تابع رؤية 2030
بذكاء سياقي

Oil prices opened trade this week with a decline on reports that a deal between the U.S. and Iran was imminent. Brent crude slipped below $100 for the first time in days. But then President Trump said there was no rush on a deal and the U.S blockade in Hormuz would remain. While traders scratch their heads, analysts are warning that crude could remain well above $100 per barrel for years. This is literally uncharted territory for oil. Negotiations with Iran were “proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner,” the U.S. president told media over the weekend, fueling optimism that has actually been a feature of oil markets ever since the Iranian army closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S. and Israeli missile attacks on the country. Despite the supply crunch that the closure caused, traders remained remarkably certain that it would not last more than a few days, possibly a couple of weeks. Three months in, this optimism remains. Indeed, oil traders have been boosting their short positions on crude for no less than seven weeks in a row in anticipation of an end to the crisis that has removed some 14 million barrels from the world’s daily oil supply. According to John Kemp, bearish positions in Brent crude had gone up to 100 million barrels by May 19, from 40 million barrels at the end of March. Meanwhile, the blocked waterway remains almost unused and the ripple effect is spreading. Related: Why Hasn’t Oil Hit $150? Rapidly falling inventories, missing Middle Eastern exports, and rising summer demand could push global oil markets into dangerous territory by July or August, the head of the International Energy Agency warned earlier this month. “This may be difficult and we may be entering the red zone in July-August if we don't see some improvements,” Fatih Birol said. Unlike some earlier warnings that sounded more like a theoretical note, the inventory data increasingly suggest that Birol may actually have a point. The secretary-general of the IEA said oil stocks are being steadily eroded while “no new oil was coming from the Middle East” just as demand begins climbing into peak travel season. No oil from the Middle East is the bigger and more immediate part of the problem—but there is another one, and that part is the years of subdued investment in new oil supply on a global level. Investment in the oil and gas industry has been weak for about a decade, since the U.S. shale boom from the 2010, natural resource analysts and investors Leigh Goehring and Adam Rozencwajg wrote in their latest quarterly commentary. As a result, global production has been largely stalling in terms of growth pace everywhere except in the U.S. shale patch, where growth is slowing down as well. Now, with the Strait of Hormuz closed, the world is in an unprecedented situation of supply tightness. “The market has never before attempted to function for an extended period with such a large volume impaired simultaneously,” Goehring and Rozencwajg wrote, adding that “The industry appears to have entered another structurally tight phase following years of inadequate capital spending, just as the market confronts an acute physical bottleneck of historic proportions.” The experts suggested that if the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz extended further in time, $120 to $150 would become the new normal for Brent crude over the next few years—once market players realize the extent of the supply problem, presumably, because right now, this is being grossly underestimated. “At least 15 million barrels per day of supply appears to be directly curtailed. On volume alone, the disruption exceeds every previous oil crisis. Yet dated Brent — still the best measure of physical delivered crude — managed at its peak to exceed its 2008 high by only $4 per barrel,” Goehring and Rozencwajg pointed out, going on to add that “The market, in other words, has been presented with an energy dislocation larger than any previously recorded and has responded as though it were a difficult but ultimately temporary inconvenience.” The moment this perception is shattered by physical markets would likely be the moment when oil prices make up for lost time, as it were, soaring higher and staying there, unless, of course, that notorious deal that Trump is negotiating with Tehran actually materializes. Yet even with a deal and a reopened Hormuz, the global energy system is in danger of a breakdown due to the sheer scale of the supply crunch, which Goehring and Rozencwajg estimate at as much as 15 million barrels daily. Bringing back this amount of daily production online takes time. And if a deal does not materialize soon, traders may begin to lose their optimism as the effects of the crisis in the physical market become more pronounced. “Oil moves slowly through the global system,” Goehring and Rozencwajg wrote. “So does information. In both cases, the true condition of the market often reveals itself only after the underlying imbalance has become considerably more serious than first believed.” By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

Beset with financing difficulties, Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear energy entity, is begging for more time to start building Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant on the shores of Lake Balkhash. The site was selected after extensive study by Kazakh authorities. But at a recent meeting in Moscow, Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev told the head of Kazakhstan’s Atomic Energy Agency, Almassadam Satkaliyev, that the Russian entity will need “at least a year of observation of the site in order to form all the necessary reports … and implement the project in clear reference to the natural, geological and weather conditions of this particular place.” Western sanctions imposed following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine have severely hampered Rosatom’s ability to finance projects. Kazakhstan awarded the contract to Rosatom to build the Lake Balkhash facility back in 2025. The two countries agreed in principle on an arrangement in April under which Russia would assume 85 percent of the financing burden for the project, which has an estimated cost of $15 billion. But that agreement has not yet been finalized. During the talks in Moscow, Satkaliyev pressed Likhachev on the issue of localizing the nuclear fuel cycle in Kazakhstan. In most cases, Rosatom retains an enduring and controlling role in its nuclear plant operations by maintaining responsibility for nuclear fuel supplies. But Kazakhstan, which has abundant supplies of uranium of its own, seeks full control of the Balkhash plant’s nuclear fuel cycle. A report distributed by a Russian news outlet, Atomic Energy, quoted Likhachev as saying “we have found a common understanding on all positions. Basic approaches have been developed that fully meet the interests of our states and the strategic nature of relations.” In case you missed it in the Caucasus… In Armenia, an American consulting firm, AECOM, has commenced site survey work on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. AECOM representatives met with Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan on May 13. The work is being done under the auspices of the State Department’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment initiative. TRIPP is the centerpiece of a provisional peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, brokered by President Trump last August. Azerbaijan is grappling with a major backup of Central Asia-bound long-haul cargo trucks due to the ongoing US-Israel-Iran conflict, local news outlets report. Many transport companies are rerouting their trucks to Caspian Sea port facilities in Azerbaijan, rather than risk an overland run to Central Asia via Turkey and Iran. According to local news outlets, roughly 4,000 cargo trucks have piled up at the Azerbaijani port of Alat, waiting for ferries to take them across the sea to ports in Turkmenistan. The wait time for a ferry slot was estimated at about 12 days. The cost of trans-Caspian ferry transport reportedly experienced a 5 percent increase in April, compared to prices in March. A draft resolution prepared by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) castigates Georgia’s government over the “continuing breakdown of democracy in Georgia and the lack of any response to the recommendations of the Assembly to address this.” The resolution adds that the Georgian Dream government’s continuation of its current political course “would effectively establish a one-party dictatorship in Georgia, which violates essential democratic principles and is incompatible with Council of Europe membership.” Under present conditions, free and fair elections in the country are not possible, the draft resolution states. While deploring the government’s conduct, the draft indicates PACE “remains committed to an open and results-oriented dialogue with [Georgian] authorities, as well as all other political and social forces in the country.” Meanwhile, across the Caspian… Kyrgyzstan’s Justice Ministry has ordered 50 businesses suspected of violating Western sanctions to suspend operations. A Justice Ministry statement said the action was undertaken “to protect the national economy and prevent the negative consequences of possible secondary sanctions.” In April, Kyrgyzstan became the first foreign state to be slapped by the European Union with “anti-circumvention” sanctions covering an entire sector of goods. Earlier EU sanctions had targeted specific entities and individuals. In response, Bishkek adopted an inter-agency plan to “identify unscrupulous participants in foreign economic activity and operations.” The 50 businesses shut down were allegedly “involved in high-risk transactions,” according to the Justice Ministry. Manon Sodikov, a former high-profile figure in Tajikistan’s now banned Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT), has died under disputed circumstances. Government officials have characterized the death as a murder by two individuals during a robbery. IRPT representatives describe the official account as dubious. The IRPT once shared power with incumbent Tajik leader Emomali Rahmon following the end of Tajikistan’s civil war in the late 1990s. But Rahmon gradually sidelined the IRPT and established total control over the government. The IRPT was officially banned in 2015. BP has signed a deal to develop six blocks of Uzbekistan’s North Ustyurt region. The production sharing agreement, announced May 13, involves BP, the Uzbek energy company Uzbekneftegaz, and the state-owned Azerbaijani firm SOCAR. BP will have a 40 percent stake in the venture, with Uzbekneftegaz and SOCAR each getting a 30 percent share. “We believe Uzbekistan has significant resource potential and see this as an opportunity to support the exploration and development of the country’s oil and gas resources, delivering long-term benefits to the region,” a BP statement quoted Gio Cristofoli, the head of BP operations in the Caspian Basin, as saying. An Uzbek court earlier in May added 2.5 years of incarceration to the 16-year sentence that a prominent Karakalpak journalist and attorney was already serving for his role in the July 2022 protests in Nukus against constitutional changes to Karakalpakstan’s autonomous status. A court in the central Uzbek city of Navoi sentenced Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov to additional time for “actions disrupting the work of an institution for the execution of punishment,” exiled Karakalpak activist Aqylbek Muratbai said on social media. Tazhimuratov and his lawyer have said the charges were a result of Tazhimuratov’s “reaction to provocations, insults, and humiliation by the prison colony administration,” Muratbai wrote. The 47-year-old advocate for Karakalpakstan’s independence has maintained his innocence. The court named Tazhimuratov an “especially dangerous recidivist,” and he will likely be transferred from a prison in Navoi to a harsher penal colony in the Bukhara Region, RFE/RL reported. Tazhimuratov likely will not appeal the decision in hopes that accepting the verdict will speed his transfer back to prison, his brother told the broadcaster. By Eurasianet.org More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

