• Uranium Market amid COVID-19

    This update provides a summary of recent key developments in the uranium industry, provisional information related to the Company’s key second quarter and half-year operating and trading results, and reiterated 2020 guidance. The information contained in this Operations and Trading Update may be subject to change. Market Overview The COVID-19 pandemic, which took hold in earnest at the end of the first quarter of 2020, continued to spread throughout the second quarter with a significant impact on global economies. The slowdown in manufacturing and commercial activities has impacted the energy sector; along with oil and other fossil fuels, the electricity sector has seen a large fall in demand of approximately up to 20% in most countries. However, within the electricity sector, the impact on nuclear generation has been much less severe, reflecting the resiliency and base load nature of nuclear power plants on the grid. In its 2020 (...)

  • What Erdogan Wants

    by Babak KHANDANI

    So Turkey seems to be a safe haven, and its leader could therefore have his hands free for his Ottoman adventures by attacking both Russia (through Syria) and Europe (through Greece). Or maybe things are going very badly for Erdogan and he would have only one solution to save himself from bankruptcy: robbery and blackmail. The coronavirus has one merit: it does not discriminate. Yellow, black, white, poor, rich, humble, powerful, it attacks them all without any racial, ethnic or social consideration. It is also deaf to propaganda and is incorruptible. He moves forward undisturbed by the gesticulations and the make-up of the figures that all have been used to for decades. Indeed, the cornavirus complies only with the natural laws of (...)

  • Iran as Central Asia’s Hub

    by James M. DORSEY

    Rahmon, President of Tajikistan Torn between a desire for secularity and an Islamic reality. Saudi Arabia may have been getting more than it bargained for when authorities in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second largest city, ordered that the city’s largest and most popular mosque be converted into a cinema. The order followed the closure of some 2,000 mosques in the country in the last three years and the arrest last month of scores of Muslim clerics and teachers, many of whom were accused of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that is banned in both Tajikistan and the kingdom. Fewer men sport beards in Tajikistan after being harassed by police, while women in hijabs are far and few between after many were detained and (...)

  • The World after 2019-nCoV

    by Nazar TAMASHEVSKA

    nCoV, the little troublemaker nobody anticipated... The trade agreement between China and the USA is about to become irrelevant due to a microscopic saboteur called the coronavirus 2019-nCoV. (Click to enlarge.) (© Satrapia) While international organizations such as the IMF, the OECD or the ADB are not commenting so much on the potentially devastating economic consequences of the pandemic for both China and the entire planet, no one is so naive as to believe that we could get out of this crisis without a scratch. World leaders, starting with Donald Trump, are trying to reassure people and markets to prevent uncontrollable panic attacks. They are counting on Beijing’s brutality to confine people and the virus, while keeping their (...)

  • Coronavirus and Central Asia

    by Babak KHANDANI

    For more than twenty years, China has been expanding its economic and physical presence in Central Asia, which, in addition to its mining and oil resources, is the only way to bypass the seas entirely dominated by the navies of Western countries. Black Death (Click to enlarge) The negligence of the Central Asian governments could serve as a breach for the virus to spread explosively to the rest of the World. Two countries in particular should be closely monitored: Afghanistan and Iran. There is no need to remind our well-informed readers of the presence of Chinese companies in Afghanistan, particularly in the exploitation of the Aynak copper deposit. On the other hand, it would be (...)

  • Russians Worried about Regime Change in Iran

    Leonid Slutsky According to Slutsky, that was “a response to new US anti-Iranian sanctions and the EU’s inability to launch the promised financial mechanism to bypass them and compensate for losses from Washington’s policy to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero.” “The United States is pursuing an obvious objective: to force Iran to abandon the nuclear deal altogether and therefore push Europeans towards restoring the anti-Iranian package of restrictive measures under US control. The White House hopes to achieve a regime change in Tehran by re-imposing the US and EU sanctions, strengthening Iran’s political isolation and whipping up tensions in the Persian Gulf region in general”, he (...)

  • Eurasia’s Great Game

    by James M. DORSEY

    The Russian fortress Albazin stormed by Manchu/Chinese Qing forces Qing dynasty siege of the Cossack fort of Albazin (1686) resulting in the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 xhich gave the land to China. (Click to enlarge) Zbigniew Brzezinski hosts a dinner for Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping 28 January 1979. (Click to enlarge) Addressing last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, then US defence secretary Jim Mattis dismissed fears first voiced in 1997 by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of America’s greatest 20th century strategists who advised US presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, (...)

  • The Peace Puzzle

    by Mohammad Mahdi ZAKI

    The Peace Puzzle (PDF) Click to download the entire article in PDF format. (Best result on A4 sheet paper) President Hamid Karzai, by initiating the High Peace Council in 2010, offered the Taliban a peace deal, which included the removal of their names from terrorist blacklists, if they renounced ties with the al-Qaeda, abandoned violence, and pursued their political goals in accordance with the Afghanistan Constitution. The Taliban rejected Karzai’s overtures and responded with renewed campaign against the government. The National Unity Government under Ashraf Ghani made a peace offer to the Taliban that included recognition of the group as a political party, the removal of sanctions, release of prisoners, and a review of the constitution. (...)

  • Pakistan and Its Water

    by Nazar TAMASHEVSKA

    Pakistan: Getting More from Water (PDF) (Clck to download) This report builds on prior work to provide a new, comprehensive, and balanced view of water security in Pakistan, stressing the importance of the diverse social, environmental, and economic outcomes from water. The report highlights the complex water issues that Pakistan must tackle to improve water security and sheds new light on conventional assumptions around water. It seeks to elevate water security as an issue critical for national development. The report assesses current water security and identifies important water-related challenges that may hinder progress in economic and human development. It identifies unmitigated water-related risks, as well as opportunities where water (...)

  • Saudi Policy Confronting US Senate

    by James M. DORSEY

    The six-page draft also holds Prince Mohammed accountable for the devastating war in Yemen that has sparked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, the failure to end the 17-month-old Saudi-United Arab Emirates-led economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar, and the jailing and torture of Saudi dissidents and activists. In doing so, the resolution confronts not only Prince Mohammed’s policies but also by implication those of his closest ally, UAE crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed. The UAE was the first country that Saudi leader visited after the Khashoggi killing. By in effect challenging the position of king-in-waiting Prince Mohammed, the resolution raises the question whether some of his closest allies, including the UAE crown prince, will (...)

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