Arda Tunca

Eight months after American forces captured Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, Chevron announced plans to invest more than $7 billion in Venezuela. The American oil company intends to more than double its production in the country over five years. Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves but produces only around 1.25 million barrels a day. Its petroleum industry has been devastated by mismanagement, corruption, underinvestment, the loss of technical expertise and American sanctions....

The first time I opened Heliodorus's Aethiopica, I found myself asking numerous questions. Who is Thyamis? Why has the story suddenly shifted to an Athenian named Cnemon? Why are entirely new characters introduced before earlier ones have even been explained? Heliodorus expected his readers to tolerate uncertainty. He refused to explain everything immediately because he wanted his readers to reconstruct the story themselves. Only gradually did I realize that what initially appeared to be a...

A geopolitical standoff in the Middle East, a soaring US national debt, volatile Treasury yields, and sudden currency market interventions in Tokyo are all structural components of a single, interconnected dynamic. Washington's naval blockade and expanding economic pressure on Iran have choked off maritime transport through the Strait of Hormuz, forcing commodity vessels down to a trickle. This supply restriction directly triggered a sharp spike in crude oil and energy prices. Energy supply...