I KNOW you’ve heard this before but the old is really, truly and comprehensively dead now and the new is literally being born before our eyes, with its little head, crowned in blood, passing the geopolitical cervix.

You can mourn the passing of the old and/or celebrate the coming of the new, but know that this is as natural a process as death and birth themselves; everything comes with an expiry date: be it people, nations, empires or international organisations.

One of those organisations, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Companies, was dealt a body blow when its third largest oil-producing member, the UAE, acrimoniously exited the cartel, pledging to go its own way and pump oil unhampered by the Saudi-led OPEC’s quotas, which Abu Dhabi has long bristled at. The UAE has been building its oil production capacity for years now and certainly has made the calculation that they are better off going their own way and exporting all the oil they want before the inevitable global energy transition takes place. While this has been promoted by some quarters as a boon for a global economy choked by the closure of Strait of Hormuz and the US blockade, the fact is that there is no way for this excess oil to........

© Dawn