Iran is attempting to create a gas alliance involving Qatar. While Turkey is attempting to rescue the grain deal, Iran is actively promoting the concept of establishing a gas hub of its own. The gas swap between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan via Iran served as a test phase. Later in November 2022, Russia and Iran started researching the idea of swapping gas supplies, which initially would be around 10 billion cubic meters per year. Iran formally proposed to Russia and Turkmenistan a large-scale gas swap in February 2023, in which Russia would get gas in the north and Turkmenistan would supply it in exchange in either direction in the south. They specifically discussed deliveries of gas to Pakistan, near whose border Iran is building a gas pipeline with a capacity of 100 million m3/day of gas (about 36.5 billion m3/year), opening up the prospect of supplying India in the future.

With global attention focused on the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, there are the usual bleatings about politics being entangled with sport. Qatar being a country with no previous football tradition, these are being magnified beyond the usual levels. Selling out to big business! Ignoring Qatar’s human rights record! Preventing fans drinking! LBGT and migrant worker abuse...

Washington’s defense of its unipolar world is becoming increasingly difficult for the White House, and it is accompanied by growing opposition from Russia, China and an increasing number of supporters of a multipolar world order. Under these circumstances, Washington is desperately trying to demonstrate what little still remains of its influence on the suppression of any initiatives...

Experts estimate that in order to avoid a catastrophic fall in GDP and the risk of a prolonged economic depression, the total public spending by European countries to mitigate the energy collapse unleashed by Washington will have to exceed €1 trillion!  A crisis of this magnitude would result in more bankruptcies and a domino effect in the finance sector, the scaling back...

Tensions have been rising between the US and Iran after the former introduced ‘toughest sanctions’ on Iran a few months ago to cripple the latter’s economy. In past few weeks, tensions have increased in the wake of some incidents in…