Berliner Volks-Zeitung - News from Berlin and the world for the people

Hornets sting Knicks to maintain playoff push

Kon Knueppel scored 26 points as the Charlotte Hornets maintained their late-season charge for an NBA playoff berth with an emphatic 114-103 defeat of the high-flying New York Knicks on Thursday.

German 'green village' rides out Mideast energy storm

While the world frets about surging energy prices pushed up by the Middle East war, one small German village has been reaping the benefits of its turn to climate-friendly renewables.

US in the spotlight at WTO meet

The United States is set to come under scrutiny Friday on day two of the World Trade Organization's ministerial conference, with Washington wanting to shake up the multilateral trade system.

Cyclone triggers outages at major Australian LNG plants

A cyclone off Australia triggered outages at two of the world's largest LNG plants, energy giant Chevron said Friday as Middle East turmoil stoked soaring demand for the fuel.

US judge suspends govt sanctions on AI company Anthropic

A US federal judge on Thursday suspended sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump's administration on Anthropic, saying the measures likely violated the law in blacklisting the AI powerhouse for expressing unease about the Pentagon's use of its technology.

US currency to bear Trump's signature, Treasury says

US paper currency will soon bear Donald Trump's signature, the Treasury Department announced Thursday, in a move that would be a first for a sitting American president and coincide with the country's 250th anniversary.

Bolivia beat Suriname 2-1 to advance in World Cup playoffs

Bolivia produced a second-half fightback to shatter Suriname's unlikely dream of World Cup qualification with a 2-1 victory in their FIFA playoff game in Mexico on Thursday.

Merchant Payments Ecosystem Announces Winners of the MPE Awards 2026

Industry leaders, innovators and emerging companies were recognized in Berlin for excellence across the merchant payments ecosystem.

RE Royalties Announces Strategic Review to Evaluate Path for Long-Term Value Creation

All amounts in CAD dollars unless otherwise stated.

Ukraine destroys Russian terror-oil exports

Ukraine’s campaign against Russian oil infrastructure has developed into a direct assault on one of Moscow’s most important economic arteries. The focus is not on symbolic targets but on the nodes through which a large share of Russian crude exports is loaded and shipped. Pressure on the Baltic outlets of Primorsk and Ust-Luga is especially significant because they handle a major part of seaborne exports. Add the after-effects of the disruption around Novorossiysk, interruptions in the Druzhba corridor on Ukrainian territory, and growing pressure on tankers linked to Russia’s shadow fleet, and the picture becomes larger than a handful of dramatic fires. What is under attack is the export chain itself: storage, loading, routing, maritime dispatch and ultimately cash flow.Current estimates indicate that roughly 40 percent of Russia’s oil export capacity has at times been disrupted or temporarily knocked offline. That amounts to around 2 million barrels per day that failed to reach the market as planned or had to be rerouted with delay and higher cost. For the Kremlin, this matters because oil is not merely a commodity; it remains one of the pillars of federal revenue. When terminals go down, ships queue, cargoes must be reassigned and transport risks rise, the economic impact widens even if part of the volume is later recovered. The strikes therefore hit the area where Russia, despite sanctions, price caps and alternative shipping arrangements, has tried hardest to preserve hard-currency income.What makes the Ukrainian approach notable is that it is designed less for one-off spectacle than for repeated operational disruption. Every hit on port infrastructure, pumping systems, storage tanks or loading chains can create bottlenecks far beyond the point of impact. A delay of only a few days can alter tanker rotations, export schedules, settlement timing and production planning. The fact that one facility may resume operations relatively quickly does not remove the vulnerability exposed by the pattern. Moscow is being forced to reshuffle volumes, test alternative routes and absorb added risk at nearly every step of the process. That is a structural problem for an export model that depends heavily on a limited set of maritime hubs.