The Asian Development Bank (ADB) recently confirmed that Pakistan’s lackluster economic performance in recent years is essentially a reflection of its ongoing energy crisis. A combination of factors, including an unbalanced power-generating portfolio, the insurgency in Balochistan and natural calamities such as the devastating floods in 2010, have complicated the task of Pakistan’s energy planners. Long dependent on natural gas to meet transport and urban domestic requirements, Pakistan is facing a spike in its oil import bill due to gas shortages. Meanwhile, the electricity sector is finding it difficult to deal with the inherently intermittent nature of hydropower as a [...]
Last month Uzbekistan stopped the shipment of gas to Tajikistan, a move that Tajikistan qualified as part of an ongoing rail transport and energy blockade. In an email interview, Idil Tuncer Kilavuz, lecturer at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey, discussed Uzbekistan-Tajikistan relations. WPR: How have Uzbekistan-Tajikistan relations evolved since the fall of the Soviet Union? Idil Tuncer Kilavuz: Since Uzbekistan and Tajikistan gained independence in 1991, their relations have been poor. Just after the fall of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan experienced a civil war in which Uzbekistan supported the existing Tajikistan leadership, which won the war in 1997. However, relations [...]
New developments in a wide range of fields and regions have reshaped the global energy landscape. Whether due to newfound techniques or newfound reserves, regional politics or national policy, global energy seems to have entered an era in which limitless opportunities coexist with long-standing problems. This World Politics Review special report examines the emerging global energy picture. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Not a subscriber? Purchase this document for Kindle or as a PDF from Scribd. Or, learn more about how you can try our subscription service free for [...]
