Pressure on Putin and Deployment of 'Nuclear Submarines'… What's Behind Trump's Dual Warning? - Jordan News
Ironically, after recently agreeing to a 15% tariff reduction in trade deals, some European countries that had previously pushed Trump to punish Russia may now find themselves on the receiving end of U.S. sanctions. But this is the unpredictable and aggressive path Trump has chosen to follow. – (Agencies)
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Jordan News
a day ago
- Jordan News
Washington Designates Balochistan Liberation Army as Terrorist Organization - Jordan News
Washington Designates Balochistan Liberation Army as Terrorist Organization The United States has designated a Pakistani separatist group as a foreign terrorist organization, the U.S. State Department announced, a move welcomed by Pakistani authorities on Tuesday. اضافة اعلان The designation covers the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and its armed faction known as the Majid Brigade, which are held responsible for carrying out deadly attacks in the resource-rich Balochistan region. This announcement coincides with the visit of Pakistan's Army Chief, General Asim Munir, to the United States. The decision comes less than two weeks after Washington and Islamabad reached a trade agreement expected to enable American companies to help develop untapped oil reserves in Balochistan and reduce tariffs on Pakistani exports. According to the U.S. State Department statement: 'We designate the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and its alias Majid Brigade as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and add Majid Brigade as an alias of BLA in its prior designation as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).' The BLA was first listed as a terrorist organization in 2019 by the U.S. Treasury Department following a series of attacks. The State Department noted the new designation reflects the group's adoption of additional attacks since then. The BLA claimed responsibility for suicide bombings near Karachi Airport and in the port city of Gwadar in Balochistan in 2024. It also took responsibility for the March hijacking of the 'Jaffer Express' train traveling from Quetta to Peshawar, which resulted in 31 civilian and military deaths and over 300 passengers taken hostage. The U.S. State Department said: 'Today's action underscores the Trump administration's commitment to combating terrorism.' Security analyst Syed Muhammad Ali, based in Islamabad, said the designation followed General Munir's visit to the U.S. He added that the designation 'signals a significant shift in the Trump administration's policy toward South Asia, highlights the growing role of military diplomacy, strengthens bilateral counterterrorism cooperation, and shows that Washington shares Pakistan's security concerns about Baloch insurgents.' Ali also noted the change reflects the U.S. recognition of the importance of stability in Pakistan, especially in the oil- and gas-rich Balochistan province. No immediate comments were issued by Baloch nationalist or separatist groups. The region has long witnessed armed insurgency, often attributed to groups such as the banned BLA, which the U.S. designated a terrorist organization in 2019. The region also harbors militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban. Baloch separatists oppose resource extraction by Pakistani and foreign companies and have targeted Pakistani security forces and Chinese nationals working on multibillion-dollar projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Despite government claims of having suppressed the insurgency, violence continues in Balochistan, where the military announced killing 47 militants in two separate operations in the Zhub area last week and said on Tuesday it killed three more, raising the death toll to 50 since Thursday. Separately, an explosion occurred on Tuesday at a weapons depot in Nowshera, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, residents said. No immediate statements were issued by police or the military, but authorities were expected to release a statement later. – Reuters
Ammon
a day ago
- Ammon
Climate security is energy security
Ammon News - NEW YORK — For all the uncertainties generated by Donald Trump's administration over the past six months, one thing is clear: 'climate' technologies are out, and 'energy' technologies are in. But while going along with this rhetorical shift may appease some, it should be recognized for what it is: a change in wording. The fundamental economic and technological forces that are pushing the world away from oil, coal, and gas and toward low-carbon, high-efficiency technologies have not abated. Over the past two decades, climate change has been a leading item on the global agenda, driving efforts to deploy technologies that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Those efforts are now facing headwinds, and not just in the United States. Geopolitical developments elsewhere, like Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, have called attention to the importance of energy affordability and security over other considerations. Policymakers in the US, Europe, and elsewhere initially responded to the war by doubling down on the shift from fossil fuels, and for good reason. Oil, coal, and gas are commodities whose prices will always be linked to geopolitical vagaries (that goes for not only global oil markets but also regional gas markets, which are increasingly linked by trade in liquefied natural gas). As a case in point, the summer of 2022 brought massive inflation, largely driven by fossil-fuel price spikes. Europe's gas prices peaked at ten times their long-term average, and US gas prices at around triple their long-term average. While the US Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is widely considered a misnomer, history will judge the name kindly: The only permanent