The consequences for Russia of the nuclear deal with Iran. OSW COMMENTARY NUMBER 177/03.08.2015

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the USA, the United Kingdom, China, France and Russia) plus Germany and the European Union signed a deal with Iran on 14 July in Vienna (a Plan of Action with five appendices, henceforth referred to as the Vienna Agreement). Under this agreement, Iran undertook to restrict its nuclear programme and to bring it under international scrutiny for 15 years in exchange for a gradual lifting of international sanctions (both those imposed between 2006 and 2010 by the UN Security Council and the unilateral US and EU sanctions). Even though Russia has officially reacted positively to this deal, the consequences it will have are rather ambiguous from Moscow’s point of view. Iran looks set to become stronger and will possibly normalise its relations with the West, and especially the United States. This, in political terms, is a disadvantage for Russia. The Kremlin’s ability to use its policy towards Iran as a bargaining chip in contacts with Washington will be reduced significantly. In turn, the benefits will include improving the perception of Russia in the West and the opening up of new opportunities for the geopolitical game in the region, both with Iran and its opponents in the Arab world. Similarly, in economic terms, the possible lifting of sanctions will offer Russia new opportunities to achieve immediate benefits owing to co-operation in the nuclear and military-technical areas. In the short term, the lifting of sanctions will not pose any threat to Russia’s position on the global energy markets. However, in the long term, the end of Iran’s international isolation may bring negative consequences for Russia, such as the dominant position of Western and/or Chinese companies in the Iranian upstream sector, rising exports of Iranian oil and gas to EU and Asian markets (which are essential for Russia) and the downward pressure on oil and gas prices.

Dually Active HIV/HBV Antiretrovirals Protect Against Incident Hepatitis B Infections: Potential for Prophylaxis.

BACKGROUND  Hepatitis-B virus (HBV) has a detrimental effect on HIV natural course, and HBV vaccination is less effective in the HIV infected. We examine the protective effect of dually active antiretroviral therapy (DAART) for HIV/HBV (Tenofovir/Lamivudine/Emtricitabine) in a large cohort encompassing heterosexuals, men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM), and intravenous drug users (IDU), who are HIV-infected yet susceptible to HBV, with comprehensive follow-up data about risky behavior and immunological profile. METHODS  We defined an incident HBV infection as the presence of any of HBV serological markers (HBsAg/AntiHBc/HBV-DNA) following a negative baseline AntiHBc test. Patients with positive AntiHBs were excluded. Cox proportional hazard models were utilized, with an incident case of HBV infection as the outcome variable. RESULTS  We analyzed 1,716 eligible patients from the Swiss HIV Cohort Study with 177 incident HBV cases. DAART was negatively associated with incident HBV infection (hazard ratio 0.4, 95%CI 0.2-0.6). This protective association was robust to adjustment (0.3, 0.2-0.5) for condomless sex, √CD4 count, drug use, and patients' demographics. Condomless sex (1.9,1.4-2.6), belonging to MSM (2.7,1.7-4.2) or IDU (3.8,2.4-6.1) were all associated with higher HBV hazard. CONCLUSIONS  Our study suggests that DAART, independently of CD4 count and risky behavior, has a potentially strong public health impact including pre-exposure prophylaxis of HBV co-infection.

Radiolarian-based paleotemperatures of ODP Site 177-1089 in the Atlantic Sector of the Southern Ocean

Two cores, Site 1089 (ODP Leg 177) and PS2821-1, recovered from the same location (40°56'S; 9°54'E) at the Subtropical Front (STF) in the Atlantic Sector of the Southern Ocean, provide a high-resolution climatic record, with an average temporal resolution of less than 600 yr. A multi-proxy approach was used to produce an age model for Core PS2821-1, and to correlate the two cores. Both cores document the last climatic cycle, from Marine Isotopic Stage 6 (MIS 6, ca. 160 kyr BP, ka) to present. Summer sea-surface temperatures (SSSTs) have been estimated, with a standard error of ca. +/-1.16°C, for the down core record by using Q-mode factor analysis (Imbrie and Kipp method). The paleotemperatures show a 7°C warming at Termination II (last interglacial, transition from MIS 6 to MIS 5). This transition from glacial to interglacial paleotemperatures (with maximum temperatures ca. 3°C warmer than present at the core location) occurs earlier than the corresponding shift in delta18O values for benthic foraminifera from the same core; this suggests a lead of Southern Ocean paleotemperature changes compared to the global ice-volume changes, as indicated by the benthic isotopic record. The climatic evolution of the record continues with a progressive temperature deterioration towards MIS 2. High-frequency, millennial-scale climatic instability has been documented for MIS 3 and part of MIS 4, with sudden temperature variations of almost the same magnitude as those observed at the transitions between glacial and interglacial times. These changes occur during the same time interval as the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles recognized in the delta18Oice record of the GRIP and GISP ice cores from Greenland, and seem to be connected to rapid changes in the STF position in relation to the core location. Sudden cooling episodes ('Younger Dryas (YD)-type' and 'Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR)-type' of events) have been recognized for both Termination I (ACR-I and YD-I events) and II (ACR-II and YD-II events), and imply that our core is located in an optimal position in order to record events triggered by phenomena occurring in both hemispheres. Spectral analysis of our SSST record displays strong analogies, particularly for high, sub-orbital frequencies, to equivalent records from Vostok (Antarctica) and from the Subtropical North Atlantic ocean. This implies that the climatic variability of widely separated areas (the Antarctic continent, the Subtropical North Atlantic, and the Subantarctic South Atlantic) can be strongly coupled and co-varying at millennial time scales (a few to 10-ka periods), and eventually induced by the same triggering mechanisms. Climatic variability has also been documented for supposedly warm and stable interglacial intervals (MIS 1 and 5), with several cold events which can be correlated to other Southern Ocean and North Atlantic sediment records.

Dissolved organic carbon in sediments of the central Arctic Ocean collected during POLARSTERN cruise ARK-XXVII/3 from August-September 2012

Marine organic matter (OM) sinks from surface waters to the seafloor via the biological pump. Benthic communities, which use this sedimented OM as energy and carbon source, produce dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the process of remineralization, enriching the sediment porewater with fresh DOM compounds. We hypothesized that in the oligotrophic deep Arctic basin the molecular signal of freshly deposited primary produced OM is restricted to the surface sediment pore waters which should differ from bottom water and deeper sediment pore water in DOM composition. This study focused on: 1) the molecular composition of the DOM in sediment pore waters of the deep Eurasian Arctic basins, 2) whether the signal of marine vs. terrigenous DOM is represented by different compounds preserved in the sediment pore waters and 3) whether there is any relation between Arctic Ocean ice cover and DOM composition. Molecular data, obtained via 15 Tesla Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer, were correlated with environmental parameters by partial least square analysis. The fresher marine detrital OM signal from surface waters was limited to pore waters from < 5 cm sediment depth. The productive ice margin stations showed higher abundances of peptides, unsaturated aliphatics and saturated fatty acids formulae, indicative of fresh OM/pigments deposition, compared to northernmost stations which had stronger aromatic signals. This study contributes to the understanding of the coupling between the Arctic Ocean productivity and its depositional regime, and how it will be altered in response to sea ice retreat and increasing river runoff.