The South African affiliate of The Guardian is engaging in two-bit economic warfare against Russia:
http://johnhelmer.net/?p=12735South African government officials have attacked Russia’s bid to supply South Africa’s new nuclear reactor programme, accusing Rosatom, the state nuclear power agency, of imposing financially and legally disadvantageous terms which the South Africans, speaking anonymously, term “scary”.
The attack was launched Friday in the Mail & Guardian, a local newspaper associated with the Guardian of London. Just one SA Government official, Enver Daniels, the chief state law advisor in Pretoria, was identified as behind the allegations. Speaking anonymously to the newspaper also was a group identified as “numerous”, and representing the SA ministries of energy, international relations, trade and industry, and the treasury.
Independent European nuclear industry sources say the reported allegations against the Rosatom agreement are not borne out by the published text. According to one source, “this misreading is a deliberate effort that benefits Areva, the Chinese and Americans. It also plays domestic politics in Pretoria.”
One of the sources says that all three agreements – Russian, French, and Sino-American – attempt to influence the tender phase for the reactor purchase in favour of each country’s proprietary technology. The Russian agreement isn’t different on that score, the source claims, except that it isn’t secret. In the published text, Rosatom concedes that the SA Government is free to decide to build 2 Russian technology reactors (2.4GW capacity), and to reserve its decision on what technology to buy for the remaining reactors (7.2GW).
The sources also say the operative term in the agreement is “cooperate”, which is noncommittal. They point to the provision in Art 4.2 – “the mechanism of the practical implementation of these priority projects will be governed by separate intergovernmental agreements” – to leave undecided now, and uncommitted in future, what technological choices the SA Government can reserve. Art. 7 of the agreement also provides for several suppliers of reactors by saying: “The Competent Authorities of the Parties can, by mutual consent, involve third countries’ organizations for the implementation of particular cooperation areas under this Agreement.”