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Middle East Meltdown Could Mean Oil at $300 a Barrel, Pump Prices of $9.57 a Gallon
moneymorning.com [Editor’s Note: U.S. oil prices yesterday (Tuesday) hit their highest levels since September 2008 as investors reacted to fears that Middle East tumult would spread from Libya to such key Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as Iran and Saudi Arabia. But never fear: Even if the Middle East melts down and oil prices soar, there are moves you can make to hedge away your risk. We have two suggestions for you here.] By Martin Hutchinson, Contributing Editor, Money Morning The unrest in the Middle East oil patch is roiling the global oil markets on an almost daily basis. 
The events in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Oman and other countries are also forcing us to ask that long-dreaded question: What happens if the countries throughout the Middle East region fall to radical governments? The answer is both stunning and surprising. In an absolute worst-case scenario – if the entire Middle East falls under radical control – we could be looking at $300-a-barrel oil and pump prices of $9.57 a gallon. Definitely a stunner. Here’s the surprise: Even such a worst-case outcome would Read more…
Will $200 oil kill the economy?
Unrest in key oil-producing nations opens the door to price spikes that could push gas to $7 a gallon and spin the world back into recession. Here’s how we’d get there, and how to protect your portfolio.
Are your pocketbook and portfolio ready for $200-a-barrel oil?
This kind of dramatic price spike may seem less likely now than a few days ago, with oil markets calming down a bit and the price slipping below $100. But given the instability and unrest rolling through the Middle East and North Africa, it’s a definitely a viable scenario.
For the moment, most oil sector analysts have gone off high alert because of a Saudi Arabian pledge to increase production to make up for any shortfalls sparked by unrest. But that ignores a key angle in all this: There’s simply not enough spare capacity to make up for the production losses we’d see if the rolling crises in the region hit just two or three major producers at once.
This could easily happen, given the heightened Read more…
VERY INTERESTING” LEAK”- Resurfaced-The Map of the “New Middle East”
“Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor
The term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East.”
This shift in foreign policy phraseology coincided with the inauguration Read more…
Paul Craig Roberts: CIA May Assassinate Julian Assange
Late last week the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court ordered the extradition of Julian Assange from England to Sweden under a European Arrest Warrant. Assange will likely be extradited to Sweden and questioned about a trumped-up rape allegation, two allegations of sexual molestation, and an allegation of unlawful coercion by two Swedish women who have been variously described as hoenytraps.
The Wikileaks founder is afraid that he will be extradited from Sweden to the United States where his lawyers argue he could be sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility or face the Read more…
After the ecstasy of revolution, the Bankers quietly begin carving up Egypt and North Africa
By Richard Eastman
21st Century Wire
Feb 25, 2011
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is ready to lend one billion EUROS a year to Egypt for reconstruction and “free-market reform”- even as Egypt’s Minister of Finance Samir Radwan has gone begging to the City of London bankers and the British Ministry of Trade and Investment for relief on debt payments that are about to throw Egypt into bankruptcy.
All this, as Egypt has been such a good boy with regards to privatization and austerity, measures which awarded Egypt its celebrated 7 percent growth rate- mostly in investments that will end up in international hands as ventures fail to pay out with ever diminishing Egyptian domestic purchasing power.
FRESH CYCLES OF DEBT
First EBRD will lend at interest and build what they want backed by Egyptian collateral and the value of the projects themselves. Then when it turns out they can’t make the debt payments because of all the interest we have sucked from them, we take over all of the assets we have developed. That’s freedom and EBRD is really going to give it to them. After all EBRD is experienced at this. In 1991 the EBRD was organized to financially lead Russia and Eastern Europe in their transition from paternalistic socialism to sustainable free-market economies open to international Read more…
As Arab world shakes, Iran’s influence grows
Michael Slackman
New York Times
MANAMA, Bahrain — The popular revolts shaking the Arab world have begun to shift the balance of power in the region, bolstering Iran’s position while weakening and unnerving its rival, Saudi Arabia, regional experts said.
While it is far too soon to write the final chapter on the uprisings’ impact, Iran already has benefited from the ouster or undermining of Arab leaders who were its strong adversaries and has begun to project its growing influence, the analysts said. This week Iran sent two warships through the Suez Canal for the first time since its revolution in 1979, and Egypt’s new military leaders allowed them to pass.
Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally and a Sunni nation that jousts with Shiite Iran for regional influence, has been shaken. King Abdullah on Wednesday signaled his concern by announcing a $10 billion increase in welfare spending to help young people marry, buy homes and open businesses, a gesture seen as trying to head off the kind of unrest that fueled protests around Read more…
Russia, Iran to Ink Medical Isotope Export Deal
An agreement is being finalized for Russia to export medical isotopes to Iran, the Russian state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom announced yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 22).
Israeli President Shimon Peres delivers a speech in Madrid today. Peres said the passage of two Iranian navy ships through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea showcased the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran (Javier Soriano/Getty Images).
A spokesman for the organization did not elaborate on the timing of the anticipated signing, RIA Novosti reported. Tehran’s need for molybdenum 99 and iodine 131 was addressed in talks between Iranian officials and Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko (RIA Novosti, Feb. 22).
The deal would involve transfers of each isotope from Russia to Iran every week, Interfax reported.
Under a 2009 bid put forward by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran would have exchanged 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium for material to fuel a medical isotope production reactor in Tehran. The Middle Eastern state ultimately rejected the plan worked out with France, Russia and the United States, which was aimed in part at deferring Iran’s ability to produce sufficient weapon material for a bomb long enough to more fully address U.S. and European concerns about Iranian enrichment activities. Tehran has insisted its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful.
Iran since December has two rounds of talks with Germany and permanent U.N. Security Council member states Read more…
Highlights of the $3.73 Trillion Budget Request for 2012
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama released a $3.73 trillion budget for fiscal-year 2012 Monday where he sought to balance two competing and conflicting agendas: dramatic cuts to federal spending while also investing in programs to improve U.S. competitiveness.
A look at what President Barack Obama has requested in his $3.73 trillion budget for the 2012 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Summary: Homeland Security gets $44 Billion with a priority on naked body scanners. The Transportation Department gets over a half Trillion dollars for new highway and rail construction, including $53 billion for high-speed trains. $500 million will go to the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Enforcement (See my article on LOST.) and NIST, the group that dropped the ball on the Sept. 11th investigation will be getting $764 million, roughly a 17% increase from last year.
____
Agency: NASA
Spending: $18.7 billion
Percentage Change from 2011: 0.9 percent decrease
Discretionary Spending: $18.7 billion
Highlights: Obama’s space budget is about the same as the previous year, avoiding the major proposed cuts other agencies are facing, partly because of the long planned Read more…
Chinese weapons fall into hands of insurgents
Insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq have obtained Chinese-made weapons
Chinese-made weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan because of China’s failure to enforce export controls on arms to Iran, the leaked cables show.
By Gordon Rayner
US diplomats also feared that Chinese companies were selling materials to Iran that could be used to build nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.
Chinese-made guns, as well as rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles containing Chinese-made components, have all been used against Coalition forces or civilian targets in Iraq, the US claims, while other weapons have been obtained by militants in Afghanistan.
The US was so concerned about Chinese arms and components being sold to Iran that in September 2008 the State Department launched a major diplomatic offensive to put pressure on Beijing.
It decided to share intelligence with eight “key allies” including Spain and Italy to “persuade China to enforce its export control laws more effectively” and to “aggressively implement” UN Security Council resolutions on the sale of arms and weapons materials.
Ambassadors were told to encourage the foreign governments to point out to the Chinese that arms sales to Iran “could ultimately damage China’s reputation and its bilateral relationship with” each of the countries.
US unable to account for Iraq funds
The US Defense Department cannot account for how it spent funds that belonged to the reconstruction of war-torn Iraq due to poor record keeping, a report says.The Pentagon, entrusted with spending $9.1 billion on reconstruction projects in 2011, has failed to elucidate the whereabouts of this year’s money, a Press TV correspondent reported on Monday.
The US military agency has also refused to send any representatives to Iraq’s Supreme Audit Court to explain such an inappropriate use and undetected loss.
“The Pentagon must take immediate steps to address this issue. These funds are specifically to be used for the reconstruction of the country. And if such a huge amount is not accounted for, then it implies that some of it has been Read more…
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