Turkey, Iran eye customs deal

Turkey and Iran will implement single customs territory to facilitate trade between the two countries, Turkish Customs Minister Nurettin Canikli announced Wednesday.

Syrian Oil And Gas: Little-Known Facts on Syria’s Energy Resources And Russia’s Help

Syria also holds the key as a future energy cooridor to European energy independence from Russia. This is also why you will likely not see Greece nor Cyprus getting the boot from the Eurozone, as they will have a useful future in supplying natural gas from the Mediterannean Sea to the future United States of Europe. Additionally, Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2006 had very little to do with serious threats against Russia itself. Georgia, too, was working on an energ pipeline from the Caspian Sea towards Europe. It was pre-planned, and even was mentioned by Putin himself  (Additional sources: Here and here) — although you won’t hear the main reasons why. They even have planned to re-invade Georgia should a war with Iran kick off.

As the situation in Syria deteriorates with a threatened U.S. airstrike over President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons, the Damascus regime still controls one of the largest conventional hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean.

Syria possessed 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil as of January 2013, which makes it the largest proved reserve of crude oil in the eastern Mediterranean according to the Oil & Gas Journal estimate, besides Iraq.

China Eclipses U.S. as Biggest Trading Nation Measured in Goods

China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, official figures from both countries show.

U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China’s customs administration reported last month that the country’s trade in goods in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion.