In our backyard: The Caribbean’s statelessness and refugee crisis
The migrant crisis in Europe has placed the issues of refugees and migration firmly on the global agenda, with estimates that over 1 million people entered Europe in 2015 as refugees or migrants. Fleeing war, generalized violence, or repressive governments, they mostly originate from Syria…
How Brazil’s political and economic crisis affects its military spending
SIPRI’s recently published data shows a decrease of 7.2% in Brazil’s military expenditure in 2016 compared to 2015. The reasons behind this cut are quite complicated, since the country is embroiled in a mix of a political and economic crises. This blog post briefly discusses some of the feature…
Big Oil Steps Up Support for Carbon Tax
Some of the world’s largest oil companies and the country’s biggest auto maker are joining a group pushing the U.S. government to tax carbon in an effort to slow climate change. General Motors Co., Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC are among almost a dozen companies joining the Climate Leadership Council…
US oil groups feel Russia sanctions freeze more than Europeans
Russian President Vladimir Putin this month made an emotional tribute to Christophe de Margerie, the former boss of France’s Total who was killed in an accident in 2014. At the launch of a new gas tanker named after Mr de Margerie, Mr Putin declared him a “great friend of our country”, a s…
As U.S. Adds Troops in Afghanistan, Trump’s Strategy Remains Undefined
When President Trump made his first major decision on the war in Afghanistan, he did not announce it in a nationally televised address from the White House or a speech at West Point. Instead, the Pentagon issued a news release late one afternoon last week confirming that the president had given…
Start-Up Palestine: How to Spark a West Bank Tech Boom
For decades, Israeli and Palestinian politicians have pursued a political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, only to see their hopes dashed again and again. Today, the prospects for a comprehensive peace agreement remain dim. Policymakers must therefore start looking for other ways to …
Meet the Two Princes Reshaping the Middle East
The dramatic and sudden effort to isolate Qatar, like the fateful intervention before it in Yemen, sprang from the shared vision of two princes. Depending on your point of view, they may be the harbingers of a new and better Middle East—or reckless architects of disaster. Indeed, the region’s most i…
Glencore Can Snatch Rio’s Coal, but Might Regret It
Knowing when to go in with cannons blazing and when to hold your fire is essential for all businesses, but especially for big miners. That makes Glencore’s gambit to poach Rio Tinto’s Australian coal assets from rival Chinese suitor Yancoal for $2.55 billion an interesting case. Glencore’s bid is ty…
Excess oil inventories to last until 2018 – IEA
Oil demand should outpace supply in the second half of this year but excess inventories will persist well into 2018, dealing a blow to global crude producers enacting output cuts to bring down stubbornly high stockpiles. The forecast from the International Energy Agency comes as higher than expected…
Xi Jinping’s Marco Polo Strategy
Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping presided over a heavily orchestrated “Belt and Road” forum in Beijing. The two-day event attracted 29 heads of state, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and 1,200 delegates from over 100 countries. Xi called China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) the “project…