Moscow’s Struggle to Sustain Its War in Ukraine In April, just weeks after he launched the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin maintained that the West could never strangle Russia’s economy. The barrage of American and European sanctions had not succeeded and would not succeed in bringing his country …

The main beneficiaries of the increased revenues will most likely be the office of Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and more importantly the IRGC’s elite branch the Quds Force, which carries out extraterritorial operations to advance the revolutionary principles of the Islamic Republic abroad. …

The Road Not Taken After two weeks in Iran during latter part of January 1979, the height of the revolutionary movement against the dynastic, autocratic rule of Mohammed Reza Ayatollah, I had the opportunity for an extended conversation with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in his tent where he received foreign visitors …

In September last year, when the mother and younger brother of Greek-Nigerian NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo were granted honorary Greek citizenship in a special ceremony in Athens, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was in attendance. When historian Mark Mazower received the honour in January, Interior Minister Makis Voridis was present, while …

Crypto trading volume, and co-movement with equity markets, has surged in the region. Few parts of the world have embraced crypto assets like Asia, where top adopters include individual and institutional investors from India to Vietnam and Thailand. This raises the important issue of the extent of integration of crypto …

The US–China technology rivalry became overt when a dispute erupted over 5G and Huawei after Washington designated Huawei as an embargoed company on its ‘Entity List’ in May 2019. At the centre of the dispute are standards underpinning the fifth generation of mobile network technology. China is overtaking the United …

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mohsen Khojastemehr stated on Friday that the country is planning to increase its oil production capacity by 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) by March 2023. Speaking to IRNA, Khojastemehr noted that that raise would bring Iran’s capacity to more than …

The August employment report gave a somewhat mixed picture as the establishment survey showed a strong gain of 315,000 jobs, while the household survey showed the unemployment rate rising by 0.2 percentage points to 3.7 percent. However, the picture given by both surveys is somewhat more complicated. In the case …

When I joined Ehud Olmert’s government on June 18, 2007, as minister of defense, it was almost three months since planning of the destruction of the Syrian reactor in Deir az-Zor had begun (in late March). I was aware of this activity, having been briefed in late April about the …

Background Businesses are rightly more concerned now over the outbreak of hostilities in the Taiwan Strait and its impact on physical security, assets/investments, and business continuity. Given the Chinese response to US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s 2-3 Aug 2022 visit to Taiwan, the risk of significant business disruption …