it instead.
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that Egypt hopes to bring in an additional $450 million a month in foreign currency by rerouting 15 percent of its domestic gas usage for export, state media reported.
More than 60 percent of Egypt’s natural gas consumption still is used by power stations to keep the country running. Most of its LNG goes to Asian markets.
A new, three-party deal will see Israel send more gas to Europe via Egypt, which has facilities to liquefy it for export by sea. The EU said it will help the two countries increase gas production and exploration.
In Nigeria, ambitious plans have yet to yield results despite years of planning. The country exported less than 1 percent of its vast natural gas reserves last year.
A proposed 4,400-kilometre-long (2,734-mile-long) pipeline that would take Nigerian gas to Algeria through Niger has been stalled since 2009, mainly because of its estimated cost of $13bn.
Many fear that even if completed, the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline would face security risks like Nigeria’s oil pipelines, which have come under frequent attacks from armed groups and vandals.
The same challenges would hinder increased gas exports to Europe, said Olufola Wusu, a Lagos-based oil and gas expert.
“If you look at the realities on the ground — issues that have to do with crude oil theft — and others begin to question our ability to supply gas to Europe,” he said.
Wusu urged pursuing LNG, calling it the “most profitable” gas strategy so far.
Even that isn’t without issues: In July, the head of Nigeria LNG Limited, the country’s largest natural gas firm, said its plant was producing at just 68 percent of capacity, mainly because its operations and earnings have been stifled by oil theft.
In the south, Mozambique is slated to become a major exporter of LNG after significant deposits were found along its Indian Ocean coast in 2010. France’s TotalEnergies invested $20bn and started work to extract gas that would be liquefied in a plant it was building in Palma, in the northern Cabo Delgado province.
But violence from armed groups forced TotalEnergies to indefinitely scupper the project last year. Mozambican officials have pledged to secure the Palma area to allow work to resume.
Italian firm Eni, meanwhile, pressed ahead with plans to pump and liquefy some of its gas deposits discovered in Mozambique in 2011 and 2014. Eni established a platform in the Indian Ocean 50 miles (80 kilometres) offshore, away from the violence in Cabo Delgado.
It’s the first floating LNG facility in the deep waters off Africa, Eni said, with a gas liquefaction capacity of 3.4 million tonnes per year.
The platform liquefied its first gas on October 2, according to Africa Energy, and the first shipment is expected to depart for Europe in mid-October.
It pays to have fun, especially if you’re Lil Yachty.
The melody in his new song “Poland” is bizarre, to say the least, which is exactly why it’s blowing up on TikTok, meme pages, and most other corners of the internet right now.
Over a synthy beat from F1lthy (Yeat, Playboi Carti), Yachty delivers a fairly simple hook (“I took the wock to Poland”) but it’s the way he says it that’s getting everyone’s attention. Adding an exaggerated warble to his voice, it almost sounds like he’s singing into a fan. Or maybe laying in a massage chair? Practicing for the opera?
However he did it, it’s oddly catchy and it doesn’t sound like anything else we’ve heard this year (or maybe ever).
Naturally, it’s already going viral. There are videos of people literally singing into fans and imagining the wild studio sessions that could have led to Yachty’s unusual vocals.
There’s even a Renaissance painting of Yachty taking giant bottles of lean to Poland (wock is short for Wockhardt, a pharmaceutical company that makes a popular codeine and promethazine cough syrup). If you do nothing else with your day, please listen to the bachata remix.
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau formalized Poland’s demand for reimbursement before a visit by Berlin’s top diplomat by signing a diplomatic note to Germany on World War II reparations.
The action on Monday comes after Poland’s ruling nationalists claimed that Germany owed their nation 6.2 trillion zlotys ($1.26 trillion) in debt last month.
“[The note] expresses the position of the Polish minister of foreign affairs that the parties should take immediate steps to permanently and effectively … settle the issue of the consequences of aggression and German occupation,” Rau told a news conference.
Lukasz Jasina, Poland’s foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters that Rau would raise the issue with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock during her visit to Warsaw on Tuesday.
The damages
About six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war, and Warsaw was razed to the ground following a 1944 uprising in which about 200,000 civilians died.
In 1953, Poland’s then-communist rulers relinquished all claims to war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union, which wanted to free East Germany, also a Soviet satellite, from any liabilities.
Poland’s ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) say that agreement is invalid because Poland was unable to negotiate fair compensation.
It has revived calls for compensation since it took power in 2015 andhas made the promotion of Poland’s wartime victimhood a central plank of its appeal to nationalism.
The combative stance towards Germany, often used by PiS to mobilise its constituency, has strained relations with Berlin.
According to the Polish gas pipeline operator, gas has begun to flow via the new Baltic Pipe network from Norway to Poland via Denmark and the Baltic Sea.
The pipeline is at the heart of Poland’s plan, which was developed years before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February, to diversify its gas supply away from Russia.
A Gaz-System spokeswoman told the Reuters news agency that flows started at 6:10 am (4:10 GMT) and nominations, or requestsfor sending gas through the pipeline on October 1, totalled 62.4 million kilowatt-hours.
Two of the first congratulatory messages to Giorgia Meloni, within the EU, have come from Hungary and Poland.
That’s no coincidence. Warsaw and Budapest both have conservative nationalist governments who rail against EU overreach and have been at odds with Brussels on issues including LGBT rights.
