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BLOOMBERG NEWS
Founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1990, Bloomberg News is an international news agency based in New York. Coverage is focused but not limited to business and economic news.
Economy
Lila Paulou and McKenna Johnson

Food Shortages Around The World, Product By Product

The war in Ukraine and the climate crisis have been devastating for food production. Here's a look at some of the traditional foods from around the world that might be hard to find on supermarket shelves.

The consequences of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia have been far-reaching. A Russian blockade of the Black Sea has meant Ukraine, known as “Europe’s breadbasket,” has been unable to export much of its huge harvests of wheat, barley and sunflower oil.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war , with our exclusive international coverage.

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So even those thousands of miles from the battlefields have been hit by the soaring prices of basic necessities.

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Geopolitics
Meike Eijsberg

NATO Entry For Sweden And Finland? Erdogan May Not Be Bluffing

When the two Nordic countries confirmed their intention to join NATO this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his plans to block the application. Accusing Sweden and Finland of' "harboring" some of his worst enemies may not allow room for him to climb down.

-Analysis-

LONDON — When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared his opposition to Finland and Sweden entering NATO, it took most of the West's top diplomatic experts by surprise — with the focus squarely on how Russia would react to having two new NATO members in the neighborhood. (So far, that's been a surprise too)

But now Western oversight on Turkey's stance has morphed into a belief in some quarters that Erdogan is just bluffing, trying to get concessions from the negotiations over such a key geopolitical issue.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war , with our exclusive international coverage.

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To be clear, any prospective NATO member requires the consent of all 30 member states and their parliaments. So Erdogan does indeed have a card to play, which is amplified by the sense of urgency: NATO, Sweden and Finland are keen to complete the accession process with the war in Ukraine raging and the prospect of strengthening the military alliance's position around the Baltic Sea.

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In The News
Meike Eijsberg, Bertrand Hauger and Anne-Sophie Goninet

Taliban End Game, Texas Protects Abortion Clinics, El Salvador’s Legal Bitcoin

Welcome to Tuesday, where the Taliban end game is playing out in Panjshir valley, the U.S. Justice Department vows to protect abortion clinics in Texas and El Salvador becomes the world's first country to authorize the use of bitcoin as legal currency. French daily Le Monde also looks at how artificial intelligence could make the dream of automatic live translation come true.


Taliban says they took Panjshir, but resistance holds on: The Taliban say they have officially captured the Panjshir valley, north of Kabul as of Monday but resistance groups have vowed they would continue fighting . Meanwhile, protests taking place on the streets of Kabul were met with heavy gunfire as the Taliban tried to stop it.

• U.S. Justice Department to protect Texas abortion clinics: In response to Texas' recently enacted law that imposed a near-total ban on abortions, the U.S. Justice Department said it would not tolerate any attacks against people seeking or providing abortions in the State. A spokesman said they would provide protection via the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE).

• Maria Kolesnikova sentenced to 11 years in prison: Maria Kolesnikova, a Belarusian musician and prominent opposition figure, was sentenced to 11 years in prison. A Belarusian court had charged that Kolesnikova and another opposition activist, Maxim Znak, with extremism and conspiring to "seize state power in an unconstitutional way."

• German federal police also used Pegasus: The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), the German federal police, secretly purchased the Pegasus spyware and used it for surveillance of suspects , German newspapers revealed. This follows revelations that the software had been used on a large scale in many countries, with some 50,000 politicians, lawyers, journalists, and human rights activists spied on .

COVID-19 update: In Vietnam , a man was jailed for five years after breaching the country's strict quarantine rules and passing the virus to at least eight other people. Meanwhile, Chile has just approved China's Sinovac vaccine for children as young as six — although those younger than 12 will not be vaccinated for a while.

• El Salvador first country to make Bitcoin legal currency: From today, businesses in El Salvador will be obliged where possible to accept the controversial blockchain-backed currency as payment as the country has just become the first to make Bitcoin a legal tender. Millions of people are expected to download the government's new digital wallet app which gives away $30 (€25) in Bitcoin to every citizen.

