Azerbaijan sold 11.8 billion cubic meter of its natural gas to Europen countries in 2023 alone.

In the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war the European energy supply has got hit hard.

That is 50% of its natural gas, in total Azerbaijan exported 23.8 Billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Azerbaijan has proven 2.6 Trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves.

Azerbaijan's major pipelines connecting Europe:

The oil and natural gas rich country has 3 major pipelines connecting its resources to European countries like Georgia, with South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP). The other major pipeline includes Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), which goes through Turkiye and lastly Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) which goes through Greece, Albania and finally to Italy.

The Pakistan government run airline PIA, is running in loss for a long time now, the airline has liabilities of $2.8 billion. The airline also has accumulated losses of $2.55 billion as of June last year, according to some reports online.

Pakistan's caretaker government approved a plan for selling PIA on Tuesday, days after the country's election panel directed it to refrain from making any final deal.

What is PPP?

PPP stands for purchasing power parity. In simple terms with the ppp economist calculates, the cost of same thing (goods, services) in different countries, and decide how much money needed in different countries to buy the same thing, with using a common currency, like dollar.

This can be further understood with “Big Mac Index” rule.

If $1 (US) is equal to 87.96 Russian Ruble, in Nominal exchange rate.

And if one Big Mac costs $1 in America, and the same Big Mac is available for 86 Russian Ruble in Russia, this would mean Russian consumers have to spend less to purchase the same thing. This means Russia have a good PPP.

According to the IMF estimates for 2023, Russia ranks sixth in the world in terms of PPP GDP, just behind China, USA, India, and Japan in PPP, economic evaluation.

In the PPP terms, Russia has overtaken Germany, to become the fifth-wealthiest economy in the world and the largest in Europe, worth more than $5 trillion.

Russia has been in a war since almost 2 years now with Ukraine, and has faced barrage of western sanctions all throughout these years. The growth is remarkable as its counterpart the Europe has slide into recession ever since.

The IMF has predicted a growth rate of around 2% for Russia.

Russia's Nominal GDP is around 2 Trillion.

Some economists and reports suggest that Russia’s nominal GDP is around $2 trillion. While according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates, in 2023 the Russian GDP was calculated at $1.7 Trillion.

Countries owe China over $1 trillion, under Belt and Road project, China has been funding financially distressed countries, who are also happens to be a part of its Belt and Road initiative. This has led Beijing to become the world’s largest debt collector: reports.

Countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and some African countries owe a lot of money to China and are working together, under the initiative.

China's Belt and Road is a massive infrastructure project, which involves making of roads, ports, railroads etc, China provides billions of dollars to countries all over the world for the project, and for other developments as well.

Some see the project with suspicion, and consider it to be a deadly debt trap.

Sri-Lanka has already failed to pay the debt back, which it used to build the Hambantota port, and in result had to give away it for a 99 years Lease, in 2017.

• Saudi Arabia has signed an agreement with Turkey to deposit $5 billion in the country’s central bank through the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), the fund said on Monday.

• Saudi Minister of Finance Mohammed Bin Abdullah al-Jadaan announced his country’s intention to make the deposit in December.

The United States President on his middle-east tour, in Israel, said in a statement that “We will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear power”.

The statement says that the US will use “all elements of national power” available to it to deny Iran the ability to arm itself with nuclear weapons.

US President Joe Biden and Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid have yet again agreed and passed a joint anti-Iran position, committing to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reacted to the joint stand of US-Israel, saying it will have a "harsh response" to any mistake committed by Washington or its allies.

Raisi blamed the US and “its regional allies” for stoking instability in the region, state-run IRNA news agency reported.

“The great nation of Iran will not accept any insecurity or crisis in the region and Washington and its allies should know that any mistake will be met by a harsh and regrettable response from Iran,” Raisi said during a speech, according to the Reuters news agency.

Lapid warned that “words” and “diplomacy” were not enough to thwart Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions.

“The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear programme, the free world will use force,” he said.

As per Al Jazeera reported.