Resources Archive

The Year of China in Russia got off to a top-level handshaking start in Moscow this week, ensuring that whatever else might go amiss, visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao would have something to smile about, for the TV stations back home at least. But after three days of political pledges and promises with President Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders, the Chinese president has returned home without any progress on the one issue that hexes Beijing now — energy security. China cannot maintain its racing economic growth of over 10 percent a year without scouring the world to vacuum up […]

CHIANG KHONG, Thailand — In the sleepy village of Chiang Khong on the muddy-brown banks of the mighty Mekong river, the young men are excited by talk of a bridge to link Thailand with Laos on the other side. The older population of mostly farmers and small traders are less enthused; they have heard it before. But this time, a bridge to open up a forgotten corner of empty, jungle-covered hills on the edge of the Golden Triangle — notorious in faraway countries for its opium-producing poppy cultivation — might really happen. China has agreed to pay half the $33.2 […]

Fertile fields where there was once barren tundra; the Arctic free of ice; unhindered access to mineral resources — in Russia, there is increasing hope that the country will emerge as a winner from the catastrophe of climate change. For the northern giant with millions of cubic kilometers of permafrost soil, global warming could bring enormous national benefit. The other countries around the North Pole are likewise beginning to imagine the coming of a new Golden Age. On this view, a Union of Nordic Nations might be the strategic alliance of the future, which thanks to the warming climate could […]

Violence and militancy in Nigeria — particularly in the oil-rich Niger Delta — continues to hamper petroleum production in the volatile West African nation and threatens to disrupt upcoming presidential elections, analysts and experts tell World Politics Review. In just the last few days, at least 10 people have been killed in an around Port Harcourt, the de facto capital of the delta, where some 2 million barrels of oil are produced a day, according to independent estimates. Dozens of kidnappings since the beginning of the year by armed militants have prompted foreign oil firms to evacuate thousands of workers […]