Category: Highlights

In the two most recent U.S. presidential administrations, Central Asia has been caught up in Washington’s “strategic competition” with Beijing, experts say. And, they add, that under the presumption that Central Asians share Washington’s concerns, the United States, highlighting human rights violations in China’s western region of Xinjiang, has insisted the countries in the region reevaluate their relations with Beijing, underplaying the issues that drive policies in Central Asia and China. Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, head of the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh, said Beijing’s interests…

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The European Union said companies can keep buying gas without breaching sanctions, as it softened its stance in a standoff with Moscow over energy supplies. The European Commission sent its revised guidelines to member states on Friday, a spokesperson said on Monday. In the updated recommendations, it said companies should make a clear statement that they consider their obligations fulfilled once they pay in euros or dollars. EU sanctions “do not prevent economic operators from opening a bank account in a designated bank for payments due under contracts for the…

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The discovery of another marine natural gas reservoir, announced May 9 by British natural gas company Energean, underscores Israel’s emerging status over the past decade as a regional power in the field of natural gas. The country is capable of providing not only for its own needs, but for the needs of its neighbors as well, and even for other countries around the world. The discovery in the Athena well led the company to go public about the near certainty that the Block 12 search zone contained nearly 60 billion…

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China increasingly sees the war in Ukraine — and the roles of the United States and its NATO allies in backing Kyiv against Moscow — as a reflection of future tensions to come between the military bloc and Beijing in the Indo-Pacific. Ever since Russian tanks first crossed into Ukraine on February 24, Beijing has walked an awkward line between not giving outright support to Moscow’s invasion while accusing the United States and other NATO countries of provoking the war by allowing the security alliance to expand eastward despite protests…

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Getting America to reach the goals of zero-carbon electricity generation by 2035 and net-zero economy by 2050 with a surge in electric vehicle transportation and renewable power installations will require massive investments in outdated power transmission lines and building thousands of miles of new lines. The undertaking is huge, and it’s so huge not only because the price tag for making the U.S. grid capable of handling a net-zero economy is estimated at a couple of trillion dollars. Permitting, regulation and uncertainty over who is and should be in charge…

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