Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Samarkand confirmed the “next” delivery of natural gas to Turkey, described as a “reliable partner”, and announced that a “quarter” of those deliveries would be paid for in rubles. This clarification during his bilateral meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirms the agreement reached between the two leaders at their previous meeting in Sochi in southern Russia earlier in August.

“Our agreement should come into force soon and allow us to supply natural gas to Turkey, 25% of which will be paid in rubles,” Vladimir Putin said during a more than hour-long bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan . The proportion of these gas supplies paid for in Russian currency was not specified during their previous exchange. Vladimir Putin, whose country has been subject to Western sanctions since invading Ukraine on February 24, also announced that he had received “the signal” authorizing the export of Russian products from Turkish ports.

Also readPrice increases, contract changes… Trouble for customers of alternative gas and electricity providers

“Our companies have received the signal to be able to export their products from Turkey”, which he described as a “reliable partner” and expressed the desire to “significantly increase trade with her”. Ankara played a key role in finalizing an agreement with Kyiv and Moscow in July under the aegis of the United Nations, allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported across the Black Sea and the Bosphorus. But Moscow is now complaining that the part of the agreement signed at the same time on the export of Russian agricultural products has remained ineffective.

Since the beginning of the war, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed to maintain relations with Kyiv and Moscow, whose representatives he twice brought together. Before their tete-a-tete, he called on Russia to end the war in Ukraine “as soon as possible”. “We are working on ending the conflict in Ukraine as quickly as possible through diplomatic channels,” he said to the participants at the summit, especially in the presence of Vladimir Putin. But while Recep Tayyip Erdogan has provided Kyiv with combat drones, in recent months he has multiplied conciliatory gestures towards Moscow, particularly on trade, while his country faces nine months of a severe economic crisis and official inflation exceeding 80% ahead of the presidential election in Turkey.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has confirmed the so-called “Stone of Scone” on the occasion of the coronation of King Charles III, the successor to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Considered a local symbol, this stone was used for centuries during the coronation of the kings of Scotland, before the Scottish crown was united with the English: it has been in Edinburgh for more than 25 years, but will be reinstated on the throne soon to be occupied by Charles III. is crowned, the same on which Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953.

Also known as the Coronation Stone or the Destiny Stone, this large stone is just one of the many rocks at the center of stories and customs involving folk legends, religious beliefs, and significant historical events.

Stone of Scone, United Kingdom
The Coronation Stone is approximately 66 cm long, 42 cm wide and 27 cm thick; it is made of sandstone and weighs about 150 kilos. It has a shape vaguely reminiscent of a pillow, as ancient Celtic legend would suggest, and is decorated with a roughly engraved Latin cross on one side only. It is also equipped with two iron rings that serve to make it easier to carry.

It takes its name from the Abbey of the town of Scone, where it originally stood, some forty kilometers north of the capital, Edinburgh, near Perth. Tradition has it that it was brought there by Kenneth MacAlpin, who lived between 810 and 858, was King of the Picts and is believed to be the first king of Scotland. With the invasion of Scotland by the English in 1296, Edward I of England took possession of the stone and had it placed in a throne used for all subsequent coronations of the kings of Great Britain and the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey, London .

In 1603, after the heirless death of Elizabeth I, the throne passed to the King of Scotland, James VI, who became James I of England: the fact that James I was born with the Stone of Scone on the British Crowned on the throne was seen by the Scots as a symbol that the crown had returned to rule a territory that had always been hers.

Edward VIII’s coronation throne with the Stone of Destiny photographed in 1936 (AP Photo)

The stone was not returned to Scotland until November 1996, 700 years after it was taken by the British and four centuries after the fusion of the two crowns. On Christmas Day 1950 it was stolen from Westminster Abbey by four nationalists who wished to bring it back to Scotland: it was found in April of the following year on the altar of Arbroath Abbey, some fifty kilometers east of Perth, and then brought back to London. The stone is currently kept at Edinburgh Castle. In November 2020, Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced his intention to bring her back to Perth.

When the official coronation ceremony of Charles III. will take place, which became king immediately after the death of Elizabeth II on September 8 and was proclaimed two days later in a solemn ceremony, is not yet known. However, he is expected to be crowned in 2023, both to mark the period of mourning the death of the longest-lived sovereign in UK history and because the ceremony is expected to be solemn and grandiose – can be organized in detail. However, the stone should only be “borrowed” and after the coronation of Charles III. be returned to Scotland.

– Also read: There is mounting evidence that Stonehenge was in a different location before

The Blarney Stone, Ireland
This limestone slab is part of the tower of Blarney Castle, which dates from the mid-15th century and is just outside Cork in south-west Ireland. According to legend, whoever kisses the plate receives “the gift of the gab”. The problem is that it’s a bit tricky because to be able to kiss her you have to lie on your stomach, tilt your head back and hold on to two metal poles (preferably with someone’s help) so as not to drop from 29 meters height at which it is positioned.

People who have kissed the stone in their lives include former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger and actor Eddie Redmayne, 2015 Oscar winner for The Theory of Everything. .

Plymouth Rock, United States
One of the other well-known stones is Plymouth Rock, the stone that points to the spot on the coast of present-day Massachusetts where the Mayflower ship landed in 1620, where the first Pilgrim Fathers founded their first colony in North America. There are no documents prior to 1741 that specifically identify the rock as the arrival point of the Pilgrim Fathers, but today it is still considered one of the most important symbols of the state and one of the most well-known in the United States.

