Nord Stream 2 operator given go-ahead to find new investors
The highly indebted Russian pipeline operator Nord Stream 2 can continue its search for a new investor to save it from bankruptcy, a court in Switzerland ruled on Friday.
According to the court, the decision can still be appealed, meaning no further details on the case could be announced.
The Nord Stream 2 project was intended to bring natural gas from Russia to Germany through two 1,200-kilometre pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
The landmark project was completed amid much fanfare, but never went into operation.
Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the German government cancelled the project, which critics saw as giving Russia too much influence over energy supplies to Europe.
One of the pipelines was damaged in a mysterious attack in 2022.
Media reports have recently speculated about the involvement of US investors in a possible deal.
Stephen P Lynch, a wealthy businessman and supporter of US President Donald Trump, has been mentioned in connection with the pipeline company.
The firm could become part of a US-Russian agreement to peacefully end the war in Ukraine, according to reports.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on state television in March that Nord Stream was "being discussed."
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Hamilton Spectator
40 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
For Mark Carney, every decision has trade-offs — but that's not slowing him down
OTTAWA—If there is a Carney 'doctrine' taking shape more than 100 days into the prime ministership of Mark Carney, maybe it is this: get it done, and damn the details. A few short months ago, Carney was blunt: 'I am a pragmatist above all. So when I see something that's not working, I will change it.' That's what the former central banker and UN climate finance envoy said when he captured the Liberal party leadership to replace Justin Trudeau. He went on to win the 2025 federal election on his outsider's pitch to rescue the economy from the threat of Donald Trump's tariff war. Pragmatism was how he justified abrupt domestic moves: ditching the consumer carbon tax, reversing capital gains tax hikes, and lowering income taxes while jamming 'nation-building' red-tape-cutting bills through Parliament to juice the economy. Pragmatism helps explain why, in his single mandate letter to cabinet ministers, Carney told them, 'We must redefine Canada's international, commercial, and security relationships.' But in an era where Trump is the one defining Canada's closest relationship, it's not clear if Carney's pragmatism can win over the U.S. president's chaos. On Friday, the unpredictable Trump cancelled talks towards a new deal with Canada, angry at Canada's deadline Monday for Big Tech giants to pay a digital services tax. Retroactive to 2022, it would collect $2.3 billion at first, and about $900 million yearly after that. Small potatoes compared to what Carney has already put on Canada's tab. In hopes of getting along with Trump, Carney in the past week promised to ramp up Canada's spending, along with NATO allies — all under intense pressure from the U.S. president — to a whopping $150 billion a year on military and related spending, a level almost unthinkable last year, as he vows to shift Canadian economic and security ties away from America towards Europe and beyond. In a spate of a few weeks, Carney signed what he calls a new economic, security and defence partnership with the European Union, increased aid to Ukraine, hosted a G7 summit where he offered backing of Trump's leadership efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war and left a wide open runway for Trump to handle the Iran-Israel conflict as he saw fit. Carney defended his vow to lead where the U.S. does not, telling CNN it should be seen as a 'positive' not a negative reaction 'against' the U.S. or Trump. 'The way we would like to lead, the way European Union would like to lead, a number of Asian countries as well, is in a positive respect. If the U.S. is pulling back from multilateralism, as it is with respect to trade … effectively U.S. trade policy is now bilateral — if the U.S. is pulling back, there are others of us who do believe in multilateralism,' the rule of law, 'fair and open' trade, and in defence co-operation, said Carney. 'Do something,' seems to be the Carney mantra, said Kerry Buck, a former Canadian ambassador to NATO who welcomed the prime minister's commitment hit the new NATO military spending goal of five per cent of GDP. Although Justin Trudeau eventually committed to reaching the old NATO two per cent target at the end of last year's summit, he did so without a clear plan and with a 2032 timeline that was 'clearly going to damage our bilateral relations with the U.S. under Trump, where we're very vulnerable on trade,' said Buck, speaking before Trump's move Friday. In contrast, two weeks ahead of this week's NATO summit Carney accelerated action, said he'd hit two per cent this year, and at the summit adopted the bigger five per cent goal by 2035 with no hesitation. ' It was smart transactionally to do that. And I think in terms of content, it was also necessary,' Buck said. Others wonder how Carney is going to pay for it all. Questions remain about how the government will reach its two per cent promise this year, with the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer saying it can't verify Carney's plan to hit the old target. 