WASHINGTON — The Argentinean government’s refusal to reconcile its old debts and its creation of new ones has rendered the state increasingly reliant on Venezuela for financial support, and the country is headed for a financial fall if it doesn’t get its fiscal house in order, said participants at a June 2 forum here this week. Hosted by the Hudson Institute, “Is the World Economy Going South? Which Way Argentina?” featured comments from Evan Ellis, an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, Jaime Daremblum, Costa Rica’s former ambassador to the United States, [...]
The recent improvement in relations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan could help remove a major obstacle to the exploitation of Caspian Sea energy reserves. When Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov arrived in Baku on May 19, he became the first Turkmen president in over a decade to visit Azerbaijan. The two countries severed ties in 1999 over an Azerbaijani decision to develop an oil and natural gas field that the Turkmenistan government also claimed. Until now, the unresolved dispute among the five Caspian states over how best to divide and manage the sea and its valuable subsurface natural resources has impeded efforts to exploit [...]
Earlier this month, Royal Dutch Shell and Spain’s Repsol pulled out of a proposed Iranian natural gas development project that was estimated to be worth over $10 billion. The decision by the two European energy firms to pull out of phase 13 of the South Pars project was seen as a setback for Iran’s efforts to court foreign interest in its energy sector at a time when the Bush administration is actively trying to discourage it. Shell and Repsol executives did not publicly comment on their reasons for pulling out of South Pars. But whether it was due to concerns [...]
