A | Dr. Alexander Azadgan, professor of business studies and international political economy in Southern California, explains why President Putin's trip to Tehran was so significant and reflects on skyrocketing energy prices as well as the future of the Iran nuclear deal.,Sputnik: How effective was President Putin's visit to Tehran, considering the geopolitical challenges countries face at present?,Dr Alexander Azadgan: Very, very effective. We are witnesses of Gazprom and NIOC, which stands for National Iranian Oil Company, signing a $40 billion contract for Russia to develop six Iranian oilfields in the Persian Gulf. Notably, the Pars field, which is shared between Iran and Qatar. The Qataris call it the North field, Iranians call it the South Pars field. It's one of the biggest underwater natural gas reserves in the world, if not the biggest itself. Qatar and Iran have been sharing it. Iran, of course, has not had the technology to extract as much as the Qataris. Around one-fifth of it is in the Iranian territorial water, four-fifths in Qatari water.,RussiaPutin Praises Record-High Trade Turnover With Iran at Meeting With Raisi19 July, 14:12 GMT,There will also be a product swap exchange between Iran and Russia, completion of LNG projects, liquid natural gas plus construction of gas export pipelines and other scientific and technological cooperation. This oil and gas deal is reportedly the largest in Iran's history, $40 billion. Before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was reneged, French company Total was interested in excavating and helping the Iranians. Of course, they reneged, like so many other things, and Russia has stepped in right now. It's a win-win for both countries, but it has its own complications as well.,Sputnik: Do you agree with President Putin's assertion that Western policies over "the previous decade" were to blame for soaring energy prices?,Dr Azadgan: Iranian relations right now are better than with the previous administration, the Rouhani administration. The conservatives are in charge right now. President Raisi visited Moscow not too long ago. And the conservatives have had the tendency in the past several years to lean more towards Russia, especially with IRGC and all the advancements that that body of military is making. We cannot leave out Iranian internal politics when it comes to the overall Russo-Iranian relations.,RussiaPutin: Western Policies From Last 10 Years to Blame for Soaring Energy Prices20 July, 03:29 GMT,Keep in mind that US invasion and occupation of Iraq, Iraq being one of the top five exporters of oil at that time and one of the top five exporters of oil to United States now, was a catastrophic mistake in a sense that the neocons at that time were delusional to think that by causing havoc in the region, especially obviously toward Iraq, there will be less export of Iraq's oil to the Far East, the growing economies of China, in particular, followed by South Korea and Japan. All that is part of what we are seeing today when it comes to inflation.,Now the supply and demand has not changed in the world - the reason the price of oil has increased is because of the perception of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia to continue. There is no logical reason for this change. I think, unfortunately, with Washington really triggering Russia over NATO's expansion during the past many years, most people think this conflict just started. If you want to go back, it depends on what your frame of reference is. You can go back to 2004 in Ukraine, followed by the Orange Revolution. There's been a lot of political intrusion by Washington and Brussels. And unfortunately, we find ourselves in the current situation, which could affect the entire global economy in a very hyper-inflationary hell, really. This is what economists are most scared of - a hyper inflationary situation.,Sputnik: How much has Europe's decision to turn its back on traditional energy sources added to the present crisis?,Dr Azadgan: With the whole environmental movement, which obviously is of an urgency, we need to realize that green energy is not going to provide the energy demand of 8 billion people. It's just simply not possible. I think we need to be more realistic that obviously oil is going to be with us for a long time. Natural gas is the transitioning method of energy. We will have that for many years, it is