Energy

Report

Before U.N. Summit, World Tells Trump His ‘America-First Fun’ Must End

On the eve of the U.N. General Assembly debate, a diverse array of countries have made common cause to prod President Donald Trump to reverse ...

Argument

Angola’s Transition to Technocracy Won’t Be Victimless

Africa’s second-longest serving leader, Angola’s President José Eduardo dos Santos, is finally stepping down after almost 38 years in power. But the peaceful, multiparty election ...

The Cable

Venezuela Quells Military Uprising, Fires Outspoken Government Critic

Venezuela put down what appeared to be a small military uprising Sunday, killing two soldiers who said they had taken up arms to “re-establish constitutional ...

Report

Russia Looks to U.N. to Help It Profit From Syria Conquests

Russia has stepped up a campaign to get the United Nations to demine Syria’s majestic Roman ruins in Palmyra, but some Western diplomats fear the ...

Argument

The Palace Intrigue at the Heart of the Qatar Crisis

Who is the real leader of Qatar? On paper, it is Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the 37-year-old son of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa ...

Report

64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup

Declassified documents released last week shed light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s central role in the 1953 coup that brought down Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad ...

Dispatch

Kazakhstan Spent $5 Billion on a Death Star and It Doesn’t Even Shoot Lasers

ASTANA, Kazakhstan — I was the only visitor in Greece. As I walked through the tunnel of philosophers, eager young Kazakhs accosted me. “This is ...

Dispatch

Can Saudi Arabia’s Young Prince Wean the Welfare State?

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — In his decade-long career in commercial banking, Mohammed Murfat has never seen the Saudi economy like this. “Our market is down. ...

The Cable

Market Body Slams OPEC

OPEC just can’t catch a break. The Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries on Thursday agreed to extend global production cuts for nine more months. Members ...

The Cable

Trump Wants to Sell Half the U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve For More Cash

President Donald Trump is considering selling half the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help tackle the country’s ballooning deficit, leaving some to question whether the ...

Elephants in the Room

Why Trump’s Iran Sanctions Waiver Should Worry the Mullahs

As part of the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that he inherited from his predecessor, President Donald Trump yesterday was ...

The Cable

Desperate Saudis, Russians Agree to Extend Oil Production Cuts

The world’s top petrostates are seeing light at the end of a long oil glut tunnel, but the rough times aren’t over yet. On Monday, ...

The Cable

Saudi Arabia Now Controls the Largest Oil Refinery in North America

The Port Arthur refinery in Texas is North America’s largest oil refinery, and as of this week Saudi Arabia controls all of it. With the ...

Report

The New Jersey Chemical Spill That Could Pollute U.S.-Argentine Relations

Argentine President Mauricio Macri flew to Washington this week to present a new image of his country. Once mired in debt and feuds with foreign ...

The Cable

Forget Sanctions: Exxon Would Like Access to Russian Oil Anyway

With the simple submission of a technical sanctions waiver, oil giant Exxon Mobil created a potential PR headache for the White House. On Wednesday, the ...

The Cable

Leaked Records Show Shell’s Complicity in Massive Oil Corruption Scandal

Shell CEO Ben van Beurden picked up the phone and called his chief financial officer hours after Dutch police raided his offices. “I trust you ...

Argument

Is the Paris Climate Agreement Dead?

The long-awaited domestic climate policy rollback announced today was as disappointing as environmental advocates had feared. President Donald Trump’s executive order aims to reel back ...

The Cable

Take A Wild Ride on The Oil Price Roller Coaster

Petrostates may be forgiven for feeling nauseous after the sharp ups and downs of oil prices in recent years. Now you can be, too. A ...

The Cable

Oil Companies Cool on Arctic Drilling. Trump Wants It Anyway.

In recent weeks, Trump and his new Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, with some Senate allies, have reportedly begun exploring ways to open the U.S. Arctic ...

The Cable

What Exactly Is Going on Between Russia and Belarus?

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is speaking as though there’s a new battle being waged between Russia and Belarus. In reality, it’s the same old fight. ...

