Disruptions in oil production in the Gulf of Mexico in September 2004 further tightened supplies, as did geopolitical tensions in Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela.

Continuing geopolitical tensions combined with refining and distribution industry bottlenecks caused tight supply conditions for light products, which were coupled with high oil demand throughout 2004.

We continue to face strong headwinds originating from the deepening European debt crisis, as well as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. China, once the world s unstoppable growth engine, is slowing.

Yes, financial markets in troubled countries for example, Russia s currency, equity, and bond markets have been negatively affected. But the more generalized contagion to global financial markets that geopolitical tensions typically engender has failed to materialize.

In that case, Greece s geopolitical position would be weakened, its economy would sink further into recession, and social tensions would rise. Moreover, instability would become chronic, because the eurozone would no longer offer a backstop for fiscal and financial laxity.

Fifty years later, tensions between India and China are rising again amid an intense geopolitical rivalry. Their entire 4,057 kilometer border one of the longest in the world remains in dispute, without a clearly defined line of control in the Himalayas.

That adds up to a tough reform agenda made all the more challenging by adjustment fatigue, increasingly fragmented domestic politics, and rising geopolitical tensions. In this context, a determined shift toward markedly higher and more inclusive global growth is far from guaranteed.

The Geopolitical Message from Libya

The Geopolitical Impact of Cheap Oil

The Geopolitical Consequences of the Financial Crisis

In those cases, separation was indeed followed by deep economic and political crises, which in some ways persist. Indeed, in the case of ex Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union, the EU and NATO absorbed some but not all of the successor states, thereby raising major geopolitical tensions.

Sunni Shia tensions tend to rise sharply during geopolitical power struggles, such as in Iraq in 2006 2008. Prior to that, the last great Sunni Shia battle in the Middle East involved near constant war between the Sunni Ottoman Empire and Iran s Shia Safavid Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

High Tensions In the Low Countries

Tensions will arise from such interactions.

SEOUL If World War III ever breaks out, its origins will not lie in the Middle East, South Asia, or Eastern Europe. It is in East Asia where the strategic interests of China, the United States, and their respective partners intersect that the geopolitical stakes, diplomatic tensions, and potential for a global explosion are highest.

Apparently unfazed by disappointing growth in both advanced and emerging economies, or by surging geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, equity markets have set record after record this year. This impressive rally has ignored a host of historical relationships, including the long established correlation between the performance of stocks and government bonds.

Looming particularly large over the next few months are escalating geopolitical conflicts that are nearing a tipping point, beyond which lies the specter of serious systemic disruptions in the global economy. This is particularly true in Ukraine, where, despite the current ceasefire, Russia and the West have yet to find a way to ease tensions definitively.

Moreover, it is much easier to build mutually beneficial trade relationships than it is to resolve military and geopolitical issues, such as combating the Islamic State or resolving tensions in the South China Sea. But strong trade relationships have the potential to encourage cooperation or, at least, discourage escalation of conflict in other, more contentious areas.

Indeed, the main question for 2007 is whether macroeconomic volatility will continue to decline, fueling another spectacular year for markets and housing, or start to rise again, perhaps due to growing geopolitical tensions. I lean slightly toward the optimistic scenario, but investors and policymakers alike need to understand the ramifications of a return to more normal volatility levels.

We want to neutralize the tensions. We want closeness.

The geopolitical world has got a lot to learn from the digital world.

A split within the Jumbesh organization has increased factional tensions.

Fiji is fully dedicated to a Security Council membership which reflects current geopolitical realities.

Third, geopolitical and political tensions are more likely to trigger global contagion when a systemic factor shaping the global economy comes into play. For example, the mini perfect storm that roiled emerging markets earlier this year even spilling over for a while to advanced economies occurred when political turbulence in a few countries (Turkey, Thailand, and Argentina) met bad news about Chinese growth.

We recognize that, in its composition, the Security Council does not reflect current geopolitical realities.

Stronger regional governance structures may be the only effective means of reducing exogenous geopolitical risk.

Those arms fuel underlying tensions, exacerbate conflicts and hamper peacebuilding efforts.

The Governor's return has contributed to tensions within the local administration.

Development is an effective way to deal with the factors of regional conflicts and geopolitical instability.

Council reform will make sense only if its purpose is to better reflect today's geopolitical realities.

It is against this background that the Iranian nuclear program has come to symbolize the larger geopolitical tensions underlying the confrontation between the US and Iran. Indeed, the nuclear issue has served to rationalize the face off, with Iran s leaders playing to their domestic audience by whipping up nuclear nationalism and the US playing to the international audience by harping on the proliferation threat.

You begin to look at things having to do with your tensions.

Tensions between the 200,000 Sudanese refugees and Chadian host communities remain high.

What tensions and pressures would be created during the inevitable subsequent steps?

Since international investors perceive the region as a patchwork of many separate markets interlinked by geopolitical risk, intraregional industrial business opportunities and capacities must be developed in order to reap greater welfare benefits from economic policy cooperation, industrial modernization and geopolitical risk amelioration.

We need a more democratic and more representative Security Council that better reflects today's new geopolitical situation.

Will there be tensions over immigration, or conflicts over competition for limited resources?

If not carefully managed, it can also provoke acute social and political tensions.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, tensions are either escalating or are brewing dangerously.

This ice loss, caused largely by human induced global warming, has far reaching environmental, geopolitical, and economic consequences.

Geopolitical events and national security doctrines had favoured the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery.

The increasingly visible effects of climate change, rising geopolitical tensions, state crisis and collapse, inadequate or unequal economic opportunities, and the spread of infectious diseases to name just some of the highest profile threats have created an environment of great uncertainty. Will 2015 be the year when these risks come to a head, or the moment when world leaders come together to develop real strategies for mitigating them?

The remedy I have in mind, of course, is faster economic growth the one thing that can raise living standards, reduce excessive inequalities, improve job prospects, alleviate trade tensions, and even moderate geopolitical pressures. And most forecasters including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are now predicting that global growth will pick up in 2014, and that it will be more balanced among the world s major economic regions.

Global climate change negotiations have similarly ended in failure, and disagreement reigns concerning how to address food and energy security amid a new scramble for global resources. And, on global geopolitical issues the tensions on the Korean peninsula, Iran s nuclear ambitions, the Arab Israeli conflict, the disorder in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the political transition in autocratic Middle East regimes the great powers disagree and are impotent to impose stable solutions.

Europe cannot afford not to resist Russia s geopolitical aggression, and it needs to be unified to have any chance of success. Yet, the unified European policy must not be purely geopolitical, because if it were, the common interest would not be strong enough to override national interests.