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Iran-China strategic partnership deal awaiting finalization
Jul 03, 2020 05:50Since the victory of 1979 Islamic Revolution, US businesses have been prevented from trade with Iran, while their European counterparts have withdrawn amid US threat of sanctions. That has helped Chinese companies move in and fill the void. As a result, Iran and China have forged a unique partnership which is almost impossible or not easily viable with any other country.
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Extension of Iran’s arms embargo illegitimate
Jun 24, 2020 10:31Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wrote "US bid to extend Iran’s arms embargo is absolutely ridiculous, irresponsible and unacceptable and serves only to recall the famous English proverb about having one’s cake and eating it.”
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Tourism deals lingering blow to global economy
Jun 15, 2020 15:19Economists warn the blow that coronavirus has dealt to the global travel and tourism industry is set to do lingering damage to the world’s growth, as areas that are dependent on visitors for their income struggle to reposition their local economies.
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On Trump’s new measures against China
Jun 06, 2020 09:49The futile efforts made by the Trumpsters, who advocate a doctrine of permanent war, as well as their technological dictatorships, who try to push their opponents under the bus by supporting the post-colonial status quo, will go nowhere.
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George Floyd protests: Police escalating violence across America
Jun 03, 2020 13:58"While some in the American media have claimed the protests across the US as violent “looters” imposing “tyranny” upon the country, much of the violence is being deliberately instigated and propagated by an out of control police force that appears to have gone berserk over the widespread public challenge to their authority and their impunity to act as they wish", says Alan MacLeod, staff writer for MintPressNews.
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Climate change: How a green new deal really could go global
Jun 01, 2020 15:38Renewables are now often cheaper than fossil fuels in large parts of the world. The technologies are proven and can be built at scale today. And most importantly, their cost follows the logic of all manufacturing — the more you produce, the cheaper it gets. The same logic applies to hydrogen and to electric vehicles. But it does not apply to fossil fuels, whose cost ultimately relies on mining ever more difficult and dwindling resources.
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Huge oilfields could help Iran seize Saudi market share in China
Jun 01, 2020 15:34Given that China’s oil demand has now recovered from the COVID-19 outbreak to even higher levels than before, Iran is operating at full tilt to optimize the oil available to key ally Beijing from any and all of its fields. Principally, this involves optimizing output from the cluster of supergiant fields in the West Karoun Oil Region, attempting to increase the average recovery rate from older fields, and pushing forward on production increases from fields shared with Iraq and Kuwait.
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Trump boosts nuclear weapons spending, fueling a new arms race
Jun 01, 2020 15:28Under Trump, nuclear spending and tensions are sharply increasing, but U.S. allies are anxious and uncertain and adversaries are antagonized. At a time when more than 100,000 Americans have been killed by a virus that can’t be stopped with a bomb, both the ICAN and ANPI reports illustrate how Trump’s unrestrained embrace of nuclear weapons is not making a U.S. that is safer, only a U.S. that is alone.
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Covid-19 and tourism: Can domestic travel address tourism slump in emerging markets?
May 29, 2020 08:44The revival of domestic travel in emerging markets is being led by countries that have been comparatively successful in avoiding large-scale outbreaks of the coronavirus, and which rely on tourism for a significant portion of GDP. One such country is Vietnam, which by May 25 had limited COVID-19 cases to 326 and had not experienced a virus-related death. These results are remarkable considering Vietnam’s population of 97 million and its close geographical and economic ties with China.
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Global CO2 emissions to drop 4-7% in 2020, but will it matter?
May 27, 2020 10:51Lead author Corinne Le Quere, a professor at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia said “Population confinement has led to drastic changes in energy use and CO2 emissions,” adding, “However, these extreme decreases are likely to be temporary, as they do not reflect structural changes in the economic, transport or energy systems.”