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.

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.

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.

Twelve years have passed since Jim O’Neill, former head analyst for Goldman Sachs, suggested to the business community that several large and fast-growing economies be grouped together to make investment decisions much easier. Since that time, China, India, Russia, and Brazil have become and see themselves as nations bound by common economic interests and pursuing similar goals. Just how justified the hopes are that they’ve attached to this remains to be seen, but it is already clear today that these states, which recently expanded their ranks to include South Africa, are keeping an eye on both economic and political issues that could become their contribution to the global agenda.
This process is very, important, first and foremost, because the BRICS countries are, on the one hand, intrinsically perceived as non-western (Russia and China were antagonists to the West during the years of the Cold War, India and Brazil were European colonies at various times, and South Africa is a symbol of the struggle between the local population and their alien colonial masters), yet they also strongly depend on the West and play a complementary role to its economic system. If these countries truly intend on becoming the legislators of the world’s economic trends in 30-40 years, they will have to tackle, within that time, the topics that currently dominate global politics. And not tackle them by confrontation with the leading powers, but rather through “creative development” of existing trends.

The Soviet planned economy still draws nervous laughter and a number of questions from those who follow the Chicago school of economics. Products coming off the assembly line often had nothing in common with what consumers wanted. Mounds of identical fake-leather sandals sat in warehouses, while Polish and Czechoslovakian furniture manufacturers intentionally made heavier legs for tables and chairs, since manufacturing quotas had been set in kilograms.

Retro things are more popular today than ever before – hipsters en masse are buying up Zenith cameras and old stocks of Orwo film made in East Germany. A few years ago, their Czech counterparts opened up Nanovo, a furniture and household goods store that sells items made during the 1950s-’70s, at high prices.

It’s more or less comprehensible why people have an affinity for retro items – the simplest thing to do was to redirect the nostalgia of the post-Socialist transitional period towards consumerism. Flea markets for the trendy have moved online. Here we could discuss the particular features of the collective memory of the Warsaw Pact countries and why young parents who walk with their babies in the new areas of Dresden prefer the bulky, Soviet oilcloth strollers; but it would be much more interesting to see what has happened with the same industries over the 25 years since the fall of the Iron Curtain. One would think that, outside of the planned economy, most of the brands we longingly recall would have sunk into oblivion, but is that what actually happened?