Pope Leo has denounced the “culture of power” driving the rapid rise of artificial intelligence while warning that the technology must be subject to the “most rigorous” ethical constraints as it infiltrates everything from work to war. In his encyclical – the first major text on safeguarding humankind of his papacy – he also apologised for the Catholic church’s long delay in condemning slavery, describing it as “a wound in Christian memory”, and spoke of the “new forms of slavery” due to the digital economy. In a break from tradition, Leo, who soon after being elected in May last year said he considered AI to be the biggest threat to humanity today, presented the document himself on Monday during an event at the Vatican. Among those in attendance was Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, a US-based AI firm thatis embroiled in a lawsuit with Donald Trump’s administration over the ethics of AI. Encyclicals are one of the highest forms of teaching from a pope to the Catholic church’s 1.4 billion members, and typically outline his priorities while highlighting the major issues in society. In the document, called Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), Leo, who was born in Chicago and is the first US-born pope, referred to “a troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics” and said AI was helping to facilitate the “normalisation of war”. “For this reason, the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms,” he wrote. Leo urged the “disarming” of AI, while stating that some autonomous weapons systems are “practically beyond any human reach” to control. “Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition,” he wrote. “To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity,” adding that the technology should be “human-friendly”, accessible to all and opened to discussion and debate. In a passage that appeared to be targeted at Silicon Valley, the pope warned that power over digital systems, infrastructure and data “does not rest with states but with major economic and technological actors”, and that when such power was concentrated “in the hands of the few” it tended to “become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted forms of development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities”. View image in fullscreen The pope listens to the Vatican secretary of state Pietro Parolin during the presentation of the encyclical. Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/AP Olah said on Monday that the development of AI cannot be left solely to technology companies, urging greater oversight from religious leaders, governments and civil society. Olah, who was sitting alongside the pope, said there was “a real possibility” that AI would displace human labour “at very large scale”. “If that happens, supporting those displaced will be a moral imperative of historic proportions,” he said. Companies like his operated “inside a set of incentives and constraints”, such as under strong commercial, geopolitical and personal pressures, that can sometimes conflict with “doing the right thing” for the broader interests of society, therefore making outside scrutiny essential. Leo, whose family history includes both enslaved people and enslavers, wrote on slavery: “It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord … For this, in the name of the church, I sincerely ask for pardon.” Past popes have apologised for Christians’ involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. But no pope has ever publicly acknowledged, much less apologised for, the role that popes themselves played in giving European sovereigns explicit authority to subjugate and enslave “infidels”. Alongside two of his cardinals, others at the presentation included the theologians Anna Rowlands and Léocadie Lushombo. View image in fullscreen Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, speaks on Monday during the presentation of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical. Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/AP Rowlands, professor of Catholic social thought at Durham University, said the encyclical “brings the vision of the Gospel to bear on the cultures of AI”, and in doing so “warns of a growing culture of power that is reshaping work, family, education, and political life”. The Vatican has been seriously engaged on questions surrounding AI for several years now, including having regular dialogues with Microsoft, Google and other big technology firms. The pope said on Monday that the Catholic church wanted to work with AI developers to discuss proper use of the technology. “What Leo has done in this document is put the full weight of his office behind the Catholic church’s efforts to be in dialogue with big tech,” said Christopher White, the author of Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy and a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. “He’s clearly approaching AI from a position of humility and making it clear that the church doesn’t have all of the answers when it comes to what sort of policies are necessary for AI regulation. But he is being clear-eyed that AI development can’t simply be the wild west like some of its advocates would like to see.” In reaction to the encyclical, Christine Allen, CEO and director of the Catholic aid charity Cafod, said the pope’s message spoke of the “inherent dignity of humankind”. “We are not simply instruments of production but living beings, entrusted with a moral compass,” she added. “In a world full of imbalances, we have a duty to use AI responsibly. Today’s message is that it should not be used to further exacerbate inequality and suffering.”