The Cable

Greasy Palms Dept.: Congress To Repeal Oil and Mining Anti-Corruption Regulation

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a resolution to repeal an obscure anti-corruption rule aimed at the oil and gas industry before the rule even ...

The Cable

Venezuela Is So Broke It Can’t Even Export Oil

A fleet of rundown Venezuelan oil tankers carrying some 4 million barrels of oil and other fuels is wallowing in the Caribbean Sea. Not because ...

The Cable

Trump Brings the Keystone Pipeline Back from the Dead

Five days into office, President Donald Trump has already begun to peel back his predecessor’s legacy through a flurry of executive orders. And controversial oil ...

The Cable

Obama Just Quietly Authored a Wonky Study on Climate Change in Case Donald Trump Reads Those Things

On Monday, Science published a new policy study titled, “The Irreversible Momentum of Clean Energy.” The study’s author says curbing greenhouse gas emissions no longer ...

Voice

Donald Trump: Making the World Safe for Dictators

On April 2, 1917, in the course of a speech asking Congress to declare war on Germany, Woodrow Wilson delivered one of the most resonant ...

Feature

The Great Bee Die-Off

“This fall, for the first time, the United States placed seven types of bees under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. It was the ...

The Cable

Climate Change Is Mauling the Arctic Worse Than We Even Thought

Temperatures in the Arctic this year were the highest since records started more than a century ago, and are driving a decline in sea ice ...

The Cable

Trump Expected to Tap Oil Chief As Secretary of State

The reality show that was the competition to be President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state appears to be over. Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, is ...

The Cable

Latest Wikileaks Dump Sheds New Light on Erdogan’s Power In Turkey

Wikileaks released over 57,000 emails of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, who just happens to be Turkey’s minister of energy and natural ...

The Cable

Trump Reaches Out to Central Asia, Looking For a Back Door to Russia

President-elect Donald Trump has already spoken to 44 world leaders on the phone since winning the U.S. election, including several conversations with Russian President Vladimir ...

The Cable

Amid Oil Glut, OPEC Finally Agrees to Curb Crude Production

It’s been a rough couple of years to be an oil cartel. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, has endured a global supply ...

The Cable

Kerry’s March to the Penguins

Next week, Secretary of State John Kerry is traveling farther south than any senior U.S. official has gone before: Antarctica. His objective -- beyond an ...

Argument

Blowing Up the Islamic State’s Oil Company

Just a year ago, the Islamic State was riding high on a wave of crude oil and hard cash. The jihadi group was increasing oil ...

Argument

Trump Wants to Steal Middle East Oil, and He’s Not Alone

“I’ve always said,” Donald Trump told Matt Lauer at the Commander-in-Chief Forum on Sept. 7, “take the oil.” It was a rare instance of Trump ...

Voice

OPEC Is in its Death Throes

Like the boy who cried wolf, 2016 might become the year of the oil producers’ cartel that cried “output cut.” If that’s right, and the ...

Report

U.S. to OPEC: Don’t Drill, Baby, Don’t Drill

OPEC, the dysfunctional cartel that has gifted case studies in the “prisoner’s dilemma” to business schools for years, unveiled an agreement to potentially cap oil ...

Feature

Inside Venezuela’s Prison Underworld

Venezuela is in the middle of an economic collapse. With hyperinflation projected to reach 480 percent by the end of this year, severe food ...

Argument

France’s Bongo-Bongo Party

“There is France, and there is Africa,” French President François Hollande announced on a state visit to Senegal in 2012. It was a remark validated ...

Observation Deck

How Not to Be a Civilization

Who has not stood before a vista -- snow-capped peaks, a coral seascape teeming with reef fish, a desert stretching parched and golden to the ...

Sightlines

The Exchange: Why Nation Is One of the Greatest Stories Ever Told

To Chigozie Obioma, there is more to writing fiction than crafting engaging characters and plots. Writers, he says, have an opportunity to assess and critique ...

