Do Not Use Misc

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This article is about the effects that the caronavirus is having on the Russian tourism industry around Lake Baikal. Russia receives 15 million tourists from China yearly and a popular time for travel is during the New Year season. This year however, due to the worldwide panic over the caronavirus and related travel-bans, Chinese tourists are not arriving. In the article, many hospitality-industry businesses are very conserned with the lack of business.

I wanted to pick an article about the Siberian Lake Baikal because its an extremely fasinating geographic feature. While it is only the seventh largest by surface area, it is the deepest lake on earth, the oldest and contains a quarter of the entire world's fresh surface water. This is due to its location in the deepest continental rift valley in the world. It is a part of the Yenisei River basin and is surrounded by the Baikal Mountians and the Barguzin Range. Located just above Russia's southern border with Mongolia, it has a long history of human inhabitation and conflict.

https://www.voanews.com/europe/virus-fallout-hits-lake-baikal-chinese-tourists-stay-away

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The title of the Article I pick for this week's assignment on Russia is: After a String of Nuclear Incidents, Russia Just Launched a Floating Nuclear Power Plant. Is It Safe?

This article is about the recently launched Vessel that has two nuclear power plants built into it called Akademik Lomonosov, this new ship is to be launched from the Arctic city of Murmansk, Russia from there the destination of this ship will be to travel 2,900 miles to the Arctic port city of Pevek for where it will be stationed and turned into a fully functioning nuclear power plant that will supply that city of 4,000 people with power the equivalent of 70 megawatts of electric power and 50 Giga calories of heat energy every hour to the city for which this potential energy generation could sustain a population of 100,000 people.

Now with this great energy power that Russia`s plan on using on this boat does not come without some major concerns from many in the international community considering how Russia has a relatively bad reputation when it comes to working with nuclear power. What concerns them the most is how Russia does not always have that best way of being transparent when it comes to working with nuclear power or asking for aid when a problem arises, along with some environmental concerns as well from such groups as Greenpeace.

But on the other had some people think that Russia`s new nuclear power plant ship will be a great success for the country and possibly the world, some say that this is something that is not new to Russian ships since they have been putting nuclear reactors on Ice-breakers and submarines for years and the reactors that have been built into the vessel are the same KLT-40S they have used for those same ships.   Now only time will tell how this new vessel will do and how it will change the geography for the Russian people and quite possibly the world.

https://time.com/5659769/russia-floating-nuclear-power/

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The link to the arctic is here: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-crossroads-europe-and-russia

This article, though it was categorized as a news article, read more like a an explanatory piece. It seemed as if it were meant to give some backstory to other articles talking about specific events  rather than a news piece talking about any one new event. The article dug deeper into the ties between Ukraine and Russia, and illuminated the reader about some tensions between the two countries. It discusses how Ukraine is struggling with corruption and a desire to push ahead and become a world power, while making very little headway. The country is divided between trying to loosen ties to Russia and associate as more European, and staying true to the Russian roots of the country. Crimea was mentioned as a landmark in Ukranian and Russian history, with that land being the first to be annexed since the second world war. Crimea is a patch of land to the East of Ukraine, at the border between it and Russia. Its location between the two makes it a prime location to seize.

In essence, this piece discusses the ties and conflicts between the two countries. Their history is interwoven deeply, and independence from each other will be a long and difficult process. The article explains Russia attempting to keep Ukraine to itself, while the majority of Ukraine would like to increase the separation and mold itself into a thoroughly European country.

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The article I chose was called "Passenger Plane Drew Fire in Syria, Russia Says" from the New York Times, link here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/world/middleeast/syria-plane-israel.html?searchResultPosition=23

No more than a few weeks ago Russia was dragged into a minor dispute involving an Israeli passenger plane with the title Beirut Lebanon (model Airbus A320) when it was caught under fire. The plane with a populace of one-hundred seventy-two passengers was attacked by Syria and was forced to make an emergency landing - a landing at one of Russia's military bases. The military base in question was called Hmeimim Air Base, which was interesting given that the base in question is located in Syria. The cause behind the attack in question was most likely caused by an Israeli airstrike that occurred very close to the time prior to the aircraft's attack. This, combined with what the Russians have reported on in their own light has sparked a debacle between Israel and Russia, though it culminated in nothing more than minor twitter discourse between generals, with talk of hating Israel, and conspiracy mostly dominating the argument. Such conspiracies being tactics like using civilian aircraft to protect military ones, and baseless accusations of general militaristic competence, or lack thereof. What happened was all-in-all a very strange occurrence involving country interactions and cause-and-effect and a fascinating dose of irony when it comes to the base's geographical location.

