On 6 October, the British deputy ambassador and four other embassy personnel were targeted in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in the capital Sana’a. One of the embassy personnel was slightly…
One principal advantage of thin-film solar cells is that they use far less (maybe 1/100th the amount) of the semiconductor materials that are required to fabricate first-generation solar cells. The…
America is certainly the land of plenty. This country has been blessed with an overabundance of natural resources and some of the world's most fertile agricultural land. However, every year…
China’s resurgence in recent years has jolted the leading powers of the world out of their stupor – and India’s case is no different. Today, forward-looking Indian mandarins are no…
The line of container trucks and fuel tankers waiting to cross into Afghanistan grows longer by the day at the Torkham border crossing, as Pakistan's partial blockade of NATO supply…
I just contracted to buy all the gasoline I want at 31 cents a gallon. No, I have not struck oil in my backyard, or come into an inheritance from…
One indirect consequence of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the impact it may have on the financing of the many tourism projects that have sprouted along the Caspian…
Five years ago, a big investment house like Merrill Lynch would have scarcely thought to mention gold. But in 2010, the yellow metal is a hot topic. A September report…
Three months since Iran’s oil ministry announced it was ending an import deal with three Caspian states, future plans remain unclear. The ministry announced in June that it would not…
Energy-rich Azerbaijan may have made gains of late in giving its citizens reliable access to gas and electricity, but on one key front, potable water, the government is lagging. A…
Jon Hilsenrath (WSJ) has yet another article on Fed propaganda to ease the way to QE-2. Today it was Chicago Fed boss Charles Evans doing the talking. He is in…
As Deng Tsiao-Ping observed before his death, rare earth metals - which are crucial to producing all manner of "clean" high-technology - are China's oil. Despite the name, rare earth…
OK, let’s say that if you don’t own bonds, but someone is holding a gun to your head, dangling you by your ankles outside a window on a high floor,…
Lots of pundits politicians and special interests all want their idea to be the path for a new energy economy. Lest we forget, we consumers will pay for whatever idea…
There is another angle to the solar play, which I bet you haven’t thought of. I have been arguing that companies like First Solar (FSLR) are great proxy for oil,…
Shale gas is going global. It's simply too groundbreaking a concept not to spread. Shale is now the name of the gas game in North America. And Europe is starting…
In a world desperate for new oil supplies, Venezuela beckons. But will its fumbling management of oil production lead to foreign intervention, covert or otherwise, in a effort to raise…
JORDAN has over 0.59 trillion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of oil-shale reserves, says one of the companies trying to develop the resource. It is an estimate that could revolutionise…
Afghanistan was not always the abyss it’s thought to be today. If it is to be stabilised, it needs to resume its position as a transit between its many neighbours.…
Overnight, the Bank of Japan announced unprecedented monetary policy. The Japanese are going "all-in" on economic stimulus. Since the financial crisis, "monetary easing" has been a buzzword globally. For many…