Trade

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In a sign of China’s increasingly powerful role in Central Asia and the Middle East, on Tuesday a Chinese train arrived in Tehran after a 14-day journey. The freight train just used existing rail links to go from China to Kazakhstan, then to Uzbekistan, then Turkmenistan, […]

Economy

The Surprising Reasons Oil Prices Keep Falling

contributors

By Marcelle Arak and Sheila Tschinkel | (The Conversation) | – – Global stock markets have been in a tailspin this week. And the sinking price of oil received at least some of the blame. Just this week, the cost of a barrel of crude reached a 12-year-low of US$27, down from more than $100 […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Arabs Caught between Trump and ISIL: Casino Capitalism driving backward Identity Politics Worldwide

contributors

Maged Mandour | ( OpenDemocracy) | – – Backwards looking politics is a malaise affecting both the west and east. It breeds violence as global elites clamber to maintain their grip on power. Flickr/Darron Birgenheier. Some rights reserved.Comments by leading republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, on banning Muslims from entering the United States garnered […]

Investment

Investing in Iran after Deal? Be careful of doing business with the Revolutionary Guards

contributors

By Mohammad M. Hedayati-Kakhki | (The Conversation) | – – The merest hint of a successful deal over Iran’s nuclear programme is enough to get people excited. And as the country emerges from economic isolation, nowhere is the enthusiasm more keenly felt than in the huge oil firms with a chance to make a splash […]

Economy

Trans-Pacific partnership raises the barriers for the access to affordable medicines

contributors

By Carlos M. Correa | (Inter Press Service) | – – GENEVA (IPS) – The pharmaceutical industry from the US and Europe scored a major victory with the adoption, in 1994, of a binding agreement on intellectual property (Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights – TRIPS) in the context of the nascent […]

Algeria

As Oil Prices Crater, Algeria needs an Actual Economy or big Trouble Looms

contributors

By Allan Christelow | (Informed Comment) | – – Like other oil producers, Algeria faces difficulties with the sharp decline in prices since 2014. But unlike oil producers in the Gulf region, Algeria has a strong tradition of public discussion, a tradition that has managed to survive the concentration of wealth in the hands of […]

China

As GOP fumes re: Iran, Russia & China are outflanking West with New Eurasia Silk Road

contributors

By Pepe Escobar | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Let’s start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: from now on, any possible future attack on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning […]

Banking

Are Arab Oil Monarchies divided over Iran Deal?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. In recent years it has faced severe internal divisions, especially a Saudi-Qatar split over the Muslim Brotherhood, which Riyadh wanted to crush but which Qatar generally has supported. After […]

Banking

The Real Reason Critics Hate The Iran Nuclear Deal

contributors

Cenk Uygur | (The Young Turks Video) | – – “There’s something wrong with people’s reaction to the Iran nuclear deal. If what they’re saying is true then the deal makes no sense at all. They’re saying Iran will be more likely to get a nuclear weapon, but that simply isn’t true. Cenk Uygur delivers […]