Dimitrios' World

The continuing inability to resolve the issue of Kosovo’s future status demonstrates a relative impotence on the part of the international community (in particular the European Union and the United States) put an end or at least put an order to an issue which complicates the path of the states of the western Balkans toward stabilization, integration and Europeanization. The situation that has developed in Kosovo today is one which basically dwells on the following questions: to what degree can the sovereign rights of Serbia over the territory of Kosovo take precedence over the rights of the region’s predominantly Albanian population? Or, in other words, the clash over the application of the principle of national self-determination versus the principle of territorial integrity and the unchangeability of state borders by force; or the quest for territorial separation on the part of a group regarding a region which constitutes metropolitan territory of a sovereign independent state. The o...

Anybody that has seen the film “Syrianna” is certainly convinced of the role and power of oil in the Arab and Muslim world and its linkage with the rest of the world’s economy through the involvement of multinationals that want to assure their access to the Middle East’s energy resources. Yet what is not clear is how direct the link between oil and Islam is. After all, Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, Algeria, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and (in part) Nigeria cooperate within OPEC acting like any other monopolies to assure that their product – oil – is sold to the rest of the world at the best market price they can get. In fact, the Persian Gulf countries (Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) produce about 27% of the world's oil, while holding 57% of the world's crude oil reserves. Besides oil, the Persian Gulf region also has huge reserves of natural gas, accounting for 45% of total proven world gas re...