A bona fide financial crisis has not broken out since the US housing meltdown of 2007. Even the Covid pandemic and subsequent upsurge in inflation didn’t lead to financial upheaval. The jitters produced by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 were soon forgotten. Given this stability, it might take some effort to convince financial markets that another big one is around the corner. But it is. Financial markets and their regulating governments may believe they have acquired immunity, but the world is careening toward a moment of financial upheaval that could well dwarf the damage caused by the last one. What’s most scary about this approaching moment is not the specific nature of the crisis, but the incompetence with which it will be handled. Current US politics practically guarantee that Washington’s policy response will be misguided, steered by Donald Trump’s incontinent appetites and animosities. In a world where mistrust has strangled space for collective action, damages are likely to be compounded by similarly blinkered responses around the globe. As Maurice Obstfeld, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund noted: “The political fundamentals are really bad.” We’ll never know exactly when and how a crisis will hit. But one can envisage plausible pathways. Perhaps a financial bubble pops: stocks buoyed up by the current euphoria over the prospects of artificial intelligence could be downgraded sharply in light of disappointing returns, sending the stock market tumbling, shrinking consumer spending and damaging balance sheets of companies that have piled into the AI dream, as well as their financiers. The largest risk, at this moment, revolves around the federal government’s accumulation of debt, now in excess of 120% of the nation’s gross domestic product, a near unprecedented level. It is likely to keep on growing at a fast clip given massive built in budget deficits for the next decade. Both of these scenarios live in a global context: the US’s insatiable appetite for capital – to finance datacenters or the federal deficit – is met by China’s export of capital to recycle its huge trade surplus. A coarse, schematic way to think of it is China sells stuff to the US and invests the proceeds in the US. Then, Americans take money from China and use it to buy Chinese stuff. A win-win fix would be for China to spend more on their own stuff while Americans, especially the federal government, splurged somewhat less. Given politics in Washington and Beijing, this arrangement seems exceedingly unlikely. It is unclear what would detonate a sell-off of US government debt. Treasury bonds still provide the largest, most liquid pool of safe investable assets. But markets were in a tizzy last week, sending rates on government bonds sharply higher over worries about the Iran war and inflation. One must only think back to 3 April last year, when Trump’s tariffs on everything sent the price of treasury bonds briefly into a tailspin, to realize that Washington’s increasingly idiosyncratic decisions could send investors running for the exit. The world is not that of 15 years ago, when real interest rates neared zero and central banks in China and many developing countries held massive amounts of treasury bonds, providing a stable source of financing for US deficits. Today, investors buying treasuries want yield and diversification. They will mercilessly dump US assets if the tide turns sour. The US’s dysfunctional politics can still do a lot of damage. Say Trump starts bombing Iran again, or invades Cuba, or Greenland. Say he manages to take control of the Federal Reserve, and strong-arm it to cut interest rates. Or say he further increases the deficit via some orgy of military spending. He shows no concern over growing federal debt. And Republicans in Congress show no interest in stopping him. Which of them will stand in the way of his appetites, given his ability – well on display last week – to take down anyone who dares oppose him? The closest anybody in the government has come to articulate a plan to address the nation’s massive indebtedness was Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, who claimed that AI will save the day by generating massive productivity growth and thus enormous tax revenues to fill the government’s coffers. On this side of science fiction, nobody has said a word. What happens if investors freak out and sell off treasuries, raising interest rates on government debt? Trump might strong-arm the Fed to buy the bonds and keep rates low. But pumping that money into the economy would stoke inflation, which would encourage more investors to flee for the exits, sending the dollar into a tailspin. The ideal strategy would be to close the hole in the federal budget. The Fed might force that path by refusing to print money and buy government debt. But Trump is unlikely to appreciate austerity. Given his lock on Congress and his increasing sway over the Fed, the odds of this are slim. “If you try to war game it, the Fed doesn’t have any good options,” Obstfeld argued. “The only good option is fiscal regime change in the Congress.” That is not likely to happen. Unfortunately, the US is not the only victim of snarled politics. France faces the unhelpful combination of a budget crisis and a looming election which is likely to bring to power a populist right wing that has much to share with Trump’s Maga. China, the global player on the other side of the US’s financial imbalances, may not face political instability. But it has demonstrated little interest in helping address the imbalances contributing to the world’s financial fragility – insisting on a strategy of subsidizing manufactures for export in order to generate jobs. What will we get when the crisis hits? It is hard to tell. Given the animosities that Trump has worked so hard to kindle, international cooperation is unlikely to play much of a role. We stare into an unprecedented future, one in which a financial crisis like the world has never seen invites the most self-defeating government response ever. It will be interesting to see what emerges on the other side.

