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The Graphic Truth: Oil exporters — broken or breaking even?

After Saudi Arabia — the world's top oil exporter — launched an oil price war over the weekend, global crude prices suffered their biggest drop in decades, roiling financial markets already panicky about the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the world economy. Lower prices per barrel — they are currently hovering in the 30s — will be a headache for the world's main oil-exporting countries, but some are more vulnerable than others. Here's a look at the oil price that select exporters need in order for their national budgets to stay balanced.

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Iran war threatens water access in Middle East
Natalie Johnson, Eileen Zhang

As missiles fly and oil prices soar, the Iran war is exposing another major resource vulnerability in the Middle East: water. Fresh water has been a scarce commodity in a region defined by a dry climate and low rainfall, but attacks on the region’s desalination plants, which convert seawater into drinking water, threaten to open a new front.