The European Commission unveiled its Industrial Accelerator Act on 4 March 2026 after months of internal friction, leaked drafts, multiple postponements, and what one Brussels observer described as something close to institutional paralysis. The Act was originally scheduled for December 2025, then pushed to February, then to March. The delays
Shell’s decision to ink a fresh suite of commercial and technical agreements with Venezuela’s government this week is being read in energy circles as a straightforward gas deal. It is not. It is a signal, about Washington’s Venezuela strategy, about the future of Caribbean LNG, and about how far a
A meeting with something to prove This particular Council meeting arrives under pressure that is anything but ordinary. South Africa has assumed the SADC Chairship not through the normal rotation of ambition, but through the constitutional ejection of Madagascar after the political instability that rocked Antananarivo after the August 2025
There is a story the West tells about Iran. In this story, Iran is an irrational theocratic state, a sponsor of terror, an obstacle to regional stability, and a government whose people would be free if only the regime could be removed. It is a story built on selective memory,
Mikatekiso Kubayi At its founding in 2009, in Yekaterinburg, Russia, the BRICS bloc set out a clear framework for its cooperation and a method of operations that guides it towards its goals. One of the key pillars of this framework is also the first one: Political and Security cooperation. Its
On the 25th of February 2026, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana stood before Parliament and delivered a budget built on a story of redemption. Five years back, South Africa was grey-listed by the Financial Action Task Force, it was downgraded to junk status, and reeled from State Capture. On Wednesday, he
Ashraf Patel When Goldman Sachs’ Jim O Neil coined the term BRIC in 2009, his frame of reference was emerging market destinations that were attractive for global capital investment from the North. In 2009, Brazil, Russia, India and China hosted an inaugural summit where the acronym BRIC was adopted. South
There is a pattern so deeply embedded in African resource economies that it has become almost invisible. Dig it up, ship it out, watch someone else turn it into something valuable, then import that valuable thing back at a premium. Tanzania is not exempt from this pattern. But what makes
The Venezuelan oil and gas industry is a cornerstone of the nation’s economy, underpinning government revenue and influencing regional geopolitics. Once producing over three million barrels per day (bpd), years of underinvestment, alleged mismanagement, and international sanctions severely eroded both production and technical expertise. The state-run company, Petróleos de Venezuela,
Kia has started assembling the hybrid version of the Kia Telluride at its West Point, Georgia facility, marking the company’s first hybrid model produced in the US. The move reflects rising demand for hybrid vehicles, particularly after federal incentives for fully electric vehicles were withdrawn last year. The Georgia plant