• Australian talking duck calls you a "bloody fool": According to a new study, Australian musk ducks can imitate human speech as first touted by the recording of a duck named Ripper saying "you bloody fool" that went viral. Ripper was four years old at the time of the recordings, which researchers say he picked up from his previous caretakers, and made his vocalizations during aggressive mating displays.


French daily Le Figaro pays tribute to iconic actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, the "Ace of Aces" (a reference to his 1982 hit movie) who died yesterday in Paris at age 88. After his breakout role in Jean-Luc Godart's high-brow New Wave staple "Breathless," Belmondo went on to become one of France's most famous actors, with roles in popular comedies and action films through the 1970s and 80s.

AI, translation and the holy grail of "natural language"

In the crucial area of translation, services such as Google Translate, which has expanded its offer to 104 languages, or the German competitor DeepL now make it possible to translate entire paragraphs in a coherent and fluid manner. The dream of a machine translating live conversations is now within reach, writes French daily Le Monde .

📲 The barriers between text and image are disappearing. With the augmented reality application Google Lens, students can scan a page from a textbook or a handwritten sentence with their smartphone and translate it or get additional information online. It's all because software has learned to recognize subjects in images. Tomorrow, we could launch a search with a photo, Google believes. The American company OpenAI is exploring the creation of images from a text description. Its DALL-E prototype offers disturbing representations of invented objects: an alarm clock in the shape of a peach, a pig lamp…

👀 These innovations help make digital technology more accessible to the disabled and illiterate. With the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria), Facebook is studying the simplification of forms, with pictograms and synonyms. In January, the company presented an automatic image description tool for the blind and visually impaired. Google has a voice recognition project for people with speech difficulties, called "Euphonia."

🤖 The prospects are promising, but also dizzying because these technologies will be used in headphones, in homes, in cars. The concerns have been gathered in an article co-authored by Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, two researchers in ethics whose dismissal by Google has caused controversy. The main concern is about the "biases" — racist, sexist, homophobic — that these softwares can reproduce, or even amplify, after training on masses of texts from the internet.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com



Report: U.S. arms abandoned in Afghanistan moved to Iran

Weaponry belonging to the Afghan army is moving into Iran, though it is not clear if it is smuggled, or moved in a deal between the Taliban and Iran's regime, Kayhan London reports .

With the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, much of the U.S.-supplied military hardware formerly used by the country's armed forces have fallen into their hands. This terrorist group that ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, and gave refuge to other terrorists, especially al-Qaeda , now has its hands on advanced military weaponry and know-how.

It has also become clear that neighboring Iran was keen and ready to get its own hands on this material, either to use directly or to copy the weapon design.

And this has happened amid reports that armaments including tanks and armored vehicles have been moved into Iran . Sources say Iranian dealers are particularly looking for arms and missiles the Americans abandoned in suspect circumstances, without destroying them.

It is not clear whether the Taliban or fugitive members of the armed forces are handing over the weaponry to the Islamic Republic of Iran, or if this is the work of middlemen exploiting the disorderly state of the country.

War booty is not the only thing moving into Iran though. Thousands of Afghan citizens have left their homes and towns, fleeing toward neighboring countries like Iran and Pakistan.

These include the elderly and pregnant women, who are risking their lives on a desperate flight, though it seems they prefer this to living under the Taliban . Meanwhile, Western states are preparing for a new wave of refugees from Afghanistan, knowing that regional instability will push them toward Europe and beyond, even if they first pass through Pakistan, Iran or Turkey.

This is increasingly of concern to them as the refugee crisis may last a while , in spite of the contradictory positions of different Western countries, particularly those in the European Union.




$71.4 million

The first Asian superhero film by Marvel, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , broke the record for a Labor Day weekend opening and did better at the North American box office than predicted , collecting $71.4 million. With a predominantly East Asian cast, inspired by Chinese folklore, and several martial arts action sequences, the film is the latest sign that Hollywood is starting to listen to calls for more Asian representation on screen.



The people of Brazil have struggled for decades to secure democracy from military rule. Bolsonaro must not be permitted to rob them of it now.

— More than 150 left-leaning ministers, party leaders and former prime ministers wrote an open letter warning of a possible "coup" by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Ahead of Tuesday's Independence Day demonstrations and next year's national elections, Bolsonaro called his supporters to protest against the country's Supreme Court and Congress. The open letter (signed by the likes of former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and former UK Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn) declares that the rallies amount to a replay of the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6.



✍️ Newsletter by Meike Eijsberg, Bertrand Hauger and Anne-Sophie Goninet

LA STAMPA
Cassidy Slockett

How COVID-19 Exposed The Hard Questions About The Gig Economy

Consumers are convinced. Wall Street is buoyant. Demand around the world for app-based services is booming, with entire nations stuck at home during COVID-19 lockdowns and the prospect of goods and services at their door with just a click . As the so-called "Gig Economy" spreads alongside the pandemic, society has struggled to keep up.

• Online sales in South Korea have grown by 17% this year, and 42% in food deliveries.

• The freelancer platform PeoplePerHour registered a 300% increase of users in March of this year in the UK , 329% jump in Spain , and 513% in Japan .

Upwork reported a 24% increase in signups over the summer.

Investors and founders of the likes of Doordash and AirBNB are cashing in, with the two companies IPOs hitting record highs and earning Wall Street approval for their respective market dominance . Still, the stock market is not the economy, and white-collar and blue-collar workers alike have been forced to turn to gig-work out of financial necessity — offering little in the way of social benefits or long-term prospects.

"I have to work twice as much to make half of what I was making to survive," said Tyrita Franklin-Corbett, a former retail worker turned Instacart gig-shopper, to Reuters in October.

How it works: Rather than earning a regular wage, these apps pay for each "gig" completed. While it's not uncommon that people turn to freelance work during periods of economic downturns, the health crisis presents a unique scenario in which freelance workers risk being exposed to the virus in order to get paid.

• In the UK, a recent survey by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) found that 78% of app workers thought their health was at risk while working.

Exploited & Exposed: The pandemic has exacerbated the vulnerabilities of millions of workers already in precarious financial situations and without a safety net . Deliverers are considered "essential," but they don't receive the same protections (both physical and economic) as other essential workers .

• With Uber Eats in France offering 10 euros to customers on three orders during lockdown, workers have accused the tech-giant of " promonavirus ," that is, using them as " cannon fodder, " to serve meals while everyone else stays at home, Le Monde reports.

• " We have no protection ," migrant food delivery rider Diego Franco in Australia recently told the Sydney Morning Herald.

• Already this year, 15 delivery workers in South Korea have died from " kwarosa ," literally "to die of overwork." The gig-world is at its tipping point.

At a rally by Uber and Lyft drivers calling for basic employment rights in Los Angeles — Photo: Ringo Chiu/ZUMA Wire

Pushing back & shutting down: In the face of this harsh reality, gig workers have responded with work shutdowns, lawsuits and union organizing.

• In the U.S. , thousands of Amazon workers have gone on strike in New York City after reports emerged that several employees had tested positive and still lack safety gear.

• The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) won a lawsuit which accused the UK government of failing to extend health and safety protections such as PPE to gig workers.

• The Italian food delivery industry, Assodelivery, has threatened to protest in order to give legal status to relationships with workers.

• As a result of the increase in demand during the pandemic, Scottish workers created the Workers Observatory union to discuss difficulties and track data in order to "challenge conditions in self-employed and gig work."

Fixing a fairer future: Ultimately, gig work has thrived until now on its lack of regulation. Yet the pandemic has clearly displayed the need for basic regulations, both for the workers and ultimately for the companies as well.

• La Stampa reports that Italy is attempting to strike a solution, where companies like Uber, Deliveroo, Glovo, JustEat will recognize workers as employees starting in 2021, earning a minimum wage of 10 euros per hour, along with overtime pay equal to 10%, 15% and 20% linked to following night work, holidays and bad weather.