cleaner, but both of them are going to be along for a long time. And to start making the change now in such a naive, extreme, erratic way is going to have major economic backlashes.,Not to mention the political turmoil and the geopolitical uncertainty in that part of the world. We need more realism from our policymakers - of course, with Democrats in the White House and Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz in Germany, unfortunately, we are being a little bit too naive and unrealistic when it comes to planning energy resources for the next 60 years.,Sputnik: Russia's deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said that Moscow and Tehran will continue to expand the use of national currencies in foreign trade settlements. How will this affect the dollar's dominance?,Dr Azadgan: Before we even talk about the Iranian rial and the Russian ruble exchange, this is a major breakaway from the past, I would say, 80 years where petroleum was only supposed to be traded in the US dollar given the US dollar’s tremendous power. And unfortunately, we've seen the weaponization of the dollar in the past few decades - this is the problem. Yes, this is a clear and present danger to United States national interests.,WorldTehran Exchange Launches Trading in Iranian Rial/Ruble19 July, 10:06 GMT,Several years ago, China and Russia exchanged an oil contract where the Russians provided oil and natural gas to China and the whole thing was around $400 billion when it was exchanged in rubles and yuan. At that time, US policymakers took notice. And now we are in this situation where because of the US' rash reaction into pushing for a war, believe it or not, between Russia and Ukraine, more countries as a result of that are leaning toward the East. And by east, I mean the shifting of power to China and Russia.,China has tremendous manufacturing capabilities. Russia - the same in addition to tremendous amounts of all sorts of natural resources and rare minerals. In the decades to come, we will see the weakening of the dollar, which would result in the US national debt, which is $28 trillion, more or less. That's going to be a problem that will contribute into inflation. And we saw how Mr Biden had to go to Saudi Arabia and lobby Mohammed bin Salman to open up the coffers of oil so that prices go down. That would have been never possible in the past.,Crude Prices Skyrocket After Biden Returns From Saudi Arabia Without Oil Deal18 July, 15:17 GMT,The US president had to go to Saudi Arabia and beg for oil. Usually that was done through a phone call. And if the answer was ‘No’ by the Saudis, guess what? That would have been a coup in the palace. So, unfortunately, we have put ourselves in a situation where we have lost our leverage or are in the way of losing more leverage.,Sputnik: To what extent will the switch to national currencies help eliminate the effect of Western-imposed sanctions?,Dr Azadgan: That's where we're going: from this point on, because of all the miscalculations and the weaponization of the dollar, countries are eventually going to do that. They're not going to peg their currency against the dollar, which has been the case. Don't forget, the Iranian economy has been in shambles during the past 15 years. When it comes to this $40 billion oil contract, the Iranian currency lost 9/10th of its value since 2013, when President Ahmadinejad left office - they went from 3500 tomans to over 30,000 tomans [1 toman = 10,000 rials].,RussiaKremlin: Russia and Iran May Ditch Dollar When Measuring Bilateral Trade Volume18 July, 09:12 GMT,This has been a disaster. Because they decided to peg their currency even more toward a US dollar. And this is an Iranian liberal policy leaning more toward the West, whereas the Iranian conservatives have a tendency to lean more toward the growing economies of the east. There's demand for the Iranian currency that would hopefully have an impact on the Iranian rial currency to stop hemorrhaging. It's at a point where we could possibly face a major economic collapse in Iran, which would even make the prices of oil higher. I think Russia is stepping in at the right time, in the right place, especially in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and we'll see where that will go.,Sputnik: How important is Russia's and Iran's cooperation over the JCPOA, especially amid increased US attention towards a diplomatic