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When reading this article, I wasn't too sure if it would be what I was looking for, for this assignment. A lot of the stuff I Googled to use, seemed like satire and then I stumbled upon this one. The title may not be super engaging, but after reading it, I was filled with a whole bunch of new knowledge that I didn't know. For Instance, I had no idea that Russia actually discovered Antartica. I actually assumed it was the United States for some reason.

It seems from the title that this may another war story or a peace time marament, but in actually these two places came together to help celebrate an anniversary in their own homes and countries out of respect for the Russian Navy Sailors, by making a 200th anninversary postal.   A lot of the geographic concepts is the fact that, a huge continent was discovered by a larger country, and it was a big thing for all the surrounding places. It is also a large part of Russian history.

 

https://www.rgo.ru/en/article/russia-and-estonia-cooperate-release-postal-stationery-dedicated-200th-anniversary

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"Saudi-Russian Alliance Is Strained as Coronavirus Saps Demand for Oil"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/business/opec-russia-saudi-arabia.html

According to the article, Russia and Saudi Arabia have not been on good terms lately. Because of the coronavirus outbreak in China, the two big oil producers are trying to figure out a new source of oil production. The oil minister of Saudi Arabia has been trying to negotiate new cuts with Moscow but, they seem to be going about things at a slower pace to consider the proposal of oil cuts. There is a question about if Russia and Sadi Arabia are on the same page but still, it seems as if Putin will play along and benefit from negotiations.

The geographic aspects of this article take place in Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

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For this blog post, I used the website, The Christian Science Monitor. The title of the article is "At Moscow university, a debate: Ban politics or risk the Kremlin's wrath?"

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2020/0204/At-Moscow-university-a-debate-Ban-politics-or-risk-the-Kremlin-s-wrath

In the article, it talks about university students and professors protesting on banning political events that happen on campus in Moscow, Russia. They are talking about what the should do to not have political arguments and to make it politically neutral place for students. If they were to talk politics the university shouldn't be involved. The students are unhappy because they have a student media that is going to be shut down due to new rules being applied to the university. What I found in the article is that it did not have maps shown in the reading. I just found that there was locations that were written like "Mass protest against electoral manipulations by city authorities raged throughout downtown Moscow last summer" and I wasn't able to picture the place but that is the one. It would be helpful if there were visual maps of where it was taken place.

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The president of Russia and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky met to discuss a deal about a ceasefire. They met Monday in Paris, France. The ceasefire deal that was discussed would put an end to the five and a-half-year war. FIghting that has killed more than 13,000 people. Mr. Zelensky said that little was achieved and that he would like to see more be improved. The agreement was that they would release and exchange the detainees by the end of the year. Both sides agreed to disengage their military forces in three different sections in Ukraine.

Link to my site: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50713647

Donetsk    48.0159 ° N, 37.8028 ° E and Luhansk 48.5740 ° N, 39.3078 ° E are both places where there are both militaries. Donetsk and Luhansk are Ukrainian towns. Donetsk has a lot of grains, sugar beets, potatoes, vegetables, sunflowers, cattle, and poultry farming. Luhansk has a lot of food and steel production.

SIte for information for Donetsk: https://ukrainetrek.com/donetsk-oblast

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This blog is about an article put out by BBC News involving financial ties with Venezuela and Russia.

"Russia to boost Venezuela ties amid US pressure"

Throughout this short article, it talks about the increased financial ties between Russia and Venezuela. The increased relationship between these two countries can be seen as controversial because this agreement was done by Venezuelan President Maduro, not interim president Juan Guaido, who has full U.S. support, which is contrary to Maduro. This article has a human geography aspect because this move could increase conflict between Russia and the U.S. At this point, there's no idea how any of these 3 countries involved will react.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51423110

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The article I will be writing about was found on BBC News, it is called "Nord Stream 2: Germany and Russia decry US sanctions"

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50879435

Russia and the EU are angry with the US because they say that they should be allowed to make decisions on their own without the US telling them what they can and can't do. Russia and Germany want to build a pipeline between the two countries but the US isn't for it because they're worried about security risks. The US also thinks if the pipeline was to happen it would tighten Russians grip over Europe's energy supply and reduce it's own share of Europes great deal of natural gas.

Geographic aspects in the story take place in Germany and Russia, and the following countries that the pipeline would be going through. Many people already believe the pipeline will cause harm to the the environment and are against it being built.