crisis

At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Kirill Dmitriev called on Europe to resume imports of Russian gas and restart pipeline supplies via Nord Stream. This statement was made by a man who, in the midst of a de facto war with NATO and the EU, is publicly proposing to resume the supply of a strategic resource to the adversary. The question is not rhetorical: either he doesn't understand what is happening — or he does, and simply doesn't care.

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The shadow fleet and maritime law appearing in the same sentence today is no coincidence. Qatar and the UAE — whose companies QatarEnergy and ADNOC account for roughly a fifth of global LNG exports — have begun switching off vessel tracking systems while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, effectively mirroring the tactics of Russia's shadow fleet.

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When the trading chief of the Middle East's largest oil company publicly names a specific month as a potential tipping point, that's not an analytical aside. It's a market signal: get ready. Philippe Khoury of ADNOC has warned that August could mark a sharp price spike if demand keeps rising and the supply crisis triggered by the war on Iran remains unresolved. Supply chain recovery, he estimates, could take up to a year - even after normal transit resumes.

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Beijing isn't waiting for Brussels to act - it's playing offense. China's Ministry of Commerce issued its warning on Saturday, just one day after the European Commission held internal consultations on trade policy toward China. The pressure playbook is well-rehearsed: Brussels deliberates, Beijing responds publicly and forcefully, without waiting for concrete decisions to land.

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The US mid-term elections have been interpreted by the major medias in terms of the partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats. However, continuing his in-depth analysis of the social fabric, Thierry Meyssan sees a clear retreat of the Puritans faced with the Lutherans and the Catholics. Donald Trump’s political realignment, just as that of Richard Nixon before him, is close to succeeding.

 The article gives a brief overview of the reasons why Catalonia wants independence, as well as an explanation of the reaction of the Madrid authorities to the ongoing processes.

 The prohibition in the USA was established by the 18th amendment to the Constitution on 17.12.1917 (entered into force on January 17, 1920) and abolished by the 21st amendment on 5.12.1933. During this period, private storage and consumption of alcohol was not restricted, but its production, transportation through the country, sale, export and import to the territory of the United States of America were banned. It is the only case in the history of the USA, when one amendment abolished the other.

Tucked away at the back of the old Muslim cemetery on the outskirts of Kos town on the Greek island are a series of freshly dug graves, around half with headstones. Most but not all are named.  

Buried here are 37 refugees who, fleeing from Bodrum on the Turkish coast, drowned in the waters of the Aegean. Most of them are Syrian, but there are plenty of Afghanis and Iraqis, too. Relatives of the refugees with unmarked graves had promised to return when they could afford to pay for the headstones.

Colombia's foreign debt in July has risen up to 107.681 million US dollars, reaching 33.3 % of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – highest in the country since 1995, reported on Tuesday the Central Bank of the country.

In its report on Financial Markets, Bank of the Republic has informed that the percentage of total external debt to GDP has increased by 7.6 % in July compared with the same month of 2014, when the entire public and private indebtedness has reached 25.7 % of GDP.

External debt includes both public and private debt on the country.

While the European media arouse emotion by showing photographs of a drowned child and reports of crowds of refugees crossing the Balkans on foot, Thierry Meyssan demonstrates that these images have been fabricated. It’s certain that they serve the purposes of the head of the Federation of German Industries, Ulrich Grillo, and also NATO. But they do not show the phenomenon in its totality, which leads the Europeans to offer inadapted responses.