resolution? How strong is Iran now in this regard?,Dr Azadgan: Washington has no one to blame but the previous administration. In 2018, President [Donald] Trump reneged from the P5+1 [the UN Security Council’s five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US) plus Germany]. Iran was single-handedly negotiating with six superpowers, with one stroke of the pen President Trump got us out of that, and Iranians have lost all hopes in US in terms of their liberal persuasion within the Iranian political power structure. That's why we had Mr. Raisi coming in, the Conservatives coming in, and President Putin's visit to Iran, many visits to Iran during the liberal administration of President Rouhani, in my estimation, was an economic, political, geopolitical and military persuasion of Iranians to lean more towards the East.,Had the JCPOA been successful under the Rouhani administration, the country would have leaned westward for decades to come. Those policies failed, and as a result, we have conservatives in the Iranian executive branch, and there's a shift in power in that country. The JCPOA, I'm afraid, won't be going anywhere. It's just for keeping up appearances. Having said that, let us not forget that at the very beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Washington was very concerned to get reassurances from Russia that there is no nuclear non-proliferation going on by the Iranians.,Biden, Lapid Sign Joint Declaration Pledging to 'Never Allow Iran to Acquire Nuclear Weapon'14 July, 11:15 GMT,That's their number one concern in the Middle East right now because of the terrible relationship between Iran and Israel. But the fact that this topic came up in the first place shows how much Washington is worried, the Biden administration is worried that Iranians could be very close to having weapon-grade bomb, even though they clearly have denied it, for decades to come they claim they just want to enrich uranium and they want peaceful use of the technology. But Washington is not buying that.,Sputnik: What could Russia’s role be in securing the JCPOA?,Dr Azadgan: It's a very difficult situation. On the one hand, President Biden is desperate. His poll numbers are so low in this country because of inflation, because of the high price of oil. So if somehow the US and Iran decide, especially the US decides to bring Iran's oil production online - as you know, Iran is capable of exporting around 2,5 to 3 million barrels per day; under US sanctions it's not even 500,000. And the rest of it, let's just say they use creative methods of exporting the oil. If that supply comes online, the price of oil will come down. But I don't think Biden wants to negotiate at all with the Iranians, and the Iranians don't trust them. I think the Iranians really negotiated in good faith. If you ask me very naively that liberal Rouhani administration. And look at what they got for it, in 2018, just with a push of a pen, the whole thing was reneged. There's really not much to salvage out of JCPOA because I don't see any policy changes from the Biden administration at all.,West in Hurry to Conclude JCPOA Deal Amid Ukraine Crisis, Iranian Negotiator Says4 July, 13:52 GMT,They see Iran right now in the grips of conservatives. The conservatives are hawks just like any other nation. They negotiate more realistically, shall we say. And Iran is at a point where they have enriched uranium up to 60 percent. And militarily, they are very powerful. I think that for the time being, they have the upper hand, minus their economy, which is in shambles. But in other areas, they have the upper hand. It really depends on what kind of signals we get from the Biden administration and knowing how, unfortunately, the Israeli lobby plays such a crucial role in US foreign policy in the Middle East, we have also to keep in mind how willing Israel will be in back-channel communications possibly taking place. We do know, however, that under the Rouhani administration, this is a matter of fact, there were very covert back-channel conversations between Iran and Israel, and that was not to the liking of the IRGC and the conservatives. So it's very, very convoluted.,There's a massive deficit of trust between the US and Iran. And just because Russia is in a difficult position right now, I don't see Iranians turning their back toward the Russians and trust Washington and be disappointed again. The Iranians