• California recently passed Proposition 22, which seeks to provide contractors with health insurance and retirement benefits. The ballot initiative was funded by $200 million from Uber and its competitor Lyft, who presented it as a way to add some protections for its drivers while leaving them flexibility in when and how they work. Still the measure's main point was to specifically exclude gig workers from basic health and retirement benefits of a new law. Californians overwhelmingly supported the proposition, passing it 58 to 42 %.

France is offering € 1,500 to self-employed entrepreneurs who have experienced a drop in turnover of at least 70% as a result of COVID-19. But some gig workers simply cannot afford to face this drop to begin with. For them, it's even more crucial to keep working, even if it means extra hours and health risks.

The real takeaway? Critics have argued that these efforts are mainly face-saving measures that protect the platforms in the long run , and do little to address exploitation. In Europe, labor experts say that reforms that have long been driven by the rights of permanent employees must now focus on the broader status of "workers." Others are pushing for the implementation of a universal basic income (UBI) to address the entire economic system. The pandemic has offered further proof that the Gig Economy is not going away. But it has also shown that it is built on a system of inequalities that, IPOs aside, are not sustainable in the long run.

BBC

The Latest: Sep. 11 Troop Withdrawal, Vaccine Doubts, Even Bigger Christ In Brazil

Welcome to Wednesday, where Joe Biden chooses a major anniversary for the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan , the Johnson & Johnson vaccine rollout is stopped and there's an even taller Christ statue in Brazil . We also look at how different countries are finding creative ways to commemorate the COVID-19 victims.

U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan: U.S. President Joe Biden has officially announced the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11 , to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks that led to the 2001 invasion. It is a short extension of a May 1 deadline for full withdrawal made in an agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban .

New questions about vaccines made in U.S. and China : The United States, the European Union and South Africa temporarily halt the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine rollout , after a few rare cases of blood clots have been reported. Meanwhile, new questions are raised about the effectiveness of China's Sinovac vaccine , which has been distributed in such countries as Brazil and Indonesia.

Violence continues in Minneapolis after police resignations: A third night of unrest was reported in Minneapolis, following the resignation of police officer Kim Potter two days after fatally shooting Daunte Wright. The police chief in the nearby town where the killing happened also resigned after calling the shooting an accident. The latest killing happened just a few miles from where George Floyd was killed last year by police officer Derek Chauvin , who is currently on trial for murder.

20 children die in Niger school fire: Investigators are probing the cause of a fire that killed 20 children died yesterday at a school in Niamey, Niger's capital city.

Coinbase listing marks crypto landmark: The largest cryptocurrency exchange, called Coinbase, lists today on the Nasdaq stock market , a milestone for the blockchain-backed currency economy.

Somalia's president extends his mandate: President Mohamed Abdullahi has signed a controversial law that extends his mandate for two more years , according to a state news agency. Adullahi's four-year term expired in February without a successor.

World's longest rabbit is missing: Darius, the 129 cm-long continental giant rabbit has been stolen from its home in Worcestershire, in the UK, according to police officials. His owner has offered a £1,000 ($1,378) reward for his return.

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REUTERS

The Latest: Taiwan Train Crash, Gay Marriage Anniversary, Salty Mountains

Welcome to Friday, where a train crash in Taiwan leaves dozens dead, Niger has historic peaceful transfer of power and Egypt has a salty new tourist attraction. Ukrainian news website Livy Bereg also reveals why Russia is leaking secrets to the press about the international negotiations trying to resolve its conflict with Ukraine.

• Dozens dead in Taiwan train crash: A train crash killed at least 48 people and left 66 injured in eastern Taiwan. The express train, carrying about 500 passengers, derailed in a tunnel after hitting a construction vehicle that had rolled onto the tracks.

• Toll in Tigray: Nearly 2,000 victims have been identified by researchers studying the conflict since it exploded, last year. Those killed include infants and people over 90, the report says.

