The recent enlargement of the BRICS group, which now includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates, is widely seen as a significant development that will have far-reaching implications on the world’s geopolitical and economic scene. It is also seen as a new game changer in the world’s energy dynamics.
BEIJING - Visiting Xinjiang, a region located in the Northwest of China, one can be astonished by the amalgamation of diverse traditions, religions, and art forms that continue to shape the region’s unique cultural identity to this day; but this can be explained as the region had served for centuries as a conduit for the exchange of goods, ideas, and people between various civilizations connected by the ancient Silk Road, a network of trade routes that connected the East and West.
Amid accelerating climate change consequences, member countries of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted a revised greenhouse gas (GHG) strategy for shipping that sets a net zero emissions target by around 2050.
In a message to leaders participating in the New Global Financing Pact Summit, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi urged rich and developed countries, which possess the technology and knowledge, to shoulder the responsibility towards others, which do not possess this technology.
Fierce fighting across Sudan has left millions of Sudanese citizens without access to necessary humanitarian aid and hardly any hopes for a peaceful transition to civilian rule. While forces loyal to two rival generals are vying for control, civilians who are still alive are enduring desperate shortages of food and basic supplies. They have to run for their lives amid power blackouts, a lack of cash, communications outages, and runaway inflation.
As Iraqi people were marking the two-decade anniversary of the US invasion, the Iraqi energy sector was poised to gain new momentum by reaching an agreement on a long-delayed $27 billion energy project with TotalEnergies. In the meantime, the central Iraqi government and Kurdish authorities were able to strike a deal to end a standoff over oil sales that had blocked nearly 500,000 barrels a day in exports and sent crude prices rising.
After years of tension that involved suspected attacks and proxy wars in several parts of the region, the archrivals, Saudi Arabia and Iran, decided to reestablish diplomatic relations. The China-brokered Saudi-Iran rapprochement is seen as a major diplomatic breakthrough that may alter the regional geopolitical scene.
When war erupted between Ukraine and Russia, corporate leaders, government officials, and military experts from the West were up in arms, revved up to support Ukraine in pushing Russian troops out of the country. Yet, as the war brews on, another group of activists, policymakers, and concerned global citizens have also sounded the alarm, feminists.
A year has passed since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict with no clue about how and when this crisis may end. The Ukraine crisis has left the world with severe economic pain and a new global energy system.
Increasing geopolitical uncertainty and rising inflation are among the biggest risk factors for businesses in 2023 and despite the optimistic OPEC outlook for growth of global oil demand in 2023, energy market dynamics remain haunted by these ongoing risks for another year to come.