According to some estimates, this rock must have originally weighed more than 9 tons: however, in 1774, in an attempt to move it, it broke into various fragments, which were stolen, sold or bought. What is left of it can be seen today in an open-air monument erected in the town: the year 1620 is clearly visible on the large stone, but it was engraved at the end of the 19th century. Another piece of the stone is kept on a plinth at Plymouth Church in the borough of Brooklyn, New York.

The Rosetta Stone, Egypt
It is probably the most famous stone slab in history: it contains the inscriptions of a 196 B.C. The decree issued in Memphis in three languages ​​- hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek – was essential for archaeologists to be able to translate the Egyptian hieroglyphs, shedding light on one of the world’s most mysterious and long-lived ancient civilizations.

The stele was discovered in 1799 by French archaeologist Pierre-François Bouchard in the Egyptian city of Rosetta, but was confiscated by the British after the surrender of Alexandria, which ended the French campaign in Egypt in 1801. It, too, was part of a larger stele: today, at its highest point, the Rosetta Stone is just over 110 centimeters high, over 75 centimeters wide and 28 centimeters thick, weighs around 760 kilos and can be seen in the British Museum in London, where it has been since 1802 is preserved.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum (EPA / Neil Hall, ANSA)

The Hunger Stones, Germany and the Czech Republic
They are rocks carved into the waterline of rivers with short scripts indicating water levels of previous droughts as a warning to future generations.

Several were found this summer in Germany in the Rhine and Elbe rivers in particular, indicating that current drought conditions have in some cases reached and exceeded those of hundreds of years ago. The Elbe also flows for kilometers in the Czech Republic, where a hunger stone was found near the town of Decin, the inscription of which probably dates from the 15th century: “If you see me, cry”.

– Also read: Due to the drought in Europe, things reappeared from the waters

The Black Stone, Saudi Arabia
The Black Stone (“al-Hajar al-Aswad”) is an ancient relic kept in the Ka’bah, the cube-shaped shrine located inside the Mecca Mosque and the holiest building in Islam. . Every year around two and a half million believers visit the Ka’bah on the occasion of the Hajj, the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca.

The stone is often described as a block of lava, basalt or meteorite. According to an Islamic tradition, it fell from heaven to show Adam and Eve the place where an altar should be built that would become the first temple on earth. According to another interpretation, it was originally white, but over time it turned black due to all the sins absorbed, so to speak, by the faithful who touched or kissed it during the pilgrimage. In ancient times, this stone was also much larger: today various fragments have survived, which are assembled and stored in a silver frame visible on the eastern corner outside the Ka’bah.

A soldier watches over the Black Stone in July 2021 (AP Photo / Amr Nabil)

According to a report by the Study Center of the General Confederation of Industry (Cofindustria), published this Saturday by the newspaper La Repubblica, the situation is very complex because “gas price increases have gotten out of hand since August”.

The analysis shows that “the resilience of the industry has faltered after too many months of the impact of expensive energy on company margins.”

On the other hand, “record inflation is eroding household income and threatening consumption, which is (partially and not for long) protected by accumulated savings,” the document adds.

The Confindustria study includes two econometric simulations for the energy price in 2023, one based on the average value for August of 235 euros/MWh and the second on 298 euros/MWh, the average level expected in the future.

In the first case, the impact on the Italian economy is estimated at a lower gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 2.2 percent, while in the second scenario it would be 3.2 percent accumulated over the biennium 2022-2023.

The National Association of Farmers of Italy (Coldiretti) also released a report last Friday saying that food prices have risen by 10.5 percent in recent months and more than half of the population has reduced their purchases.

The report points out that rising costs are severely affecting the entire food chain, starting with rural areas, where one in ten farms is in such a critical situation that activity has to be suspended.

Coldiretti adds that 34 percent of farms are currently forced to work in negative income conditions due to rising prices.

The cost increase ranges from +170 percent for fertilizer to +90 percent for animal feed and up to +129 percent for diesel, he says.

Faced with such a situation, Ettore Prandini, President of Coldiretti, called on the government to take immediate action to curb the accelerated rise in energy prices and the increase in production costs in order to “save the farms”.

ro/ort

The search for three people missing in the storm and flood continues in the Marche region of Italy. Rescue teams, including 400 firefighters, were looking for two adults – a male and a female – and an eight-year-old boy this morning. It had been ripped from her mother’s arms during the storm Thursday night as they were getting out of the car.

Ten people died in the accident, as announced by the Ancona city council on Friday night. Prime Minister Mario Draghi visited the affected area and said: “This is a disaster. We are doing our best.” The government declared a state of emergency for the area and provided emergency aid of five million euros.

150 people were rescued

Due to the extreme rains, rivers overflow in the areas close to the Adriatic coast, masses of water and mud pushed the villages, some of them meters high. Several people were caught in their cars by the flash floods, and some were unable to reach the upper floors of the buildings. More than 50 people were injured, around 150 people had to be rescued by rescue teams.

After a spring and summer characterized by extreme drought, dryness and heat in Italy, storms in the Mediterranean country have recently increased. The Marche catastrophe was not predictable, experts said. The civil defense of the region, however, has already warned of more dangerous rains and urged the population of the already affected regions not to leave their homes, if possible.