• Aung San Suu Kyi charged: Myanmar protesters call for "guerilla strikes' as country faces a new wireless internet shutdown and following charges filed against detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi for violating state secrets , punishable by up to 14 years of prison.

• Peaceful transition in Niger: Mohamed Bazoum gets sworn in as Niger president in the country's first peaceful transfer of power since its independence in 1960. The inauguration comes just days after the government says it thwarted a military coup attempt.

• Dutch leader Rutte survives vote of confidence: Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte narrowly survives a no-confidence vote over accusations he lied about coalition talks.

• G7 to double help for poorer countries to cut CO2 emissions: Deputy secretary general of the UN, Amina Mohammed calls on the world's richest group of countries to double their financial support to poorer countries to help them cut their CO2 emissions.

• Egypt's salt mountains become a tourist attraction: Images of people sliding down "snowy" mountains of Port Fouad went viral on the internet. The salt mountains quickly became a tourist hit, attracting Egyptians from all across the country to enjoy the unique landscape.

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BBC

Worldcrunch Today, Jan. 4: Assange Stays, Iran's Uranium, Where's Jack?

Welcome to Monday, where the UK blocks Assange's extradition, vaccinations are moving too slowly (almost) everywhere and the Asian business world is asking: Where's Jack? We also follow Le Monde to Casablanca where Moroccans are rethinking what it means to be a man.

SPOTLIGHT: DEMOCRACY HAS MORE GRIT THAN YOU MIGHT THINK

There are more and more elected leaders these days willing to ride roughshod over the rules of democracy. But that hardly means the system's doomed writes Pedro Viveros in Colombian daily El Espectador .

In Colombia and elsewhere, there are voices declaring that democracy is doomed. They point to the proliferation of erratic leaders and budding dictators, people like Trump, Maduro, Putin, Duterte in the Philippines, or Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, but without properly analyzing things in any of those countries.

Instead they argue that the presence of such leaders shows how weak the citizens of those nations are. And their conclusion is that the 21st century is destined to suffer another epidemic: a plague of autocrats.

The ideological references of the past century, namely fascism, Nazism and communism and their "charismatic" leaders, have led some to assume that history will repeat itself. They argue that the present crop of pestilential challenges will inevitably take us back to the foul prescriptions that produced the world wars. And here we thought things couldn't get any worse!

The deplorable events that left society fractured between three worlds — the Western and Eastern worlds, and we in the developing world — were based on extremist conceptions of nationalism that made jingoism a defensive response to anything external. Xenophobia became a rhetorical instrument amid unprecedented socio-economic crises. Voting, democracy's simple tool, was no longer enough to hold back the hordes of supporters running after the paradise promised by a Hitler, Mussolini or Lenin.

Today, too, the vote might not be enough to contain the pandemic of demagoguery. Fortunately, the many crises humanity has faced over the past century have raised the immunity of the democratic body. Its boosted defenses now include complementary mechanisms like the separation of powers, charters, multilateralism, independent bodies and human rights courts, the World Court at The Hague and the globalization of problems, but also solidarity, solutions, knowledge and education.

Voting has become the beginning and the end of a system designed to call out, criticize and control its own outrages. Donald Trump's desire to remain in the White House is, well, just that, a desire. And fortunately, the laws of the United States, forged to prevent entrenchment in power, will prevent his doing so — just as Colombia's Constitutional Court prevented former president Álvaro Uribe from seeking a third, unconstitutional term.

Likewise, multilateral coordination has guided scientific action against the coronavirus , creating a "live-and-direct" global response that has prevented the pandemic's already tragic impact from taking an even higher toll.

Democracies are behind the denunciations of corruption and of unnecessary wars. They have helped reduce poverty worldwide and forge sustainable development goals set out in the UN, itself a democratic consequence of the threats of intolerant elements mentioned above. All these efforts and tools will be crucial not only for keeping democracy alive, but also for protecting those of us who vote in this most beguiling and enduring of government systems.

