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Summary No one has claimed responsibility for 2022 pipeline blasts Suspect used sailing yacht to carry out attack, prosecutors say Suspect arrested while holidaying with family on Adriatic coast Suspect was former Ukrainian officer, WSJ reports Ukraine has previously denied involvement BERLIN/MILAN, Aug 21 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian man was arrested at a holiday bungalow in Italy on suspicion of coordinating attacks on three Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, officials said on Thursday, a breakthrough in an episode that sharpened tensions between Russia and the West. Described by both Moscow and the West as an act of sabotage, the...

I’m old enough to remember when Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize for — I give up. I can’t think of anything that Obama did to earn it just eight months into his presidency. For what it’s worth, the Nobel Peace Prize website says that the committee gave him the prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”In his second term, President Donald Trump has gotten real results in his efforts to bring peace to areas of the globe that desperately need it. And he’s done it in less time than it took for...

The move to develop the Amu Darya field aligns with the Taliban’s goal of self-sufficiency, but can the cash-strapped regime go it alone?In late July, Afghanistan’s Taliban-run government decided to pursue unilateral development of the Amu Darya oil field, at least for the time being. It seems unlikely the cash-strapped regime will be able to maximize the potential of the oil field without foreign investment, but it will still be able to collect millions of dollars in revenue by going it alone. The move aligns with the Taliban’s oft stated goal of self-sufficiency. However, international investors may be troubled by...

Donald Trump recently announced that the United States would help Pakistan develop its "massive oil reserves," suggesting it could export oil to India in the future. In response, Baloch leader Mir Yar Baloch has written an open letter to the US president, highlighting how encouraging the exploitation of Balochistan's oil reserves would make the US complicit in enabling ISI to enhance its global terror networks. In his letter, the Baloch leader warned against allowing Pakistan's radicalised military and rogue ISI, long accused of sponsoring Al-Qaeda and various proxy groups responsible for the deaths of thousands of US soldiers in Afghanistan,...

'If it were not for the Trump administration, Azerbaijan would have attacked, and we would have had severe instability in the region.'When President Donald Trump sat between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan last week, few people realized the significance of the meeting and the months of negotiations that took place beforehand to get two hostile nations to come together at the White House. Just weeks before the president and his team stepped in to maintain stability in the South Caucasus earlier this year, a full-scale invasion of Armenia’s southernmost province, Syunik, appeared imminent, according to Dr. Nerses Kopalyan, an...

Russian state propaganda has sharply intensified its bellicose rhetoric toward Azerbaijan amid reports of a possible lifting of Baku’s arms supply moratorium to Ukraine. A new “special military operation” could begin in the South Caucasus, propagandist Vladimir Solovyov stated on the program “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov” on the Russia-1 channel. According to him, NATO bases could appear in the Caspian Sea region, which he called “a very big problem.” With this, he was unmistakably alluding to Azerbaijan, which is close to Türkiye, a member of the North Atlantic Alliance. “And this is so dangerous that, from a geopolitical perspective, the...

Since returning to office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has shown a marked shift in his approach to South Asian geopolitics, displaying what analysts describe as a more favorable stance toward Pakistan while simultaneously straining relations with India. This represents a significant departure from decades of U.S. foreign policy that had increasingly favored New Delhi as a strategic counterweight to China. The most striking aspect of this policy shift appears to be intertwined with the Trump family’s business ventures. World Liberty Financial (WLF), founded in 2024, is no ordinary fintech startup. The company is 60% owned by Donald Trump’s...

United States President Donald Trump has hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House for the signing of a peace treaty between the two longtime rivals. The US president said during a ceremony on Friday that he believed the two men would have a “great relationship” and that the agreement would bring peace and new economic opportunities to the region. list “I want to congratulate these two great people, Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev, for coming to Washington to sign this momentous joint declaration,” Trump said. “The countries of Armenia and...

Turkey's energy minister has declared a gas pipeline a "peace corridor" linking the Caucasus with the Balkans. "We open the project as a peace corridor that is the result of 15 years hard work by Turkey and Azerbaijan. Through the South Caucasus pipeline and its backbone, the Trans-Anatolia pipeline, we connect the Caucasus with the Balkans. I wish every country could understand the true value of these projects and contribute with us," Taner Yıldız said while speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony of the South Caucasus pipeline in Baku on Sept. 20. The minister said energy security "ranks as one of...

ExxonMobil and British Petroleum have been facing off over the terms of the renewal of the “contract of the century” in Azerbaijan, according to sources that spoke to Reuters. BP currently operates the Azeri-Chigar-Guneshi fields in the middle of the Caspian Sea—a region that contributes a tenth of the firm’s global output. The British company has reportedly agreed with the Azeri government on the terms of a 30-year contract, but in an effort to expand its presence in the ACG region, Exxon has been pushing for a piece of the $100 billion pie.

