Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Q4 2025 Outlook: Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, and Investments | Simon Hunt

Amid a cascade of geopolitical and economic developments, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit—along with bilateral meetings in Tianjin and Beijing—emerged as the pivotal moment. President Xi’s opening address concluded with a clear message: “It’s time for action.” 
 
Simon Hunt, British economist and CEO of Simon Hunt Strategic Services, is a veteran global 
strategist with 50+ years of experience advising governments and institutions on macroeconomics, 
copper markets, China, and geopolitical risk, and a pioneer in industrial metals intelligence.

Multipolar Ultimatum: SCO Summit Signals Global Realignment 
This marks a new era of geopolitical posture—one of confident unity among the East, and a tacit ultimatum to the West. BRICS is ready, but not seeking a fight. Despite the growing strength of this bloc, their message remains: “We don’t want war, we invite partnership. But if you refuse, we will proceed without you.” This stance was echoed during a high-profile military parade showcasing next-generation hardware (HERE, select English audio track). 

» The wars in the Middle East and in Europe will escalate. «
 
The West has effectively pushed Russia and China together—and now India as well. This fulfills Brzezinski’s warning that a Russia-China alliance would mark a fatal blow to US global dominance. The realignment is now irreversible.

India, once diplomatically dancing between the West and the East, has now aligned itself firmly with BRICS. The SCO summit made this unmistakably clear through images and interactions between leaders. With China and Russia already unified, India’s inclusion forms a powerful axis comprising the world’s three largest countries by population and resource depth.

Within the SCO framework, India and Pakistan—traditionally adversarial—may find common ground. Russia maintains strong ties with India, while China supports Pakistan. Pakistan's historical alignment with the CIA may now be shifting toward China, driven by strategic and economic incentives. Even Pakistani defense leaders have acknowledged the transactional nature of their past Western alignment.
 
US Can Adopt Multipolarity Or World Will Split Into Two Blocs
The coordinated body language, messaging, and preparedness of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Narendra Modi made it clear: Washington and its allies are being asked to join a multilateral world. Should they refuse, the world will split into two irreconcilable blocs.  
 
Historically, empires have accepted only victory or defeat, and the United States may not shift until crisis compels it. The refusal to accept a multipolar order will lead to escalating global tensions. The window for peaceful integration is closing.
 
BRICS Currency Incoming: Gold-Backed Alternative to Dollar Imminent
Within ongoing BRICS meetings, particularly between Russia and Brazil, a new currency is being discussed—one expected to be gold-backed. The Shanghai Gold Exchange is building vaults across BRICS countries, including Saudi Arabia, enabling energy trade in yuan and its conversion directly into gold, bypassing the dollar.
 
China is already settling oil trades in yuan, which Saudi Arabia converts into gold via the Shanghai exchange. A physical gold vault in Saudi Arabia would streamline this process, and with a narrowing trade imbalance, this yuan-for-gold mechanism is becoming systemic. Russia and China have already maintained such a balance for years via vaults in the People's Bank of China (PBOC).
 
Russia warns "US will use crypto to escape its $35 trillion debt". 
 
Gold at Record Highs: Short-Term Pullback Before Next Bull Leg
Gold futures reached $3,673, with silver touching $41.92. However, a short-term correction to $2,800 may occur due to the Treasury’s need to lower interest rates. This is seen as a deliberate move to accumulate gold cheaply before an eventual revaluation.
 
Silver Rising: Central Banks and BRICS Nations Accumulating
Saudi Arabia recently bought $20M worth of SLV shares. Russia has opened its first silver reserve. The US added silver to its official list of critical minerals, indicating institutional recognition of its strategic value alongside gold. The deeper message: central banks no longer trust paper assets.
 
Two-Tier US Currency Model Anticipated
The US is already in recession, and Europe is close behind. Real money supply is shrinking globally—one of the most reliable indicators of economic activity. Liquidity injections may not be enough to revive growth given looming structural banking pressures. 
 
A previously disclosed forecast from over a decade ago suggested the US could eventually introduce two dollars—a gold-backed domestic dollar and a floating offshore dollar. Technical models predict the DXY will fall to 50 by 2028, effectively doubling gold prices in dollar terms.

A potential short-term dollar rally—DXY rising from 98 to 103—could temporarily deflate gold prices. This would precede the next wave of the precious metals bull market. Treasury-driven rate cuts and liquidity injections will aim to stabilize the system ahead of 2028's deeper crisis.

