With Nord Stream gone, where will Europe get its gas?

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Accusations continue to fly about the cause of major leaks from the two Nord Stream pipelines transporting gas through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Europe. Until this latest development, Russia had maintained that Western sanctions were behind disruptions to supply from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, as maintenance and repair of essential equipment could […]

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US pushes ‘rule-based disorder’

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Upon becoming president of the United States, Joe Biden immediately set forth to promote “rule-based international order,” ostensibly for the world community, but the message was really intended for China. The “world order,” according to Biden, was for Beijing to conduct its foreign affairs in line with Washington’s expectations. Now into the second year of […]

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British pound debacle worsens Asia’s woes

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TOKYO — When Larry Summers says it’s bad, you know it’s bad. Ex-Treasury Secretary Summers made his bones amid the wreckage of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Summers was a key member of the financial fire brigade tending to — and at times making worse — a blazing meltdown that left big scars. As such, […]

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EU talks tough but goes soft on Myanmar trade

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A worker at a garment factory in the Shwe Pyi Thar industrial zone in Yangon in a September 2015 file photo. Photo: AFP/Ye Aung Thu

The European Union is preparing to impose a new tranche of sanctions against Myanmar’s democracy-suspending, coup-installed military regime, but behind the new measures, a debate rages about whether Brussels should revoke the benighted nation’s EU trade privileges.  In particular, many European and Myanmar trade unions are calling for Myanmar’s suspension from the Everything But Arms […]

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Russia sending oil and gas workers to fight in Ukraine

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Russia’s effort to conscript 300,000 reservists to counter Ukraine’s military advances in Kharkiv has drawn a lot of attention from military and political analysts. But there’s also a potential energy angle. In its call for reservists, Russia’s leadership specifically targeted oil and gas workers for the draft. One might assume that energy workers, who provide […]

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A way out of exchange-rate chaos

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Part 1 of this series concluded that “currency hedging is not just costly and in some countries prohibitively so, preventing companies access to credit and grow, but it brings a misallocation of talents in a floating world.” Historically, countries have not managed exchange-rate gyrations well. Their experiences, Japan being prominent, show how accurate Paul Volcker was […]

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