‘Mounting skepticism and deadlocked negotiations have culminated in an announcement that the Copenhagen Climate Conference will not result in a comprehensive global climate deal,’ Mikhail Gorbachev writes in the Moscow Times.  The Kremlin has ‘no plans‘ to sell Russia’s unused Kyoto Protocol emissions rights, saying it would prefer to carry them over to a new agreement.  Russia’s leaders have agreed to push back to at least 2014 the deadline for Belarus to begin paying prices that would give Gazprom the same profit margins that it receives on its European Union exports.  Ukraine’s foreign minister says there is a ‘higher risk‘ of gas supply disruptions this winter if the International Monetary Fund does not resume lending to Ukraine, which is asking for about $2 billion in emergency loans.  Gas supplies to Armenia have been cut after a bomb was found near a pipeline in Southern Russia.  In a ‘strategic victory‘, Lukoil-led consortium won a tender to develop Iraq’s West Qurna oilfield.  Reuters has details of the seven service contracts awarded to international oil companies in Iraq, as Iraqi officials say the results ‘prove their independence from US influence‘.  Kazakhstan has opened a $6 billion link in the TransAsian pipeline that will send its gas to China and more than double gas deliveries between the two.  Iran says it is ready to exchange uranium for nuclear fuel – but proposed doing so in phases rather than all at once as is called for in the UN plan.