Passport

Watch: Iranian Attack-Boats Swarm U.S. Destroyer

Four Iranian attack-boats sped dangerously close to the U.S. destroyer Nitze this week, in a reminder of Iran’s power to disrupt U.S. naval operations in ...

Argument

The Party Is Over in Rio

As the Olympic torch was extinguished Sunday night in a carnival of song and dance, the good times rolled. But it is too early to ...

The Cable

White House Issues Strict Rules for Arctic Drilling

President Barack Obama just made it even more difficult and expensive to drill for oil in the Arctic. On Thursday, the White House rolled out ...

Dispatch

Trouble Is Brewing in Nigeria’s Oil Country

WARRI, Nigeria — Every attack on an oil pipeline leaves Felix Timileami feeling as if he’s on top of the world. The 39-year-old, who belongs ...

Argument

Saudi Arabia’s First Step Is Admitting It Has an Oil Problem

The Saudi royal family has gambled its prestige on a bold economic reform plan, meant to revive an economy battered by sharply lower oil revenues. ...

Report

Trump’s Huge Energy Speech Was Hugely Wrong

Donald Trump waded into energy policy in a speech in North Dakota on Thursday, betraying the same lack of basic knowledge about how the energy ...

Podcast

The Green Movement and its Inconvenient Truths

[audio mp3="https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/160518_globalthinkers_mixdown.mp3"][/audio] In this week’s Global Thinkers podcast, Urgenda co-founder and director Marjan Minnesma joins filmmaker and activist Josh Fox, director of the upcoming How to ...

Shadow Government

Saudi Arabia Begins to Imagine Life Without Oil

Saudi Arabia appears to be making plans for life beyond oil. Following hints from Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country on April 25 released its "Vision ...

Report

Iran’s Hollow Threats to Close the Strait of Hormuz

This week, Iran has escalated a war of words over American access to the Persian Gulf and threatened to close the vital waterway to U.S. ...

Feature

Decoder: North Korea’s Maritime Industry

On Feb. 28, the cargo freighter Jin Teng, flying the flag of Sierra Leone, arrived in the Philippines. It was using what’s known as a “flag ...

Feature

Aperture: Exit the King

In Azerbaijan, oil reigns. The country sits atop some 7 billion barrels of reserves. Post-Soviet industrial development, along with surging oil prices, generated monumental economic ...

Argument

This Is Not the Time for an Independent Kurdistan

Many have wondered when Iraqi Kurdistan, which already enjoys broad autonomy from Baghdad, might finally declare independence. The present moment doesn’t seem particularly auspicious for ...

Dispatch

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Islamic State

I met Abu Samou when he pulled over to the side of the road in his small Foton truck in Al-Bab, a lifeless city with ...

Report

Dutch Treat: Russia Dodges a Bullet in the $50 Billion Yukos Case — For Now

A Dutch court threw Russia an unexpected lifeline Wednesday in a $50 billion arbitration case, pushing a decade-long legal saga into further appeals that could ...

Argument

Africa’s Petrostates Are Imploding

Africa’s petrostates are crashing hard. A cool $115 in the summer of 2014, a barrel of Brent crude, the international pricing benchmark, now fetches below ...

Passport

One Saudi’s Protest, Through The Viewfinder

Five images, glowing with the black and blue hue of an x-ray, stand side-by-side in a row. On one end, Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Mater’s ...

The Cable

This Chart Shows the U.S. Economy Might Be In Better Shape Than Voters Think

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have built their campaigns around the idea that the American economy is faltering. Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen says low ...

Report

Clinton Tries to Stake Out New Turf on Energy Policy

In recent weeks, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has moved to the left on energy policy, seemingly yanked by the Bernie Sanders insurgency. Much as happened ...

The 168th Organization Of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Conference

Argument

Saudi Arabia's Oil Freeze Is a Serious Miscalculation

At OPEC’s December meeting in Vienna, the delegation from Saudi Arabia ignored the pleas of some of the bloc’s more economically fragile members, whose ranks ...

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