Articles
Lessons for the Gulf in Malaysia's steady success
Malaysia provides an interesting example of an oil-based economy which has escaped the resource curse
Region's fortunes caught up in the tides of fresh water
The GCC countries are almost entirely dependent on costly desalination, damaging ecosystems by making the Gulf increasingly hot and saline.
Learn the lessons of nuclear disasters - and don't panic
On the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, the world is about to make the same mistake about nuclear energy all over again, argues Robin Mills
Lessons forgotten with Saudi focus on the short term
The Saudis follow Theodore Roosevelt's advice to 'speak softly and carry a big stick'; their stick being the world's largest oil reserves.
Useless cold wars over treasures deep within the Arctic
The sands of the Libyan desert are the locus for conflict around oil installations, but might the struggle for resources shift to the Arctic?
Usual suspects take familiar line on UN's Libya intervention
'What they want is to seize Libyan oil,' says Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president about the recent UN action. Fidel Castro, the UK activist George Galloway and even the Democratic US congressman Edward Markey concur.
Global welfare up in smoke as subsidies fan the flames
With soaring food and fuel prices, governments are extending their largesse. In the Middle East, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia all recently increased or restored subsidies. Yet such schemes are disastrous.
A footprint that tells us how heavily we tread on our planet
Dr Mathis Wackernagel and Professor William Rees have introduced a benchmark for explaining to the public how sustainable their consumption is.
It's time to be bold in developing Middle East gas
Conventional wisdom is usually right - but nothing beats an unconventional idea whose time has come.
BP may be a glutton for punishment but there is a clear logic
BP has signed up to go hunting in remote, environmentally fragile Arctic waters. And of all countries, it has chosen to do that in Russia, the country that Bob Dudley, the American who is now BP's chief executive, was forced to flee in 2008
Qaddafi remains one of few constants for troubled Libya
With tanks and mercenaries one the streets of Benghazi and opposition forces threatening to cut oil pipelines, the failures of Muammar Qaddafi's regime are being defended by savage violence.
Peak oil believers put their faith in leaky arguments
Are Saudi oil reserves Wikileaking away? A release from the whistle-blowing website quotes Dr Sadad al Husseini, a Saudi oil expert, as saying he believed the kingdom's oil reserves were overstated by 40 per cent.
Despite familiar patterns from past, no new oil shock
The familiar elements from oil crises of the past are present with the turmoil in Egypt. But we are not in oil-shock territory yet.
New grand plan needed for Middle East's energy security
The dramatic events in Tunisia and Egypt raise the question of whether the pursuit of stability in the Middle East, designed to protect oil supplies, in fact created a more dangerous situation.
Myanmar shows the dilemma facing overseas investors
Isolation and sanctions have not forced any change in Myanmar even as investors there claim policies of non interference in domestic issues, just strictly business.
