Business

Throughout history, well-connected people and entities have always capitalized on crises. But the Iran war is taking profiteering to a whole new level, even as the US reportedly offers a 15-point plan to end the fighting. During the nearly monthlong conflict, allegations have been leveled at fuel retailers — who raised pump prices within hours of the first strikes — major oil companies, which stand to gain windfall margins from $100 (€86.24)-a-barrel crude, and marine insurers, who increased war-risk premiums by hundreds of percent after Tehran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. But one move trumps them all for sheer audacity. Iran, which has blocked almost all oil and gas tankers from traversing the strait, has reportedly begun charging up to $2 million (€1.72 million) per ship fo...

Volkswagen (VW) is in talks with the Israeli defense firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems over a possible collaboration which would see production switch from cars to defense equipment at a key VW plant, according to a report in the Financial Times. The exclusive report in the newspaper, quoting people familiar with the plan, says the companies plan to convert Volkswagen's struggling Osnabrück plant into a facility which makes components for the Israeli state-owned company's Iron Dome air defense system. In response to queries from DW, a spokesperson for Volkswagen said "the production of weapons by Volkswagen AG remains ruled out for the future, and we do not engage in speculation regarding further plans for the Osnabrück site." However, with the Osnabrück site scheduled to phase out i...

In the hours after the US and Israel began conducting joint strikes on Iran on February 28, air traffic along the normally busy east-west routes was forced into a narrow airspace corridor over the South Caucasus. What is a new development in the skies has been building on the ground for some time. In recent years, the region has gained attention as a key link in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. Also known as the Middle Corridor, it serves to connect Europe and China whilst bypassing Iran and Russia via Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Now, the Iran war has cast the Middle Corridor's significance into even sharper focus. By shutting the Strait of Hormuz, a route that handles roughly 20% of global oil and liquified natural gas(LNG) shipments, Iran has disrupted global e...

Australia and the European Union agreed on a new trade deal after eight years of negotiations. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the agreement at a ceremony in the Australian capital, Canberra. It is the latest trade accord signed by the EU in a push to diversify trade as Europe faces challenges from the United States and China. Albanese and von der Leyen also agreed on a security and defense partnership. "The EU and Australia may be geographically far apart but we couldn't ​closer in terms of how we see the world," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after meeting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra. "With these dynamic new partnerships on security and defense, as well as trade, we are ​moving even close...

After nearly a decade of stop-start negotiations, the EU-Australia free trade deal has finally crossed the finish line.   "Australia used to have Europhobia — now we have at least some Eurovision," Tim Harcourt, of the University of Technology Sydney, told DW. As recently as 2023, talks collapsed at the last hurdle, derailed by fierce opposition from Australian farmers over beef quotas. So what changed? Not so much the fine print of the agreement, experts say, but the shifting pressures of a far more combative global trade landscape. New deals in a new trade order Rising tariffs from the United States have squeezed both Australian meat exports and European carmakers. At the same time, China's willingness to weaponize access to critical minerals has left Europe scrambling to secure sup...

US President Donald Trump recently hosted executives from seven major defense contractors in the White House — part of an attempt by his administration to shore up the sector as the war against Iran intensifies. The conflict has exposed strains within the US defense sector. There are concerns over US stockpiles of long-range missiles and air-defence interceptors, and over the sector's capacity to ramp up production in the event of a prolonged conflict. Trump said he had discussed "production and production schedules" with the companies, namely Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon), BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell Aerospace and Northrop Grumman, at the White House meeting. However, there have been reports that negotiations between the Pentagon and the country's biggest defense contractors for n...

The sums invested in different countries around the world by oil-rich Gulf states are astronomical. Sovereign wealth funds belonging to countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and other Gulf countries manage around $5 trillion (€4.35 trillion) worth of investments. "The global impact of the Gulf countries is not limited to oil," Majed al-Ansari, the spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry told journalists during an online panel hosted by the Middle East Council on Global affairs on Tuesday morning. "This region is a hub of the international economy and if it implodes and decides to focus on its defense and to start pulling investments and to stop its [economic] engagement with the international community, the effect will be felt in every household in the ec...

Since the war in Iran started February 28, worries about oil and gas have made the biggest headlines and sparked the loudest complaints from consumers. But another bottleneck in the global supply network is causing alarm: a shortage of helium, an essential component used to make, among other things, semiconductors — those tiny chips that help run everything from electric vehicles to smartphones.   A prolonged shortage of helium could lead to a shortfall of advanced chips and have knock-on effects for electronics manufacturers who depend on them, or force others to scale back their datacenter plans. Why is helium essential for chipmakers? Considering that helium is colorless, odorless and the second-lightest element in the universe, it has a surprising list of applications as a gas or i...

On Wednesday (March 18), Israel attacked Iran's South Pars gas field, targeting onshore refinery units and gas storage tanks in Asaluyeh as well as offshore facilities connected to the gas field. In retaliation, Iran quickly hit back with missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar's main energy hub, Ras Laffan Industrial City, the largest liquified natural gas (LNG) export facility in the world. The Ras Laffan facility encompasses nearly 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) and sustained "extensive damage," according to QatarEnergy, the state-owned company that runs it in partnership with ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies and Shell. It was the first time an actual fossil fuel production site had been hit since the war started on February 28. Up until thi...

Standing in a 1960s industrial building by the German Baltic Sea coast, Florian Grose, holds a dosimeter as he moves towards a corner of the room. It starts beeping furiously. "That's around 10 microsieverts," he says, dressed in protective overalls. A normal dose rate is under 0.2 microsieverts. "This is an area where I'd say we maybe should move a meter away. You shouldn't stand or lie here for an hour," Grose, a radiation protection worker, warns in a disarmingly jovial tone. Inside special building one of the former nuclear power plant, parts of the wall are uneven and pockmarked — the result of workers hammering off layers of concrete, hunting for radioactive contamination. It's been one of the "most difficult buildings to decontaminate and dismantle," explains Kurt Radlof, who hand...