Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Emmanuel Macron reportedly said this to Joe Biden a couple of days ago: I had a call with MbZ [UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan]… He told me two things. I’m at a maximum, maximum (production capacity). This is…
This could be a very good article if it weren’t so angry and consequently sloppy and misleading. Consider this quote by a Diana Darke, introduced as “Middle East specialist”: “Notre-Dame’s architectural design, like all gothic cathedrals in Europe, comes directly…
Bloomberg ran this column by Julian Lee on Sunday: Here’s what Saudi Arabia needs to do. At the virtual meeting of oil producers… it should give its counterparts — including those who don’t show up — a clear binary choice…
Saudi Arabia has responded to Russia’s refusal to cooperate by cutting prices and threatening (credibly, it seems) to raise output: The kingdom plans to pump more than 10m [million, not thousand] barrels a day next month while announcing unprecedented discounts…
It was a black Friday for the oil market: OPEC and non-OPEC allies failed on Friday to agree on how much oil production to cut amid the coronavirus outbreak, with Russia reportedly refusing to give the green light to the…
I’ve been deeply disappointed by President Trump’s reluctance to take on certain dictators. Unfortunately, the senior Iranian murderer killed in Baghdad by the US air force was not personally a dictator. However, he soldiered for the turbaned junta so his…
It is often said that, lately, the Kremlin has been successfully punching above Russia’s economic weight in the global arena. Surprisingly, Russia has positioned itself as a reliable partner, an actor that would never betray its allies or clients. Not…
Before it can be exported or refined, half the country’s oil output (and 5% of the world’s) must be processed at a single, supersized facility. Located in a politically and militarily unstable region, it has been poorly protected from a…
The Guardian‘s Observer “can reveal” that Trump’s aides hired an Israeli private intelligence agency last May to find “dirt” on two former Obama advisers. It’s been “part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the [Iran nuclear] deal,” according to the…
Why would Bashar Assad order the chemical attack in eastern Ghouta? I’ve come across a helpful counterquestion asked by someone in the Russian-speaking parts of the web: And why did Mikhail Tukhachevsky use poison gas against the Tambov insurgents in…
On a meager data plan in this Alpine cottage, I’ve limited myself to reading news stories – no images, no streaming video, no podcasts. That’s my preferred way of getting news anyway. Unsurprisingly, I’ve been aware of the Iranian protests,…
The country with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. These four account for more than 40% of the total. Nigeria is in the fifth place. Egypt, Iran and Turkey share places…