To this day, the Arctic remains the most pristine, untouched piece of the Earth where there are a vast number of natural resources, oil and gas among them. Those claiming a piece of the “Arctic pie” have already accumulated quite a large portion and don’t just include bordering countries, but even such powers as India and China. As their economies grow, so do their energy needs, and Beijing and New Delhi are searching for a way to the heart of the Arctic.
In May 2013, the two largest Asian powers, India and China, gained observer status in the Arctic Council (AC). Officially, the AC is an international organization dedicated to monitoring and protection of the polar zone. There are 8 full members of the AC: Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Canada, the U.S., Sweden, and Russia. Unofficially, the AC is a format for international dialogue about the future status of the Arctic, a region rich in natural resources, particularly oil and gas.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 13% of the world’s unexplored oil reserved are concentrated in the Arctic North, or about 160 billion barrels. For comparison’s sake, the most optimistic reserves estimate for oil-rich Saudi Arabia is 44 billion barrels and for Russia is 25 billion. The Arctic also has up to 30% of the world’s natural gas reserves.

The combination of the terms “rapidly developing” and “economy” were used exclusively to describe the Asian Tigers and the BRICS countries just five years ago. But today, to the surprise of many, there are several new growth leaders on the African continent. The IMF paints a good picture of this trend, according to which six of the top ten fastest growing economies (by GDP growth compared to the previous year) for 2001-2010 were African (Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique, and Rwanda) and seven of the top ten projected fastest growing countries for 2011-2015 (Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Zambia, and Nigeria). Thanks to these countries, the entire continent’s economy is expected to grow by 6% in 2014. It’s clear that most of the success of the “African lions” is due directly to profits from energy exports.

Sadika Hameed, CSIS fellow, Program on Crisis, Conflict and Cooperation spoke with WEJ on the future of the Pakistan-China relations and its impact on the regional geopolitical and economic stability.
Ms. Hameed, how would assess the current state of Pakistan-China relations?
Relations between China and Pakistan are certainly close and continue to grow especially with regard to military and economic ties. These ties could possibly expand even further if China grows closer to Central Asia and wants overland access to the Arabian Sea. However, this must be viewed in a wider context with a pragmatic China and its ambitions regionally and globally to understand potential implications for the United States. China will continue to view Pakistan as a strategic ally but will carefully balance it with a growing India which is a major trading partner for them. For example, China-India trade is larger than India’s trade with the United States. Similarly, India will balance its relationship with the United States, now a close partner and ally, for economic and security reasons as well. While China and India may both also compete with each other, regional stability is vital for their regional and global ambitions.

It is believed that women in the 20th century won equal rights and opportunities. But does this mean that the market values them on an equal basis with men? Not at all. As proof of this, Bloomberg experts estimate that women make up only 8% of the CEOs of U.S. companies with the largest capitalization on the S&P 500. And the most striking thing is that the salaries of these women are 18% less than those of men in a similar position.
Back in 1963, President John Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act, requiring organizations to pay the same to men and women who perform the same jobs. Fifty years later, there is still no appreciable progress, and the issue of the gender pay gap in the U.S. is still acute. Last year, the average American woman earned 76.5 cents for every dollar earned by the average man – even less than in 2011, when the ratio was 77 cents to the “male dollar.” If the average annual income of men last year, according to the Census Bureau, was $49,398, then for women, the figure was only $37,791. Thus, over a 40-year career, the average woman working full-time would lose $443,369. And in order to earn as much as a man over her career, a woman would have to work almost 12 years longer.
Of course, this situation is reflected in pensions, which are directly dependent on wages. The formula is simple: The higher the pay, the larger the pension. It turns out that at the end of their careers, women still face inequalities. Because of their lower income in the United States, the average Social Security benefit for women above age 65 in 2011 was about $12,700 per year, compared with $16,700 for men of the same age. And the worst thing is that most women who are actively working today are likely to retire without having received all the benefits of equal pay. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), gender pay inequality will not disappear until at least 2058.

By the end of 2014, all of Syria’s chemical weapons and production facilities must be destroyed. Over the next several weeks through the end of March, the most dangerous and toxic elements of Syria’s arsenal will be disposed of. No chemical components should remain by mid-summer and by the end of the year all production and delivery systems will be gone. Ten governments are directly involved in the operations to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons and dozens more are financing the OPCW and the commercial destruction of components. It’s impossible to determine total costs to date, but the scale is quite impressive.
“One of the lessons of the Cold War is that when things fall apart in a country with weapons of mass destruction, some outside assistance is necessary to secure materials, technology, and people,” said Sharon Squassoni, Director and Senior Fellow for the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, in a conversation with WEJ. She described the active participation of a wide coalition of countries involved in the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons.
Back in August 2013, the world’s most eminent analysts weighed the option of U.S. and NATO military intervention in Syrian affairs under the pretext of Assad using chemical weapons against rebels and civilians. But as a result of a diplomatic compromise and the direct participation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the parties managed to agree on a plan at the end of last August to destroy all chemical weapons and production facilities inside Syria.

The West accuses Russia of violating the main unspoken principle of the postwar world order – the ban on the redistribution of territory between “civilized” countries. However, this rule has been repeatedly violated in recent decades (for example, witness the emergence of the state of Kosovo on the world political map), when Western countries, acting in the name of the world community, decided that such redistribution is in their interests. The Kosovo precedent, of course, would not justify the actions of Russia in the Crimea, if it were not for one fundamental difference: The peninsula was transferred from one legal jurisdiction to another with practically no bloodshed and no conflict. After all, Crimeans have really always considered themselves to be Russians. The West refuses to officially recognize that the residents of Crimea have a right to self-determination, even though such a right has been declared by all international institutions. It refuses not only because of its reluctance to approve of Russia’s policy, but also  it is obvious that Europe, which is experiencing serious economic problems, is itself experiencing this principle in action: After all, it will have to accept the results of the already announced referenda in Scotland and Catalonia. Even the Venetians, judging by the latest news, are not against restoring their republic.