 American pension funds and institutions may be compelled to absorb US debt, given the exodus of foreign buyers like China. Watch India’s actions closely in this space—they will serve as a bellwether for BRICS monetary divergence. 
 
» The contrast between Chinese dynamism and the total rot and death cult of the West and its vassals defies imagination. «
 
Ukraine Escalation Risk: EU3’s Miscalculated Strategy
The EU3—France, Germany, and the UK—appear poised to intensify the Ukraine conflict by inserting troops into the country, backed by US-supplied weapons and funded through European debt. This move, driven by strategic delusion, risks widening the war and deepening economic instability across Europe.

Should EU3 forces move into Ukraine, expect immediate capital controls in Europe, with global spillover via interconnected banking systems. This would shortcut any inflationary cycle and thrust the world directly into recession.
 
A leaked directive from France reportedly instructed hospitals to prepare for mass casualties in 2026, tied to potential direct conflict with Russia. Sources close to French military and intelligence circles confirm the plausibility of this scenario, citing deployments as “peacekeepers” that will effectively function as combat troops.
 
Iran-Israel Tensions Rising: Preemptive Strike Scenarios Loom
Parallel to Ukraine, the Middle East simmers. Iran is reinforcing its defenses with aid from Russia and China. Intelligence hints at potential preemptive strikes by Iran against Israel, marking a dangerous turning point. Iran’s foreign minister has dismissed negotiations with the US as traps, citing repeated betrayals masked as diplomacy.
 
» Globalization is coming to an end, the Spring and Autumn period is over, and the Warring States period is about to begin.
[...] From now on, the possibility of reconciliation between countries on this planet will increasingly cease to exist.
The entire Eurasian continent is about to engage in a battle royale, where every nation must firmly
choose sides in the process: either become a servant of the United States or be its enemy. 
[...] They can only choose to stand with us or face destruction. «
Chinese opinion regarding Israeli bombing of Qatar on September 9, 2025.
 
Despite its proximity to conflict, the UAE may be spared thanks to deep trade ties with Israel, cultural links with Iran, and the presence of a modern Iranian community. Any Iranian retaliation may be surgically limited to American military installations, avoiding broader damage in the UAE.

Climate Shift Confirmed: From Warming to Cooling
Melting Greenland ice is releasing cold freshwater into the Atlantic, disrupting ocean currents. Though silenced by institutions like NOAA, internal research suggests we are entering a cooling phase, not warming. The agricultural and economic implications are immense.

Food Inflation Crisis: Cold Weather, and Dust Bowl Patterns Collide
Food prices are already spiking. The FAO food index rose 7.6% YoY in July. Fertilizer shortages and extreme weather may cause one of the coldest winters in 50 years in the US Midwest. Add to this the return of the 90-year Dust Bowl cycle, and the outcome is severe crop failures and soaring food inflation.
 
Demographics vs. Growth: Global Economic Model Faces Existential Challenge 
The world's demographic peak (around 9 billion) and subsequent decline challenge the existing economic model based on infinite growth. However, this transformation will unfold over decades—not in the immediate 5-year cycle.
 
Short-Term Strategy: Long-Term Investment Now Extremely Risky
In the current fractured world order, long-term investments—by individuals or institutions—are hazardous. A global recession or depression is likely by 2028, with paper assets poised for a collapse. However, if geopolitical escalations are avoided, equities and base metals may experience a bull market from mid-2025 to 2028.

Hungary and Slovakia are likely to resist full EU alignment and avoid deeper conflict involvement. These countries, being semi-detached from Brussels, may serve as safe havens during broader European turmoil.
 
Individuals should prepare immediately. Stock deep freezers, convert garden space into vegetable beds, and plan for prolonged food cost spikes. This is a practical, immediate defense against inflation and disruption.
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Monday, September 1, 2025

SCO Summit Ushers in New Global Security Order | Yuliana Titaeva

The Tianjin SCO Summit (August 31–September 1, 2025) brought together leaders from more than 20 nations and delegations from over 30 countries, representing half of humanity. Founded in 2001 from the “Shanghai Five” bloc, the SCO has since evolved into a platform of global significance, no longer limited to Eurasian security but increasingly positioned as a central force in world affairs.

Eurasia’s great powers align.
 
The summit adopted the "Tianjin Declaration" and updated the "SCO Development Strategy to 2035", mapping out collective approaches to global security, economic stability, technology gaps, and humanitarian issues. Around 20 agreements were signed covering regional security, economic cooperation, and cultural ties—showing the SCO’s increasingly comprehensive agenda.