'Some might start to think that he has a guns-before-butter kind of approach to foreign policy … a muscular foreign policy focused on defence,' but Buck said Carney had no choice, given it was 'our most vulnerable point' with the U.S. in ongoing trade talks. Forget the 'peace dividend' that Canada and other western allies hailed at the end of the Cold War, welcoming the ability to spend less on the military and more on social welfare systems. Now Carney and the other leaders challenged by Trump are embracing what NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called a 'defence dividend,' claiming that spending five per cent of GDP on defence will create 'an engine of growth for our economies, driving literally millions of jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.' Carney echoed the claim, acknowledging higher military spending may one day entail federal spending trade-offs or sacrifices, but for now, 'more of it will help build our economy at the same time as it improves our defence. And we'll get the benefits.' There is more continuity than many think between Trudeau and Carney: Carney continued the imposition of counter-tariffs against the U.S. that Trudeau launched. But he has withheld tit-for-tat retaliation against the 50 per cent steel and aluminum penalties Trump levied pending the outcome of trade talks. Carney has continued Trudeau's staunch support for Ukraine and its embattled president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Carney backs a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, a ceasefire in Gaza, and went so far as to sanction two Israeli cabinet ministers. Like Trudeau, Carney believes government has a role and responsibility to address climate change. That Carney has moved swiftly on foreign and defence files is partly due to the flow of the international summits that coincided with his first two months after winning the April 28 election. It's also due to the urgency of the threat posed by the 'tariff' president in the White House. Carney, though, has a view of the larger global economic imbalances and the roles of China and the U.S. in those imbalances, that he shares with leaders like France's President Emmanuel Macron, and as they try to persuade Trump to drop tariffs, Carney seeks to position Canada's critical mineral, AI and quantum computing sectors for a world in which those imbalances continue. Janice Gross Stein said it is too early to describe a Carney 'doctrine' but it's clear 'the fundamental thing for him is that he, like everyone, is defining a path to dealing with a very different United States.' Carney is of necessity pursuing a new more predictable economic and security deal with the U.S. at a time of crisis , 'but it's an eyes-open arrangement,' Stein said. 'Yes, we need to diversify our partnerships — that's not a new idea in Canadian foreign policy … and yes,' Carney is focusing especially on Europe and like-minded states, and NATO, 'but that's built in to dealing with the more demanding United States.' Stein sees a pragmatic streak too in Carney's overtures to countries like China, India and Saudi Arabia. Carney identified China as the biggest threat to Canada's national security during the federal election. But in office, he's taken steps to thaw relations and ease Beijing's penalties on Canadian agricultural products. At the same time he is moving to block Chinese steel dumping via higher tariff rates against transshipment countries — in line with U.S. concerns. He rolled out a G7 welcome mat to India's Narendra Modi as a criminal investigation struggles to probe India's role in the killing of a Canadian Sikh in Surrey. And Carney invited Saudi Arabia Crown prince Mohamed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, who declined to attend, in a week where the Saudi regime executed a journalist. Those three countries, China, India and Saudi Arabia are key economic players that are ignored at Canada's peril, said Stein. 'Where he's a pragmatist is in the recognition that every decision has trade-offs. You cannot make it a high priority to diversify your partnerships when you are the smaller next-door neighbour to a country that you are sending 75 per cent of your exports to and buying 75 per cent of everything that you buy in defence from that one country, which is the United States, and then continue to exclude others in the international community.' In parallel, said Stein, Carney is acting to ensure that Canada's economy is 'fit for purpose.' The bill to fast-track 'nation-building' development projects is part of that effort, as is his move to do 'important' consultation with Indigenous groups, but done simultaneously with other reviews, 'not sequentially,' she said. Carney is 'connecting defence, foreign policy to the Canadian economy because that's his comfort zone,' said Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. But she worries the emphasis on 'pragmatic' sends the wrong signal to countries like China, India or Saudi Arabia which will interpret it to mean Canada is ready to overlook human rights concerns in favour of doing business. Jonathan Berkshire Miller, director of foreign affairs, national defence and security policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said Carney is necessarily focused on 'two imperatives: mending the relationship with the United States and diversification from it.' And while Carney's experience gives him credibility in Washington 'where he is well known among economic and diplomatic elites,' Trump's second term makes traditional diplomatic approaches 'increasingly unrealistic,' he said. There is an inevitable geographic and economic reality, he said in a written response to the Star. 'America remains Canada's largest trading partner.' So rather than a drastic shift or severing of ties, he said, 'Expect, instead, a policy of pragmatic hedging: building multilateral ties while trying to be on balanced terms' with who is in the White House. For now, Carney may have some latitude, he believes. Increased defence spending can bring Canada greater strategic autonomy on Arctic sovereignty, cybersecurity and intelligence sharing. The narrow question is 'one of political will' where the requirements for sustained federal spending 'and public support' will be the big test, he said, particularly in an era where 'fiscal retrenchment' (Carney has vowed to bring the operating budget into balance) and 'domestic political division are the contemporary realities.' The broader question is whether Carney's pragmatic approach can secure both.
