International energy adviser says deal indicates Israel is ‘no longer a taboo’ in industry over fear of Arab boycott; still, the energy giant may end up selling the Israeli assets
Chevron Corporation announced yesterday its agreement to purchase the American oil and gas company Noble Energy for $5 billion. Chevron’s acquisition has special geopolitical significance due to Noble’s...
Oil prices have been cratering in the wake of Saudi Arabia’s decision to ramp up production and offer customers a discount for its crude. A decade ago, that would have been welcome news for the United...
Kazakhstan is one of the ten largest countries in the world, yet most Americans couldn’t find it on a map. It spans Central Asia, home to the world’s most sophisticated civilizations...
Congress overrode...
Many supporters of an Iranian nuclear agreement believe that a deal could help to moderate, even democratize, Iranian society. Barack Obama’s constant allusions to the transformative potent...
The interim nuclear deal reached between the major powers and the Islamic Republic on November 24 opened the investment floodgates for Western companies seeking to capitalize on a new business en...
I know. Foreign policy has been largely an afterthought in the presidential campaign. Iraq, for all intents and purposes, is off the radar screen entirely -- except as a Democratic talking point,...
How an ethnic minority shaped the Middle East.
That the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe might somehow escape the various "traps" – ethnic conflict, the "resource curse," poor governance, etc. – en...
Last week, some 200 baton-wielding policemen prevented Mia Farrow and members "Dream for Darfur" group from holding a rally near the site of Cambodia's "killing fields" to urge the People�...
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dropped his planned visit to the Netherlands on Tuesday because US sanctions meant his Iran Air plane might be refused fuel. "Mr. Mottaki canc...
OIL DEPENDENCE IS America's Achilles' heel in the battle against terrorism--a fact that has not escaped the terrorists. Osama bin Laden and others have declared the oil supply a top target, and subsequent plots demonstrate that the desire to disrupt world energy markets is more than mere rhetoric. This significant weakness should factor heavily in current political debates about alternatives to oil.
Last week, some 200 baton-wielding policemen prevented Mia Farrow and members "Dream for Darfur" group from holding a rally near the site of Cambodia's "killing fields" to urge the People's Republic of China (PRC) to use its influence on the Sudanese regime to end the conflict in the African country's Darfur region that no less a figure than former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan characterized as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis." An aide Cambodian Premier Hun Sen explained that the Hollywood actress was engaged in a "stunt to smear China" since her group, which as part of its international campaign has held similar events in Chad, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia, tried to light an Olympic-style torch (Beijing is hosting this year's Summer Olympics). Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu agreed, telling the audience at a routine January 24 press conference that the actress's action was "of apparent political intention and purpose to link the Darfur with the Olympics," a tactic which she said "violates the Olympic spirit and principle, and will never succeed."
As this column has chronicled over the past year and a half, United States policy toward the remnants of the former state of Somalia has evolved into a sort of dramatic farce played out in the fo...
Because of the sense of urgency repeatedly communicated by this column as well as the parallel efforts of other "Africa hands," the precarious situation of Nigeria – which I have described...
Last Friday, oil prices climbed toward $67.00 a barrel as supply disruptions in Nigeria compounded concerns about insufficient gasoline inventory levels in the United States; which have been decl...