The most striking diplomatic development was the warming of "China–India relations". Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi affirmed that their countries should act as partners, not rivals—“the dragon and the elephant dancing together.” China also declared readiness to cooperate with Belarus, strengthening its support for Russia. Azerbaijan’s potential membership was floated, adding complexity to regional dynamics.

Unlike Western alliances, the SCO emphasizes "non-interference, equality, and mutual respect", principles that resonate strongly with the Global South. Many members are also part of BRICS, reinforcing the alignment of emerging economies seeking independence from Western dominance. The summit thus showcased an alternative model of governance appealing to nations dissatisfied with US-led structures.

Indian Business Today depicts Trump's futile attempts
to stop the out-of-control Indian elephant.

The presence of leaders from Mongolia, Turkey, Egypt, and Indonesia underscored the SCO’s expanding gravitational pull. Ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the victory over Japan reminded participants of the historical depth of Russia–China ties and their shared resistance to Western hegemony. Symbolic gestures, such as Putin and Modi walking hand in hand, highlighted the summit’s theatrical but strategic diplomacy.
 
» The Dragon and the Elephant should dance together. «
Following Donald Trump's "unwise tariffs," former Global Times reporter
Yang Sheng says the policies pushed China and India to set aside differences. 
 
The summit signaled the "rise of a multipolar world order". By uniting Asia’s largest powers and fostering ties across the Global South, the SCO has moved closer to becoming a true counterweight to Western institutions. 
 
The West relegated to the rank of frustrated spectator.

Together with BRICS, it now represents a complementary pole of power. If China and India consolidate cooperation, analysts see the potential for a profound realignment of global governance away from Western dominance.
 
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Yuliana Titaeva (b. 1990) is a Russian business consultant and entrepreneur based in Moscow. A graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), she is the founder and director of the Agency for the Development of Bilateral Cooperation Russia-Brazil and Freedom Marketing & PR. With extensive experience in international business, she specializes in assisting Brazilian companies entering the Russian market—and vice versa—with a focus on market entry strategies, partnerships, and bilateral trade. She is also a public speaker, content creator, and former passista with Portela samba school in Rio de Janeiro.
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Friday, August 29, 2025

Who Invented BRICS | Yuliana Titaeva

Many people believe that the idea of this strategic alliance was proposed in 2001 by Goldman Sachs analyst Jim O’Neill. In fact, he only came up with a successful name—BRIC (“brick”), formed from the first letters of the countries. The point was that these four economies would be the engines of global growth in the 21st century.
 
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit from August 31 to September 1 in Tianjin.
 
But in reality, the idea of an alliance between Russia, India, and China was first voiced by… Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In 1920, Lenin wrote a “Letter to the Indian Revolutionary Association” in which he directly addressed the Indian people, called for liberation from British colonialism, and emphasized that India’s struggle was part of the world revolution. For Lenin, Russia had to be the natural ally of India and China in this struggle.

» The spiral of history. «  
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, 1920. 
 
Of course, Lenin thought in terms of revolutions and class struggle, not trade blocs. But still, this was the first articulation of the "Russia–India–China" connection as a historical and political project. He was the first to see in these three civilizational giants natural allies against Western hegemony.

SCO Unites to Crush NATO’s Pressure, Pepe Escobar, August 29, 2025.
 
Seventy-eight years later, in 1998, the foreign minister of the new Russia, Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov, formalized the idea of the strategic triangle RIC (Russia–India–China) as a foreign policy concept. In 2006, the tropical giant Brazil joined the "triangle," and the four countries turned the abbreviation into a real international club. Today, before our very eyes, BRICS is beginning to perceive itself as an alliance against Western hegemony. The spiral of history.

Yuliana Titaeva (b. 1990) is a Russian business consultant and entrepreneur based in Moscow. A graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), she is the founder and director of the Agency for the Development of Bilateral Cooperation Russia-Brazil and Freedom Marketing & PR. With extensive experience in international business, she specializes in assisting Brazilian companies entering the Russian market—and vice versa—with a focus on market entry strategies, partnerships, and bilateral trade. She is also a public speaker, content creator, and former passista with Portela samba school in Rio de Janeiro. 
 