Friday afternoon can be a dangerous time to be a journalist. Editors racing to put together weekend editions lob last-minute requests and governments routinely release uncomfortable information late in the day. Proof of that practice arrived last week in a bruising auditor general’s report on management of public records requests by government departments. Buried in the footnotes was data on Treasury bureaucrats making a mockery of freedom of information rules. In January, they fessed up to withholding documents that had already been approved for release until Fridays. Sometimes public servants even went out of their way to extend processing timelines so decisions would land at the end of the week. Of the 155 applications reviewed with data on day of release available, nearly half were found to have been withheld to the end of the week. It has been obvious for some time that Treasury’s website happens to be updated suspiciously close to 5pm on Fridays, most weeks. Apart from ensuring documents disappear into the weekend, Treasury was shown not to have any policy for dealing with requests. A draft set of rules from 2023 boasted of five “procedure documents”. None actually existed. Sadly, the report’s findings that 80% of FoI requests were blocked in part or in full is yet another indictment of transparency inside the Albanese government. Now four years into power, promises of a transparent and upfront approach are in rough shape. Consider some other recent examples. On the same day as the budget was handed down this month, Labor released its formal response to Peta Murphy’s inquiry on gambling advertising. After 1,000 days with the report, the government’s response just happened to arrive at the same time as 99% of the Canberra press gallery was locked up covering the budget. Independent David Pocock called the timing “cowardly”. Fellow crossbencher Monique Ryan said it represented “the height of political cynicism”. Just as galling are recent written answers to questions on notice from members of parliament. The Centre for Public Integrity has been tracking answers given to Pocock on a $560m government infrastructure fund. CPI tells Guardian Australia the answers closely follow a secret Labor cheat sheet written to help ministers and public servants avoid answering questions in Senate estimates, uncovered by Capital Brief in 2024. The document coached agencies to provide “only information required to answer the question” and avoid unnecessary explanatory material. In the case of the major and local community infrastructure fund, Pocock asked who in the government had determined participation in the invite-only application process. In an answer that shows contempt for appropriate parliamentary scrutiny, Labor responded in just eight words: “Invitees for the program were identified by government.” “This response doesn’t even meet the low threshold in the government’s guide for providing minimalist responses,” CPI’s executive director, Catherine Williams, said. “Instead of answering, the government resorted to vague institutional language designed to obscure responsibility and provide no further detail than was already known.” These trends show up just as the government has ignored calls for watchdogs including the Australian National Audit Office to be properly funded for their work. In March, Labor dumped its controversial plans to overhaul FoI rules, conceding the laws had no viable pathway through parliament. The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, said in a statement the government remains committed to improving the FoI system, which she called “a vital feature” of our democracy. “The government expects all agencies to consider the ANAO’s findings and work towards enhancing their practices and processes to promote a stronger FOI framework.” Rowland ruled out commissioning an independent review of FoI as part of the process. “There have been multiple reviews of FOI in the last 15 years. Everyone agrees that right now, the FOI system is broken.” Transparency advocates are frustrated a separate process to reform whistleblower laws appears on hold. Labor committed to changes ahead of the 2022 election, and released a draft legislation for possible changes last year. Since submissions closed in October, there has been no action. Kieran Pender, the associate legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre’s Whistleblower Project, said the changes to the Public Interest Disclosure Act had been in the too-hard basket for too long. “It is time for the government to deliver on their promise to fix the PID Act so that whistleblowers in the public sector are able to safely report serious wrongdoing,” he said. As bad as the situation seems, on Monday things got worse. As the first day of the latest budget estimates hearings got under way, it emerged the attorney general’s department had themselves delayed FoI applications in order to avoid scrutiny in parliamentary hearings. The department secretary, Katherine Jones, insisted her staff took compliance with FoI laws seriously. Her answers about the revelations satisfied no one on the committee.