way to address such bouts with 'fossilflation' is to stop using fossil fuels. Though the blowback against climate policies has been particularly strong at the federal level in the US, Europe, too, has undergone a retrenchment. This is somewhat understandable, even if it is shortsighted. Germany, Europe's largest economy, has been in a recession for more than two years, with high energy prices a chief culprit. Climate technologies that are already commercially viable could help, of course. But taking full advantage of the lower prices of solar, wind, and (increasingly) batteries requires a willingness to reform power markets and pass these savings to households and industrial consumers. It also calls for more upfront public investment, an area where climate priorities compete with other priorities like national security that are often perceived to be more immediate. In grappling with these tradeoffs, the European Union delivered the kinds of efficiency measures that Trump's 'Department of Government Efficiency' (DOGE) had promised but failed to achieve. For example, Europe dialed back its carbon border adjustment mechanism by requiring 90 per cent fewer companies to comply. On the surface, this seems like a decisive blow to the goal of establishing a carbon tariff for imports, commensurate with Trump's DOGE hatchet. But unlike Trump and Elon Musk, the EU ensured that the remaining 10 per cent of importers still accounted for over 90 per cent of emissions. This outcome is far from ideal when viewed solely through a climate lens. But viewed from a broader climate-economic perspective, it is exactly the kind of surgical intervention that DOGE promised but never delivered. Still, fiddling at the climate-policy margins ignores the bigger picture. While Europe and America are taking steps back, China is leaping forward. It alone accounted for over 40 per cent of the record $2.1 trillion of global investment in the energy transition last year – more than the EU, the United Kingdom, and the US combined. The balance is even more lopsided for specific clean-energy technologies. China produces around 75 per cent of the world's solar panels and 80 per cent of its lithium-ion batteries. That dominance is the result of a concerted green industrial policy, in which innovation plays a key role. The claim that China only manufactures and assembles is woefully outdated. China's electric vehicles, for example, are second to none. BYD, the country's leading carmaker, recently unveiled a groundbreaking charging system capable of adding 470 kilometers (292 miles) of range in just five minutes, putting the company in a league of its own globally. China's dominance extends to technologies that are not yet competitive without price support. LONGi, one of the world's top solar manufacturers, formed LONGi Hydrogen in 2021 to pursue green hydrogen production. It now leads the world in electrolyzer manufacturing capacity. These are not isolated examples. China's ambitious industrial policy has helped lift five other Chinese hydrogen companies into the global top ten. Have Europe and the US already lost this race for the future? While the US now seems hellbent on turning itself into a petrostate, the EU has a chance to revive its clean-energy fortunes. It is even starting with a significant policy advantage: a CO2 price hovering around $100 per metric ton means that most low-carbon technologies – from clean electrons and electrification to clean molecules like biofuels – are already economically viable. Others, like green hydrogen, will need further support to help climb the learning curve and slide down the cost curve. According to Bernd Heid, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company who leads its Platform for Climate Technologies, around 90 per cent of climate technologies will be in the money by 2030 with a $100 carbon price. While China dominates with six top-ten global players, three of the others are European. The Swedish startup Stegra is building the world's first low-carbon steel plant using electrolyzers made by ThyssenKrupp Nucera, in which the German steelmaker has a majority stake. Despite recent political developments, the US, too, has shown that rapid change is possible. Although breaking China's solar manufacturing dominance will be difficult, the US has made significant inroads just over the past three years. Earlier this year, it exceeded 50 gigawatts of panel manufacturing capacity, a fivefold increase since 2022. These 50 GW in panel supply roughly matched US demand. True, onshoring the solar supply chain comes with costs that can be justified only by priorities other than the climate, such as national security or promoting domestic manufacturing. But that is the point. If political conditions require stronger emphasis on technologies like geothermal and nuclear, and if technologies formerly known as 'climate tech' must be relabeled as more neutral-sounding 'energy tech,' so be it. The larger forces propelling us toward decarbonization remain the same.
Jordan News
a day ago
- Jordan News
Close Ally of Putin to Lead Russian Delegation to North Korea - Jordan News
The Russian State Duma announced on Tuesday that Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the State Duma (Russian Parliament), will head a Russian delegation on an official visit to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, on August 14 and 15. اضافة اعلان The council stated that the delegation will participate in celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of North Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule by Allied forces at the end of World War II. The State Duma did not disclose the names of other members of the Russian delegation. Volodin, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is one of the senior officials who frequently lead parliamentary delegations on foreign visits. He visited India earlier this year. – Reuters