 
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Friday, August 22, 2025

How Opium Trade Fueled the Sassoon Dynasty, the "Rothschilds of the East"

David Sassoon (1792–1864), born into a prominent Jewish family in Baghdad (or possibly Aleppo), traveled to Constantinople to appeal to Sultan Mahmud II, accusing the local governor Dawud Pasha of corruption. When Sassoon's actions became known, Ottoman authorities accused him of conspiracy and betrayal. He was subsequently arrested and threatened with death unless a large ransom was paid. 

David Sassoon (seated) and his sons Elias David, Albert (Abdallah) 
and Sassoon David, Bombay, around 1855. 
 
Facing death or ruin, Sassoon fled Baghdad in 1829. He reunited with his family in Bushehr, Persia, before resettling in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1832. At the time, Bombay was part of the British Empire's holdings in India, before the British Raj period (1858-1947). The Sassoon family is said to have arrived there penniless, but they were equipped with resilience, high ambitions, unscrupulousness, multilingual skills, and an established extensive network within the Jewish Baghdadi diaspora that stretched from London to Shanghai.
 
In Bombay, David founded David Sassoon & Co. in a modest counting house, and traded in cotton yarn, tea, silk, spices, precious metals—and, critically, opium. Already an extremely profitable enterprise, the opium trade became even more lucrative after the First Opium War (1839-42), when Britain used a series of imposed treaties to open Chinese markets. Sassoon established branches across Asia—including in Calcutta, Hong Kong (1843), Shanghai (1845), Canton, and Yokohama—as well as in major cities in Persia and the UK, placing his sons in charge, similar to how the Rothschilds ran their operation in Europe.
 
 
When patriarch David Sassoon died in 1864, he left his 14 children a fortune of approximately £4 million, roughly equivalent to $3 billion today. His company, David Sassoon & Co., continued to dominate the opium trade, controlling an estimated 70% of the India-to-China market by the 1860s and 1870s. Surpassing rivals like Russell & Company, Jardine Matheson, and Dent & Co., the family's immense profits for decades after his death cemented their status as one of the world's wealthiest and most influential families, earning them the nickname "the Rothschilds of the East." 

Following its initial 1729 anti-opium edict, China saw imports surge from 200 chests annually to 4,500 by 1800. This explosive growth accelerated in the 1830s, reaching 40,000 chests by 1838. The trade only intensified after the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, climbing to 70,000 chests (4,550 metric tons) annually by 1858, approximately equivalent to one year's worth of the total global production of opium between 1995 and 2005.

After David's death, the Sassoon family empire fragmented as his sons Abdallah (later Sir Albert) and Elias David established separate ventures. Elias founded E.D. Sassoon & Co. in 1867, and both branches diversified beyond opium, moving into cotton mills, banking, real estate, and infrastructure projects like the Sassoon Docks in Bombay and the iconic Sassoon House in Shanghai. As treaties phased out the opium trade in the early 20th century, the family’s focus on new industries became critical. David’s granddaughter, Flora (Farha) Sassoon, a daughter of Albert, became a partner and effectively ran the Bombay operations starting in 1894. Under her leadership, profits rose despite regional turmoil, but her brothers, unwilling to accept a woman in charge, removed her after just seven years.

 
While the Sassoons and other prominent figures—including Warren Delano Jr., Thomas Handasyd Perkins, John Perkins Cushing, John Jacob Astor, Robert Bennet Forbes and John Murray Forbes—built family fortunes, dynasties and financial empires on the opium trade, its human cost in China was devastating. The widespread addiction of up to 20 million Chinese destabilized society and drained precious metals from the Middle Kingdom during its “Century of Humiliation.” This economic and political chaos, a direct result of the two Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860) and British and American opium trafficking, fueled a chain of disastrous events. The most catastrophic was the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), which resulted in an estimated 20 to 30 million deaths from fighting, famine, and plague. 
 
Opium stockpiled in a warehouse in Patna, 1850s: The Sassoon family's extensive opium trade into China was
directly related to the British East India Company's monopoly on opium production in places like Patna in Bengal.
 
In 1853, David Sassoon gained British citizenship, boldly affirming his allegiance to Queen Victoria in Hebrew and reframing the family's identity as "British-Jewish." His immense success in drug trafficking was accompanied by extensive philanthropy: he commissioned synagogues, schools, orphanages, hospitals, and libraries, dedicating about 0.25% of profits to religious and charitable tzedakah. By the early 20th century, the dynasty began to decline. This was a result of internal rivalries, over-assimilation into the British aristocracy, and poor strategic decisions—such as Victor Sassoon's failure to foresee Imperial Japan's rise when he centralized operations in Shanghai.  

Sir Victor Sassoon (1881-1961), the last of the great merchant princes of the Sassoon dynasty, with
glamorous women (including Marlene Dietrich on the right) during one of his Shanghai parties in 1935. 
 
Yet, today, the Sassoon family's legacy continues through the Sassoon Family Continuation Trust and J. Sassoon Financial Group LLC, led by non-executive chairman David Shlomo Sassoon. This modern entity has diversified away from the family's historical ventures, now managing investments in a range of sectors including composite materials, oil and gas, finance, mining, and food security, focused particularly on the US, Israel, and African markets. Beyond their financial operations, many of the Sassoons maintain a discreet profile and remain "grounded in Jewish heritage." This is exemplified by individuals such as Rabbi Sliman Sassoon, who leads initiatives like the Ohel David Sassoon Institute in Jerusalem, and by the fact that a street there has been named in honor of Flora Sassoon.
 
 
» Bruce Fein, Master Trustee of the Sassoon Family Continuation Trust, unveiled today plans to transfer all Trust's unsurpassed assets valued at over $100 billion to the United States located at present in Switzerland or elsewhere abroad. The Sassoon Family Continuation Trust originated 1495 in the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition.  Its longevity and wealth are unrivaled.  The Trust proudly honors and celebrates Orthodox Judaism and is committed to the welfare of the United States and the economic and physical security of Israel. The trust's sole beneficiary is David E. Sassoon, grandson of Eli Nissim Sassoon and executive chairman of J. Sassoon Group, a Washington, DC based private equity and investment banking firm. « 
  
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了解你的敌人
Know your Enemies. 
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Monday, July 3, 2023

The BRICS+ Currency | James G. Rickards

A new BRICS+ currency will be announced in Durban, South Africa, at the annual BRICS Leaders’ Summit Conference on August 22–24, 2023 [...] In all likelihood, the new BRICS+ currency would not be available in the form of paper notes for use in everyday transactions. It would be a digital currency on a permissioned ledger maintained by a new BRICS+ financial institution with encrypted message traffic to record payments due or owing by participating parties. (This is not a cryptocurrency because it is not decentralized, not maintained on a blockchain and not open to all parties without approval.)

BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, representing about 27% of the world's land
surface, 41% of the global population, and 32% of global GDP PPP.
The most important development in the BRICS system concerns the expansion of BRICS membership.
This has led to the informal adoption of the name BRICS+ for the expanded organization.
Currently 10 additional nations formally applied for membership:
Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
24 countries have expressed interest in joining the BRICS:
Afghanistan, Angola, Belarus, Comoros, Cuba, D.R. Congo, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Mexico,
Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela
and Zimbabwe.
By every measure — population, landmass, energy output, GDP, food output and nuclear weapons — BRICS is not
just another multilateral debating society. They are a substantial and credible alternative to Western hegemony.
The BRICS are developing an optical fiber submarine telecommunications system that would connect its members.
It is being developed under the name BRICS Cable. Part of the motivation for BRICS Cable is to foil spying by
the U.S. National Security Agency on message traffic carried through existing cable networks.

[...] It appears likely that the new BRICS+ currency will be linked to a weight of gold. This plays to the strengths of BRICS members Russia and China, who are the two largest gold producers in the world and are ranked sixth and seventh respectively among the 100 nations with gold reserves.
 
[...] Reserve currencies are essentially the savings accounts of sovereign nations that have earned them through trade surpluses. These balances are not held in currency form but in the form of securities. When analysts say the dollar is the leading reserve currency, what they actually mean is that countries hold their reserves in securities denominated in a specific currency. For 60% of global reserves, those holdings are U.S. Treasury securities denominated in dollars. The reserves are not actually in dollars; they’re in securities. As a result, you cannot be a reserve currency without a large, well-developed sovereign bond market. No country in the world comes close to the U.S. Treasury market in terms of size, variety of maturities, liquidity, settlement, derivatives and other necessary features.

[June 29, 2023]
Jail break acceleration:
Ethiopia, one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, is
aiming to become the latest brick in the firewall against U.S.-imperialism.

