Belarus stepped up its dispute over oil duties with Russia, announcing that it has started a customs case against Russia's pipeline operator, the Belarusian state news agency reported.
Russia's trade ministry in turn indicated on Saturday that it could take retaliatory measures against Belarus.
Belarus this week announced it would charge an import duty of US$45 per tonne of Russian oil shipped to Western Europe in pipelines that cross Belarus. The move followed Russia's imposition of an export duty of US$180 a tonne on oil sold to Belarus.
The dispute so far has not affected Russian oil shipments to Europe.
Russia has called the Belarusian duty a violation of a bilateral trade agreement and out of line with international practice, saying duties can be charged only by a country that imports or exports a commodity, not one through which the commodity passes.
But Belarus appeared determined to push the issue. The Customs Service has filed a case against the head of Transneft, the Russian company that owns the pipelines passing through Belarus, for failure to make proper declarations, the state news agency Belta reported on Saturday.
Transneft officials could not be reached for comment late on Saturday on the case, which is to be heard in court today.
The Russian Trade and Economic Development Ministry, meanwhile, summoned the Belarusian ambassador to a meeting where a note calling for immediate cancellation of the duty was delivered, Russian news agencies cited Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Sharonov as saying.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS