The United States says Russia…
Chinese leader Xi Jinping's upcoming…
The easing of tensions between…
“The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.”— Barack Hussein Obama (address to the United Nations General Assembly, September 2012) The jihadist murders at…
One year ago today, the world mulled over the global ramifications of Turkish anti-government protests, Chinese escalation in the East China Sea, and…
Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict The Sudans: Where Oil Fits in A year ago this week, South Sudan became embroiled in a civil war that has so far killed tens of…
November 18, 2014: it’s a day that should live forever in history. On that day, in the city of Yiwu in China’s Zhejiang province, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, the…
Astana’s language and nationality policies have put Kazakhstan at risk of becoming a second Ukraine in 2015, according to Ilya Namovir, a Russian linguist who edits the “Russians in Kazakhstan”…
When OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, imposed an oil embargo on the West for its support of Israel in the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the French came out…
In all of the struggles for territory in history, none has been quite as ambitious or unusual as a country trying to steal a whole ocean. But that is what…
Politics, Geopolitics and Conflict Under fire from the Islamic State (IS), Baghdad has cut a deal with the Iraqi Kurds, ending a long-running and intensifying dispute over unilateral Kurdish oil…
Sectarian and ethnic tension, religious violence, and terrorism threats appear to be rising trends in the Gulf region according to a new study on the state of security in…
Planners in the People’s Republic of China rightly see the need for a capable, blue water naval force to support and sustain the PRC’s rise as a global economic and…
Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict We are closely monitoring oil developments in Somaliland, which threaten to cause instability in northern Somalia. Somaliland’s separatist administration is proposing an Oil Protection Unit (OPU),…
There is serious concern that the battle for control of Syria by the group calling itself the Islamic State may soon shift from the mountainous region where the fight for…
Bashar Assad is a man of his word. In 2011, when the civil war began in Syria, President Assad delivered a promise to the international community and a threat to…
Politics, Geopolitics & ConflictYemen Chaos on All FrontsYemen is by far our biggest oil and gas red flag this year, and the past month has seen…
While still a predominant factor in the war being waged by the Islamic State, oil is taking a back seat as the full brunt of Middle East-style politics is unleashed…
Justifiable preoccupation by intelligence analysts with the rise of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) has paralleled the focus of popular attention on the growth of the People’s Republic of China…
Geopolitical HighlightsKurdish CrudeBaghdad has banned three foreign oil tankers from entering Iraqi ports. United Carrier, United Dynamic and Nautilus—all of which have transported Kurdish crude and…
The group known as the Islamic State, also often called by its former name, ISIS, (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), has established itself as the world’s largest, most ruthless…
Niger is consistently ranked on the UN Human Development Index as one of the poorest countries in the world. Spiraling population growth along with frequent droughts has made it nearly…
Geopolitics & Domestic PoliticsBulgariaOn the election front, Bulgaria’s center-right Citizens for European Development (GERB) won snap elections last week, and will likely receive around 90 seats…