— Pedro Viveros / El Espectador

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Russia
Alastair Gill

Why Washington May Detour Russia's Big Pipeline Project

Opposition to the planned Nord Stream 2 gas project had been limited to Europe. But now the Trump administration is challenging it too — with possible sanctions.

-Analysis-

The political heat over Russia's proposed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany is now coming from far afield, after the United States announced plans to sanction companies working with Moscow's state-owned gas giant Gazprom on the controversial project.

Speaking in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where he was heading a delegation attending the inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Tuesday that Congress was set to begin drafting a bill on sanctions, Bloomberg reported .

"I expect over the course of the not-too-distant future that the U.S. Senate as well as the U.S. House will send a bill to the president of the U.S. that will have some very, very onerous restrictions on companies that continue to do business with the Nord Stream 2 development," said Perry in Kyiv. "So stay tuned."

Initiated by Russia in 2015, the pipeline is set to travel 1,220 kilometers under the Baltic Sea from Ust-Luga in Russia's Leningrad Region to the German port of Griefswald. Running parallel to the already existing Nord Stream pipeline, which links the Russian Baltic port of Vyborg to Griefswald, Nord Stream 2 will double the amount of gas supplied to EU countries via Germany to 110 billion cubic meters per year. Germany, which is heavily dependent on Russia for energy, is a strong backer of the project, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.

If completed, Nord Stream 2 will cement European reliance on Russian natural gas.

Russia says Nord Stream 2 is necessary in order to secure reliable energy supplies to Europe and give it more direct access to the EU market. But as tensions between Moscow and the West have soared over the annexation of Crimea and the Russian-backed rebellion in eastern Ukraine, doubts have emerged over whether the Kremlin's motives are purely economic, with critics in Europe arguing that the pipeline could become yet another weapon in Russia's "hybrid warfare" arsenal.

Europe currently receives 40% of its gas from a pipeline that crosses Ukraine. Kyiv not only earns up to $3 billion annually in transit fees as of 2017, but also has the power to turn off the taps if its own supply is threatened. On more than one occasion in recent years, Gazprom's European customers have fallen victim to tariff disputes between Moscow and Kyiv — always timed to coincide with winter cold — that have seen Ukraine blocking the westward flow of gas in protest.

Nord Stream 2 would bypass Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States, thus effectively allowing Moscow to hold Kyiv — and potentially other nations — to ransom over energy, providing it with a useful weapon in its standoff with NATO in Eastern Europe.

Publicly, at least, the United States is taking the same line as the pipeline's critics in Europe: that if completed, Nord Stream 2 will cement European reliance on Russian natural gas while providing Moscow with a lever to exert political pressure on its neighbors.

But in comments made to the Kommersant FM radio station, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov made it clear that Moscow sees other motives behind Washington's efforts to frustrate the completion of the pipeline. Peskov argues that there is a clear link between U.S. opposition to Nord Stream 2 and Washington's intentions to export American gas to Europe.

Gazprom itself appears uncowed by warnings of U.S. sanctions, and says that none of its partners have withdrawn from the project as a result of American threats. The project's financial partners include Uniper SE, Engie SA, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, OMV AG and BASF SE's Wintershall.

Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst from the Moscow-based Otkrytie Broker company, told Russia's leading business daily Kommersant on Tuesday that in the event of sanctions, Gazprom would be ready to complete the project using its own resources. "The project is currently being carried out by a consortium of several (Western) companies," he noted. "But the Russian company has already stated on numerous occasions that if its European partners are unable to continue participating, then it can complete the project on its own."

In the end, the fate of Nord Stream 2 may be decided not in Washington, but in Copenhagen. The pipeline requires approval from each country whose territorial waters it passes through, and while Finland, Sweden , Germany and Russia have already given the green light for construction, Denmark has been stalling.

Copenhagen has asked the Nord Stream 2 consortium to look into alternative routes. Rather than kill the project, however, Denmark's maneuverings will probably just delay it. Whatever happens, it appears the U.S. has arrived too late to influence the outcome. That leaves Russia set to profit — perhaps at Europe's expense.