Fox News
2 hours ago
- Fox News
Russia launched its largest aerial attack of the war, Ukraine says
Russia launched its biggest aerial attack overnight since the start of the war against Ukraine, a Ukrainian official said on Sunday. Moscow fired 537 aerial weapons toward Ukraine, including 477 drones and decoys and 60 missiles, according to Ukraine's air force. Among these weapons, 249 were shot down and 226 were lost, likely electronically jammed. The attack was "the most massive airstrike" against Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, Yuriy Ihnat, head of communications for Ukraine's air force, told The Associated Press, taking into account both drones and various types of missiles. Several regions were targeted, including western Ukraine, located far from the front line. Poland and allied countries scrambled aircraft to ensure the safety of Polish airspace, Poland's air force said. One person was killed in a drone strike in the Kherson region, according to Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin, while another died when a drone hit a car in the Kharkiv region, its Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Six people were wounded in Cherkasy, including a child, regional Gov. Ihor Taburets said. In the far-western Lviv region, a large fire broke out at an industrial facility in the city of Drohobych after a drone attack that also cut electricity to parts of the city. Ukraine's air force said one of its F-16 warplanes supplied by the West crashed after sustaining damage as it was shooting down air targets, killing the pilot. The new attacks come after Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow is ready for another round of direct peace talks in Istanbul to end the war. No end appears to be in sight as international peace efforts coordinated by the U.S. have not yet led to any breakthroughs. Two recent rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul were brief and yielded no progress on reaching an agreement.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Canada's liquefied natural gas touted — and doubted — as a green 'transition' fuel
CALGARY — Canada's first liquefied natural gas cargoes will soon arrive on Asian shores, a milestone touted — and doubted — as a boon for global emissions-cutting efforts. "Cleaner energy around the world is what I think about when I think about LNG," Shell Canada country chair Stastia West said in an onstage interview at the Global Energy Show in Calgary earlier this month. Shell and four Asian companies are partners in LNG Canada in Kitimat, B.C., the first facility to export Canadian gas across the Pacific in an ultra-chilled liquid state using specialized tankers. A handful of other projects are either under construction or in development on the B.C. coast. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told the energy show that Canadian oil and gas exports can be an "antidote" to the current geopolitical chaos. "And it comes with an added benefit: lower global emissions. By moving more natural gas, we can also help countries transition away from higher emitting fuels, such as coal." Smith cited a recent Fraser Institute study that suggested if Canada were to double its natural gas production, export the additional supply to Asia and displace coal there, it would lead to an annual emissions cut of up to 630 million tonnes annually. "That's almost 90 per cent of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions each year," Smith said. The authors of the Fraser Institute study, released in May, argued that Canada's ability to reduce emissions elsewhere should be factored into its climate policy. "It is important to recognize that GHG emissions are global and are not confined by borders," wrote Elmira Aliakbari and Julio Mejía. "Instead of focusing on reducing domestic GHG emissions in Canada by implementing various policies that hinder economic growth, governments must shift their focus toward global GHG reductions and help the country cut emissions worldwide by expanding its LNG exports." Some experts see a murkier picture. Most credible estimates suggest that if liquefied natural gas were to indeed displace coal abroad, there would be some emissions reductions, said Kent Fellows, assistant professor of economics with the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy. But the magnitude is debatable. "Will all of our natural gas exports be displacing coal? Absolutely not. Will a portion of them be displacing coal? Probably, and it's really hard to know exactly what that number is," he said. Fellows said there's a good chance Canadian supplies would supplant other sources of gas from Russia, Eurasia and the Middle East, perhaps making it a wash emissions-wise. He said the Canadian gas could actually be worse from an emissions standpoint, depending on how the competing supply moves. LNG is more energy intensive than pipeline shipment because the gas needs to be liquefied and moved on a ship. In China, every type of energy is in demand. So instead of displacing coal, LNG would likely just be added to the mix, Fellows added. "Anyone who's thinking about this as one or the other is thinking about it wrong," Fellows said. A senior analyst with Investors for Paris Compliance, which aims to hold Canadian publicly traded companies to their net-zero promises, said he doubts a country like India would see the economic case for replacing domestically produced coal with imported Canadian gas. "Even at the lowest price of gas, it's still multiple times the price," said Michael Sambasivam. "You'd need some massive system to provide subsidies to developing countries to be replacing their coal with a fuel that isn't even really proven to be much greener." And even in that case, "it's not as if they can just flip a switch and take it in," he added. "There's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built to take in LNG as well as to use it. You have to build import terminals. You have to refit your power terminals." What LNG would be competing head-to-head with, Sambasivam said, is renewable energy. If there were any emissions reductions abroad as a result of the coal-to-gas switch, Sambasivam said he doesn't see why a Canadian company should get the credit. "Both parties are going to want to claim the emissions savings and you can't claim those double savings," he said. There's also a "jarring" double-standard at play, he said, as industry players have long railed against environmental reviews that factor in emissions from the production and combustion of the oil and gas a pipeline carries, saying only the negligible emissions from running the infrastructure itself should be considered. Devyani Singh, an investigative researcher at who ran for the Greens in last year's B.C. election, said arguments that LNG is a green fuel are undermined by the climate impacts of producing, liquefying and shipping it. A major component of natural gas is methane, a greenhouse gas about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Methane that leaks from tanks, pipelines and wells has been a major issue that industry, government and environmental groups have been working to tackle. "Have we actually accounted for all the leakage along the whole pipeline? Have we accounted for the actual under-reporting of methane emissions happening in B.C. and Canada?" asked Singh. Even if LNG does have an edge over coal, thinking about it as a "transition" or "bridge" fuel at this juncture is a problem, she said. "The time for transition fuels is over," she said. "Let's just be honest — we are in a climate crisis where the time for transition fuels was over a decade ago." This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 29, 2025. Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press