really have no one to trust, if you ask me. They're petrified of being of any superpower’s pawn. This is very important. There is no good history between some of Iran's new allies now. I think it's a battle of persuading the Iranian public on the policies that the Iranian government is suggesting. There's a lot of persuasion that needs to be done because they’re looking at decades to come. Literally the Russo-Iranian relations, which go further, they're looking at a change in policy for decades to come. I think Washington is very much petrified of that.,Sputnik: What about an agreement on grain exports? Can we expect a breakthrough in this, through the joint efforts of Russia and Turkey?,Dr Azadgan: We have to. We could be at the threshold of a famine in the world. Don't forget that the biggest importers of Russia's grain are some of the poorest countries in the world. The top five are Egypt at $3.2 billion; Turkey, since they are part of this negotiation in Tehran, at $1.7 billion a year, buying Russian wheat; Nigeria, one of the poorest countries in the world, but one of the richest in terms of natural resources, they import $566 million; Bangladesh, practically an economic disastrous country.,I'm afraid they will be next after Sri Lanka, they aim for $409 billion, followed by another very poor but powerful country, Pakistan, which imports close to $400 billion a year of Russian wheat. And then Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey are the fastest growing export markets for Russia. So it's extremely, extremely important because you're talking about the food supply chain security. The top five exporters of wheat in the world are first and foremost Russia, followed by the US, Australia, Canada and Ukraine at the fifth place. And after Ukraine it is France, Argentina and Germany. And the fastest export market for Ukraine is Pakistan, Lebanon and Vietnam.,Istanbul Grain DealErdogan Hopes to See Implementation of UN Plan on ‘Grain Issue’ in Coming Days20 July, 12:09 GMT,So Russia and Ukraine are finding themselves in a difficult competitive position for the Pakistani market. And everyone knows how Lebanon is on the verge of economic and social and political collapse. The only one that is somehow unscathed is Vietnam. So they just have to find a way to negotiate the export exit of Ukrainian wheat through the Black Sea, through the Turkish Strait and into the Middle Eastern and African markets, they are very much at risk.。北京时间1月11日晨报，《华尔街日报》今天发表文章称，苹果（以下简称“苹果”）正在彻底改变公司战略，准备在其坚实的花园墙上打几个洞。多年来，苹果无与伦比的用户体验主要是通过将软件和服务与硬件捆绑在一起实现的。在今年的CES展上，很明显苹果准备尝试一些不同的东西。三星周一宣布，苹果的iTunes软件将在三星的智能电视上发布。从今年春天开始，三星智能电视将提供iTunes电影和电视节目，并支持苹果的无线标准AirPlay2，允许内容通过iPhone和其他设备直接传送到这些电视上。随后，包括LG、Vizio和Sony在内的其他电视制造商宣布支持AirPlay2。去年12月，亚马逊还宣布苹果音乐音乐将进入亚马逊的Echo智能扬声器。一位敏锐的苹果观察家可能会问：苹果电视会是什么样子？homepod呢？他们似乎在风中摇摆不定，而且有了这些更受欢迎的设备（三星和亚马逊等），苹果电视和homepod似乎没有什么不同。尽管苹果在2003年将iTunes移植到了Windows上，并帮助推动了新的服务和iPod的发展，但这一策略在很大程度上对苹果来说并不熟悉。但对于谷歌（使用Gmail不一定需要安卓手机）、亚马逊（阅读亚马逊的电子书不一定需要Kindle），甚至近几年来的微软，这些都很熟悉。在史蒂夫鲍尔默（SteveBallmer）的领导下，微软的特点是“视窗无处不在”战略。根据这一策略，微软的大多数产品必须运行在或至少支持公司的核心操作系统上。但在SatyaNadella时代，微软的特点是将微软的服务快速应用于所有可能的设备，特别是那些运行苹果或谷歌操作系统的设备。
B | 这一战略取得了良好的回报，如今微软的价值超过了苹果。
C | 苹果并不是第一家试图控制其生态系统所有部分的大公司，微软和索尼以前也有过类似的经历。但这种策略并不是永久性的。随着苹果在中国市场步履蹒跚，智能手机面临寒冬的销售，开放不仅可能是维持苹果增长的一种手段，而且最终也是一种生存手段。今天，苹果似乎愿意牺牲一些硬件收入来发展自己的服务业务。当然，这些只是初步的步骤，在苹果感受到压力之前还有很长的路要走，例如，将iOS许可给华为。
D | ”在某种程度上，这有点像苹果的辩护，”技术分析师帕特里克·莫赫德说。他补充说，并不是每个人都会为苹果的品牌娱乐设备支付高额费用。因此，苹果现在希望在更广阔的市场（即开放战略）上下赌注，以增加其整体用户群。
E | 当然，苹果将硬件销售与服务收入脱钩的行动不太可能很快发生。上周，苹果将其第一季度（2018年第四季度）盈利预测调整为840亿美元，从890亿美元降至930亿美元。苹果表示，这主要是由于iPhone在大中华区的销量下滑。苹果股价在宣布后大幅下跌。但与此同时，苹果重申其服务业务的增长：比一年前增长18%，尽管分析师预计增长24%。这表明，苹果的硬件销售和服务收入密切相关。
F | 那么，我们如何才能增加服务收入来弥补移动电话销售的下降，正如库克最近提出的那样？Murhead说，苹果宣布收入低于预期的时机似乎与将其服务扩展到竞争对手的设备有关，但像这样的硬件和软件集成交易可能需要数年时间。例如，苹果取消了设备中的特殊芯片必须经过苹果认证才能支持AirPlay2的要求。
G | 这促使一些顶级电视品牌开始支持AirPlay2。这不是真正的内容合作关系，但现在，至少在Vizio上，“嘿，Siri，玩间谍6：完全解体。”与三星的交易相对来说比较深入。
H | 它包括一个允许100多个国家的用户下载和播放苹果iTunes电影和电视节目的应用程序。此外，不仅今年的新设备，通过固件升级，2018年三星电视也支持。
I | 苹果可能在美国的高端智能手机市场占据主导地位，但在世界其他地区，安卓系统是一种常态。
J | ”这可能是世界其他四分之三的人第一次尝到苹果，”Mulhead说。如果“苹果正在开发类似于Netflix的流媒体服务”的报告是真的，那么所有这些都更有意义。无论采用何种形式，苹果都准备投资10亿美元用于原始程序设计。如果苹果想要获得足够的注册用户，它必须与苹果电视的界限相冲突。
K | 目前，苹果的市场份额很弱：仅占美国流媒体设备客户的15%，低于2016年的19%。从长远来看，苹果的服务迁移策略可能会对公司有所帮助，但也有潜在的负面影响：在某种程度上，苹果正在复制其竞争对手的策略，并在某种程度上依赖于这些策略。因此，值得一问：苹果是否缺乏创新？。
Current article:http://2ggq18.xuebenwagangqingre.buzz/ap4/20260826/311.html
Published on:01:55:56
