Why China should encourage a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Europe

Turkmenistan has emerged as a potential supplier of liquid natural gas (LNG) to Europe as the EU desperately searches for an alternative to Russian energy. The prospect of European exploitation of its resources may appear to test China’s dominance in the region.

Dependence on Russian energy represents an untenable predicament to the European Union, a situation that has led to the EU setting its sights on resource-rich Turkmenistan to circumvent Russia altogether.

Ισπανία: Κατακερματισμένη χώρα

Κατακερματισμένη Ισπανία
Εάν ήταν να διαλέξω μια τελική γραμμή για τις ισπανικές περιφερειακές και τοπικές εκλογές της προηγούμενης Κυριακής, πιθανότατα θα διάλεγα το «οι αυτοδυναμίες είναι κάτι από το παρελθόν για την Ισπανία». Η ψηφοφορία έλαβε χώρα σε 13 από τις 17 περιφέρειες της χώρας. Σε καμία από αυτές δεν κατάφερε να κερδίσει την απόλυτη πλειοψηφία κάποιο κόμμα, ένα αποτέλεσμα που είναι πρωτοφανές. Τα δύο κύρια παραδοσιακά κόμματα, το κεντροδεξιό Λαϊκό Κόμμα του Ισπανού πρωθυπουργού Mariano Rajoy και η αξιωματική αντιπολίτευση του Σοσιαλιστικού Κόμματος (PSOE), υπέστησαν απώλειες σε σχέση με τις εκλογές του 2011. Τέσσερα χρόνια μετά, το Λαϊκό Κόμμα και το PSOE συγκέντρωσαν μαζί άνω του 65% των ψήφων σε εθνικό επίπεδο. Αυτό τώρα έχει συρρικνωθεί στο 52%. Τα δύο νέα κόμματα, το Podemos και το κεντρώο Ciudadanos, κρατούν το κλειδί για σταθερές κυβερνήσεις στις περισσότερες περιοχές.

Reflections on Ramadi

The Iraqi city of Ramadi has fallen again into the hands of the Islamic State, a group born of al Qaeda in Iraq. That this terrorist organization, whose brutality needs no description, has retaken a city once fought for by American soldiers troubles me. I served two deployments in Ramadi, fighting al Qaeda. Comrades died in that fight. I was shot in Ramadi. My initial reaction, like that of many veterans, is to ask what the hell it was all for, when nothing seems to change. The whole endeavor was a costly bloodletting and it seems the price we paid yielded no actual benefit. Yet, Memorial Day is as much a day for reflection as it is for remembrance and commemoration. And in reflecting, I have had to sit back and define exactly what we are memorializing on this day.

Terawatt Solar Farms By 2050?

Government policies should shift incentives in solar energy away from rooftop deployment in residences toward utility-scale use because this is the most cost-effective way to deploy solar in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, researchers at MIT say.

By the same token, government sponsored research and development in solar should concentrate on thin-film technologies, based on naturally abundant materials rather than on reducing costs of the crystalline silicon technology that is currently dominant in photovoltaic panels.

How will the eurozone cope with the next downturn?

Spring brought a burst of sunshine over the eurozone economy. The French economy expanded rapidly in the first quarter of 2015 and even the Italian one managed respectable growth. Fiscal policy is no longer contractionary across the eurozone as a whole. Cheaper oil is boosting consumption. A weaker euro is boosting exports. And the ECB's quantitative easing appears to be working: money supply growth is picking up, suggesting deflationary pressures are easing. 



But it would be risky for eurozone policy-makers to mistake a modest cyclical upturn after years of stagnation for something more than that. First, business cycles are getting shorter and downturns deeper. The reasons for this are complicated but globalisation and increasingly complex financial linkages between countries appear to be playing a part. Nobody knows how long this eurozone cycle will last but it is probably fair to assume that we are already some way into it. 

Assad Strikes Back

Both rebel forces and the Islamic State are on the march in Syria. Islamist opposition groups have advanced in the south near Daraaand in the north in Idlib; the Islamic State, meanwhile, last week conqueredthe central city of Palmyra. President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is clearlyunder strain, but rumors of its impending demise are greatly overstated.