[...] The BRICS+ currency offers the opportunity to leapfrog the Treasury market and create a deep, liquid bond market that could challenge Treasuries on the world stage almost from thin air. The key is to create a BRICS+ currency bond market in 20 or more countries at once, relying on retail investors in each country to buy the bonds. The BRICS+ bonds would be offered through banks and postal offices and other retail outlets. They would be denominated in BRICS+ currency but investors could purchase them in local currency at market-based exchange rates. Since the currency is gold backed it would offer an attractive store of value compared with inflation- or default-prone local instruments in countries like Brazil or Argentina. The Chinese in particular would find such investments attractive since they are largely banned from foreign markets and are overinvested in real estate and domestic stocks. [...] The sheer volume of retail investing in BRICS+-denominated instruments in India, China, Brazil and Russia and other countries at the same time could absorb surpluses generated through world trade in the BRICS+ currency. In short, the way to create an instant reserve currency is to create an instant bond market using your own citizens as willing buyers.
 
The United States exploits the world's wealth with the help of "seigniorage."
It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries
had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one (HERE)
 
[...] This entire turn of events — introduction of a new gold-backed currency, rapid adoption as a payment currency and gradual use as a reserve asset currency — will begin on August 22, 2023, after years of development. Except for direct participants, the world has mostly ignored this prospect. The result will be an upheaval of the international monetary system coming in a matter of weeks.

 
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Wednesday, February 22, 2023

India's Role in the New Multi-Polar World Order | Timur Fomenko

Timur Fomenko (21 Feb, 2023) - The truth, though, is that they don’t truly see India as an equal. They hope, given the foundations of its political system, that India will one day be “the same” as they are, and anticipate a course of liberalization and political change under their guidance, similar to what was once expected from Russia and China. But, if India fails to follow that route, or continues to grow as an autonomous power which does not consent to Western dominance, the chances are that the West’s tolerance for the country, and especially for Modi’s government, will run out.
 
At the helm of a superpower of the future: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

What happens when India becomes wealthy and powerful and does not eagerly accept the Western-centric political world order? Also, what if it seeks to be a geopolitical power in its own terms? What happens when Western countries begin to perceive India not as a partner in need of help and support, but as a rival in a similar vein to how they view China and, of course, Russia? What happens when the US-led Indo-Pacific initiative starts to appear not as something that would incorporate and help India, but something that could also potentially contain its military rise?

India’s current foreign policy is often described as “strategic autonomy,” but in recent years the country has been overly friendly with the US to exploit mutual anti-China sentiment in a bid to gain economic opportunities for itself. At the same time, there has been a domestic political shift in India which orients it away from westernization. The West’s good will for New Delhi, a superpower of the future, will one day run out, and the agenda will shift towards containment. India needs to look at what is happening now with China and be ready when that day comes.

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Tuesday, February 7, 2023

On the Price of Russian Oil | Igor Sechin

The EU will no longer set prices for Russia’s flagship Urals oil blend, now that Asia is the largest consumer of western-sanctioned Russian crude, the head of the country’s oil major Rosneft, Igor Sechin, said on Monday.

An EU embargo on seaborne exports of crude accompanied by price caps on oil and petroleum products originating from Russia has triggered a reshuffle in global oil supply. In a matter of months, Moscow rerouted most of its oil flows that used to go to Europe, to Asian markets. The country has ramped up its seaborne oil shipments to China, India and Türkiye at the expense of Western nations.
 

Oil exports to India alone jumped 33 times in December, with Russia now the country’s largest supplier, replacing Iraq. About 70% of Urals cargoes loaded last month went to New Delhi, according to Reuters calculations.

“If Russian oil does not enter the European market, then there is no reference price. Reference prices will be formed where oil volumes actually go,” Sechin pointed out, speaking at the India Energy Week forum.

The Russian government is now discussing how to calculate Russia's taxable oil price following the import ban and price caps set by the EU and G7 countries. Currently, for tax purposes, the average price for Urals on the world market is used, in particular in the ports of Augusta (Italy) and Rotterdam (Netherlands). But due to sanctions, Russian oil is practically not supplied there. Sechin also suggested that “futures contracts, futures settlements” should be abandoned at the first stage in order to regulate market indicators. To stress his point, the head of Russia’s oil giant even quoted from the Bible. “As it is written in Ecclesiastes, "What is crooked cannot be made straight. And what is lacking cannot be counted.”

Meanwhile, Asian buyers have ramped up imports of a wide variety of Russian crude oil, including lesser-known Arctic grades. Two other popular blends, ESPO and Sokol, have been trading above the Western price ceiling of $60 a barrel, at $66 and $71 per barrel respectively, as of Tuesday.
 
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