But it’s a little more complicated than saying the three nations might sit as some kind of united trio around the European Council table.
Poland and Hungary are deeply split on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Warsaw has been hard-line on sanctions against the Kremlin whereas Budapest has been seen, increasingly, as a barrier.
Giorgia Meloni has stressed her support for Ukraine but it’s an approach that, it’s feared, won’t be fully backed by her right-wing allies.
What is certain is that a new Meloni government could mean more EU division given its predecessor was the Brussels-favoured technocrat, Mario Draghi.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
In response to criticism of the musician’s position on the Ukraine war, Roger Waters, the co-founder of Pink Floyd, has cancelled scheduled performances in Poland.
Live Nation Poland, the concert’s promoter, confirmed the cancellation but provided no explanation.
The controversy was triggered by an open letter Waters wrote to Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska.
In it, he said, “extreme nationalists” in Ukraine “have set your country on the path to this disastrous war”.
He accused her husband, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, of failing to fulfill his election campaign promises to bring peace to the Donbas region and made no mention of Russia’s responsibility for the war.
In response, Mrs Zelenska wrote on Twitter that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine and was now destroying its cities and killing civilians. “Roger Waters, you should ask for peace from the president of another country,” she wrote.
Mr Water’s open letter led Łukasz Wantuch, a Krakow city councilor, to urge people to boycott the concerts.
City councillors have drafted a resolution to declare Mr Waters persona non grata, due to be voted on at a session on September 28.
“Taking into account Russia’s criminal attack on Ukraine as well as the increasing number of war crimes committed by Russian soldiers that are coming to light, [the councillors] express outrage at the theses and statements made by Mr Roger Waters in connection with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” the resolution states.
Mr Waters, currently on tour in the US, hit back in another Facebook post entitled “Hey Łukasz Wantuch, Leave them kids alone”, referencing the lyrics of the classic Pink Floyd song, Another Brick in the Wall.
He denied an earlier media report that he or his management had canceled the concerts themselves and accused Mr Wantuch of the “draconian censoring” of his work.
Asked whether the cancellation was connected to Mr Waters’ comments, a venue spokesman for the Tauron Arena in Krakow told the BBC: “No comment.”
The Polish government has been a staunch ally of Mr Zelensky. It has sent hundreds of Soviet-era tanks and other armaments to Ukraine and encouraged the European Union to introduce tougher sanctions against Russia.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the government decided to open Poland’s borders to millions of Ukrainian women and children fleeing the fighting.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, close to 1.4 million Ukrainians have registered for temporary protection in neighboring Poland.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees have been put up by Poles in their own homes.
Barcelona have reached a “verbal agreement” with Bayern Munich to sign Poland striker Robert Lewandowski, says the Bayern president.
The 33-year-old, who has one year left on his Bayern contract, told the club last month that he wishes to leave.
Lewandowski scored 50 goals in 46 games last season as he helped Bayern win a 10th straight Bundesliga title.
“It’s good to have clarity for all parties,” said Bayern president Herbert Hainer.
“We have come to a verbal agreement with Barcelona.
“Robert is an incredible player and he won everything with us. We are incredibly grateful to him.”
Lewandowski joined Bayern on a free transfer from Borussia Dortmund in 2014 and has scored 344 times in 374 games for the club, making him their second-highest scorer of all time behind Gerd Muller.
The Pole has won the league in all eight of his seasons at Bayern and also helped the Bavarians win the Champions League in 2019-20.
Bayern have also announced that Germany winger Serge Gnabry, 27, has signed a contract extension until 2026.
Barcelona completed the signing of Raphinha from Leeds on Friday in a deal worth up to £55m having already signed Franck Kessie and Andreas Christensen on free transfers earlier this month.
The Supreme Court says there had been dozens of irregularities, but it approves the results of last month’s vote.
Poland’s Supreme Court has approved the result of last month’s hotly-contested presidential election but said there had been dozens of irregularities.
President Andrzej Duda, who is backed by the ruling populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, narrowly won re-election on July 12 with 51 percent.
His rival, Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski from the Civic Platform party, came a close second with 49 percent.
“The Supreme Court confirms the validity of the election of Andrzej Sebastian Duda to the Polish presidency,” judge Ewa Stefanska said in her ruling on Monday.
The opposition had asked for the result to be declared invalid, complaining in particular that the state television network TVP had favoured the incumbent.
The Supreme Court received more than 5,800 complaints, mainly related to voter registration, failure to receive ballots in time and problems with voting abroad.
It upheld only 93 of the complaints but said this was not sufficient to affect the final result of the vote.
Duda is due to be formally sworn in on Thursday.
‘Tarnished’ vote
The election was originally scheduled for May at a time when Duda was riding high in the opinion polls, but it had to be delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Duda’s support fell considerably – also because of the fallout from the virus which is pushing Poland into its first recession since the end of communism in 1989.
Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights earlier said the vote was “tarnished” by biased coverage on public television.
“The incumbent’s campaign and coverage by the public broadcaster were marked by homophobic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric,” they also said in a statement.
During the campaign, Duda railed against “LGBT ideology” and same-sex adoptions and accused his rival of failing to rule out Jewish wartime compensation claims which the government says should be addressed to Germany.