Donald Trump is hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington this week for a summit which could advance a much-anticipated peace agreement between the two. The meeting would send a strong signal to Moscow regarding the two countries' commitment to finding a solution without Russia. The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia are set to meet US President Donald Trump for a peace summit in Washington on Thursday and Friday, which could advance a much-anticipated peace deal between the two countries. After almost four decades of bitter conflict, Baku and Yerevan might finally settle for peace in the region...

Pipeline agreement between the USA and Alberta, Canada on July 29, 2025. The agreement, led by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, deliberately bypassed federal approval from Ottawa Preliminary work on the pipeline is expected to begin within months, positioning it as a key step in enhancing cross-border energy ties. Alberta finalizing a $350 million deal with the United States for a new mid-capacity crude oil pipeline from northern Alberta to Montana—occurred on July 29, 2025. The agreement, led by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, deliberately bypassed federal approval from Ottawa to avoid delays seen in past projects like Keystone XL, focusing instead...

Morocco’s OCP Group reached today a significant milestone in water sovereignty with the commissioning of the country’s longest water pipeline. The 203-kilometer engineering feat transports desalinated water from the Atlantic coast to the heart of the country’s phosphate mining region. The Jorf Lasfar-Khouribga (J2K) pipeline, operated by OCP Green Water (OGW), marks a decisive step toward Morocco’s water independence while simultaneously addressing the country’s ongoing water stress challenges that have persisted since 2018. The ambitious project emerged from Morocco’s urgent need to combat water scarcity. In 2022, the Moroccan government called upon OCP Group to contribute to national water security...

A major explosion struck a gas pipeline in the Russian city of Langepas, located in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District of western Siberia, on the evening of July 10, according to Ukrainian intelligence sources cited by Militarnyi. The damaged pipeline reportedly supplied gas to defense industry facilities in the Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, and Sverdlovsk regions—key hubs for Russia’s military-industrial complex.

Uganda and Tanzania are set to begin work on a massive crude oil pipeline a year after the International Energy Agency warned that the world risked not meeting its climate goals if new fossil fuel projects were not stopped. The two East African countries say their priority is economic development...Eighty percent of the 1,440km- (895 mile) pipeline, whose construction will begin in a few months, will be in Tanzania including a terminal-storage facility in Chongoleani.French energy giant Total Energies and Chinese energy firm CNOOC International also have a stake in the $5bn (£4bn) venture.Because of the waxy nature of Lake...

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has formalized two major energy agreements with U.S. firms HKN Energy and WesternZagros in Washington, D.C., Kurdish media reported on Monday, in deals valued at a combined $110 billion, despite a legal showdown with the federal government of Iraq over control of the country’s oil exports... ...The deals were formalized during KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani's official visit to the United States this week... ...Washington has been advocating for the resumption of Kurdish oil exports, which have been stalled since March 2023 due to legal disputes and pipeline shutdowns. Washington's push aims...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the Syrian transitional authority may be weeks away from potential collapse and full-scale civil war, defending US President Donald Trump's decision to lift Syria sanctions and to engage with the Damascus government. "It is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the challenges they're facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up," Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 31 (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and over a dozen were injured when a pipeline of state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) exploded in the central Mexican state of Puebla after it was breached by suspected fuel thieves, authorities said on Sunday. Alerted to a gas leak, the Puebla state government said it had averted a higher death toll by evacuating residents from the site in the San Pablo Xochimehuacan municipality before three explosions occurred, wrecking between 30 and 50 homes.... some 1,400 rescue workers had been mobilized....

I nominate Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, as the most inconsistent, mysterious, and therefore most unpredictable major politician on the world stage. His victory in a referendum last Sunday formally bestows him with near-dictatorial powers that leave Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond in a greater state of uncertainty than ever.Here are some of the puzzles:Mystery #1: Holding the referendum. The Turkish electorate voted on April 16 in a remarkable national plebiscite that dealt not with the usual topic – floating a bond or recalling a politician – but with fundamental constitutional changes affecting the very nature of their...

The environmental organization Greenpeace was ordered to pay more than $660 million dollars to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer this week over its role in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests nearly a decade ago. The outcome was a blow to the environmental advocacy group, which has previously said that a lawsuit of this size could bankrupt its U.S. operations. Energy Transfer, the operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline, accused Greenpeace USA and International of playing a central role in organizing the resistance to the pipeline at Standing Rock in 2016 and 2017. The protests drew national attention as activists...