As international conflicts go, none did so little to disrupt the global order as the “whisky wars” that pitted Canada against Denmark for four decades. Flaring up in 1984, the unlikely spat involved a one-square-kilometre island in the middle of an icy Arctic channel marking the border between Greenland (now a self-ruling part of Denmark) and the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Both sides assumed the rock was theirs. What might have been considered a casus belli by lesser countries became, for the northern duo, an exercise in diplomatic civility. Canadian officials visiting the island marked their territory by leaving whisky and flags; Danes asserted sovereignty by snaffling the booze and leaving their own schnapps for Canadians to enjoy. In lieu of shots fired, polite letters were occasionally exchanged. When the quarrel grew tiresome a working group spent years agreeing to split the island down the middle, ending all hostilities in 2022.
London — European gas prices reached a 15-month high on Thursday after Ukraine blocked the transit of Russian gas across its territory into the European Un
The Mitte Combined Heat and Power (CHP) natural gas power plant, operated by Vattenfall AB, in Berlin, Germany, on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025.Bloomberg | Bloomberg
A major natural gas pipeline supplying Russian energy to Europe ran dry Wednesday after Ukraine stopped Moscow’s six-decade supply in the hopes of hurting its
The flow of Russian gas to several European countries was halted on New Year’s Day after Ukraine refused to renegotiate a transit deal amid war with Moscow.