A court in Russia has ordered a one-month suspension of operations at the pipeline used by Kazakhstan to export the bulk of its oil in a measure that analysts are interpreting as intimidation from Moscow. In its July 5 ruling, the Primorsky district court in the southern Russian city of Novorossiysk found that the Caspian Pipeline Consortium had allegedly committed environmental violations. This move arrived just one day after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev pledged to assist the European Union in stabilizing the global energy market. Even a single month of lost export earnings is likely to constitute a ... (full story)