ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The extreme winter weather pounding the eastern half of the United States is keeping many drivers at home. That means less demand along with lower prices at the pump compared to last year. Unless something gives, however, geopolitical issues in Ukraine could spell trouble for consumers, AAA said Monday. AAA reported a national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in the United States of $3.46, a price that's 17 cents higher than the same time last month but 30 cents less year-on-year. The national average price for Monday, however, is the highest since Sept. 24 and marks the 24th straight day of increases. Select the reports you are interested in: Who Will be the Big Winners in the Coming LNG Bonanza How to Play the Coming Boom in Advanced Fracking Technology Why the Subsea Processing Sector will See Huge Gains in the Near Future Investment Opportunities in Geothermal Power Generation Machine to Machine Technology – A $1 Trillion Opportunity! Our Top Water Techn...

The headquarters of Alibaba in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. (STR/AFP/GettyImages) Summary The growth of large online investment platforms has captured the attention of Chinese authorities in recent months. Non-state enterprises such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which runs the e-commerce website Taobao, and Tencent Holdings Ltd., a social media conglomerate that runs the popular WeChat online messaging program, are an emerging force in China's financial system. The question is whether these online financing platforms could start to chip away at state-controlled banks' effective monopoly over the country's vast pool of household and corporate savings. For now, funds invested into new online financing platforms such as Alibaba's Yu'e Bao are equivalent to a little more than 1 percent of the state-controlled banking sector's roughly 74.2 trillion yuan ($12 trillion dollars) in consumer deposits. But the platforms are growing rapidly. Their growth, and Beijing...

Pro-Russian activists demonstrate at the regional administration in Donetsk on March 3. ALEXANDER KHUDOTEPLY/AFP/Getty Images Summary With Crimea now under Russian military control, the center of gravity of the Ukrainian crisis is shifting to the Russia-oriented eastern part of the country. Anti-government and pro-Russian protests were held throughout cities in eastern Ukraine , including Donetsk, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, during the weekend and into March 3. Despite Moscow's military moves in Crimea, Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine are likely to be more political than military. The status of the east will play a key role in Ukraine's future political evolution and in any potential diplomatic settlement between Russia and the West. Analysis As Russia fortifies its position in Crimea , eastern Ukraine will be the next region to watch in assessing the evolution of the Ukrainian crisis. Eastern Ukraine, like Crimea, is politically oriented toward Russia , in contrast w...

Georgia's President Giorgi Margvelashvili (L) and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, in Yerevan, Feb. 27. (KAREN MINASYAN/AFP/Getty Images) Summary As Russian forces encircled strategic Ukrainian military installations in Crimea on March 1, Armenia's deputy foreign minister said that his country will have completed its preparations to join the Russia-led Customs Union by mid-April. Armenia announced its intention to join the Customs Union in September , and by February, Yerevan had completed about half of the prerequisites for accession. Armenia's decision to expedite what is normally a lengthy accession process indicates the government's desire to further integrate with Russia. But while countries such as Armenia are moving closer to Moscow, other countries in the former Soviet periphery are attempting to strengthen their ties with the West. Analysis The March 1 announcement came at the conclusion of Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili's weeklong vi...

March 3, 2014 - Russia's Black Sea Fleet has told Ukrainian forces in Crimea to surrender by 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Tuesday or face a military assault, Interfax news agency quoted a source in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry as saying. The ultimatum, Interfax said, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleet's commander. The ministry did not immediately confirm the report and there was no immediate comment by the Black Sea Fleet, which has a base in Crimea, where Russian forces are in control. "If they do not surrender before 5 a.m. tomorrow, a REAL ASSAULT will be started against units and divisions of the armed forces across Crimea," the agency quoted the ministry source as saying. Meanwhile, Ukraine's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, has slammed Russia's invasion of Ukraine and said he would take up arms to defend his homeland if Moscow does not retreat. In an op-ed written for Russian website snob.ru, Kravchuk said that Putin had gone too far. "The...

By Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh  - It is sometimes instructive to learn a bit of history to reflect on current events because if we do not learn from history, we are bound to repeat the tragic history of useless wars. This came to me as I read about the escalating situation in Ukraine, where the US and western countries invested heavily to dislodge the Ukraine (strategically located on the Black Sea) from Russian influence. The coup that toppled the elected government in the capital and Russia’s strong influence in the mostly Russian Speaking Crimean peninsula of the Ukraine threatens to ignite another Crimean war (1854 prelude to many more European wars). The Crimean war 1854-1856 was a devastating and useless conflict that was started with a with an incident here in Palestine (then under Ottoman Rule). The British were in the midst of an industrial economic boom (at least for the elites, the workers were essentially enslaved). To fuel this industrial boom, Britain (and to a lesser d...

Somali militant group al Shabaab has been able to survive because of its tactical capabilities and adaptability. Recently it has been more active in the capital of Mogadishu; on Feb. 21, militants attacked the Villa Somalia compound, which is home to the presidential compound and, as such, is one of the city's most secure locations. The attack gave rise to renewed concern about the group's activities. Unless security forces conduct a more effective counterinsurgency, the increased al Shabaab presence in Mogadishu may cause continued attrition that could allow the group to re-establish a foothold in the capital. The Villa Somalia attack follows the tactics al Shabaab militants used in their assaults on the Mogadishu courthouse in April 2013 and the U.N. compound in June 2013. These attacks combined the destructive power of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and suicide commandos . Outside of the capital, Somali and African Union forces have held territory around Beled...

Unidentified soldiers guard the Crimean parliament building next to a sign that reads 'Crimea Russia' on March 1 in Simferopol, Ukraine. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Analysis Moves by Russia on March 1 heightened security tensions in Ukraine's autonomous republic of Crimea, deepening concerns of an imminent Russian military takeover of the peninsula. The newest turn of events began when the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement alleging that a group of unidentified armed men from Kiev attempted to seize the Interior Ministry building in Simferopol -- though this has not been confirmed by authorities in Kiev. In response, the chairman of the Council of Ministers of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for assistance in "ensuring peace and tranquility" in Crimea. Putin responded positively to the appeal, sending Russia's Federation Council -- the upper house of the Russian parliament -- a request for the use of Russian armed...