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If Libyan unrest spreads, gas could reach $5
Gary Strauss on Feb. 21, 2011 USA Today News
If political unrest in Libya spreads to other oil-rich countries and the ensuing chaos disrupts crude oil production, gas prices could hit $5 a gallon by peak summer driving season, industry analysts say.
Benchmark crude oil prices soared Monday, rising about 6% to $95.39 a barrel for April contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange as violence and a military crackdown spread in Libya, the first major oil-producer hit by a burgeoning anti-government movement. The increased violence prompted BP and Norway’s Statoil to pull oil workers from the besieged country.
“If this thing escalates and there’s a good chance that there’d be a shift in supplies, $5 gas isn’t out of the question,” says Darin Newsom, senior analyst at Read more…
Iranian warships’ passage through Suez put back two days
Iran’s Fars news agency has identified the 1,500-tone Alvand as one of the warships heading to the Suez Canal
The passage of two Iranian naval ships through the Suez Canal has been put back to Wednesday, a canal official said on Sunday as Israel expressed its grave concern about the Mediterranean-bound vessels.
“The shipping agent handling the two Iranian warships has told the canal administration to push back their passage by two days,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He did not elaborate on the reasons for the delay, but confirmed that the new day of passage through the waterway that links the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea would be Wednesday.
Reportedly bound for Syria on a journey that would Read more…
Libya, Jordan And Yemen Hit By Renewed Unrest
Renewed civil unrest inspired by the recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt is being reported in three other Middle Eastern countries – Libya, Yemen and Jordan.
Libyan authorities have deployed troops in the second city of Benghazi following night time rallies over the killings of more than 20 protesters.
A major demonstration is taking place in the northern city of Tobruk and in Tripoli three people have reportedly been killed in an attempted jail break, according to security officials.
Libya has issued no casualty or injury figures after two days of protests.
But Human Rights Watch, quoting sources in the country, said at least 24 people have been killed by Libyan security forces who are using live fire.
Libya exerts strict controls on media and communications, making independent verification of claims about the unrest difficult to obtain.
Foreign journalists have been forbidden from entering the country by Colonel Gaddafi who appears to be trying to shut the country off to the outside world.
Libya’s state news agency, JANA, has made no mention of any violence. However, it has reported that “popular rallies” have taken place in “various Libyan cities to express support for the leader”.
Gaddafi’s rule of over 40 years makes him the longest-serving leader of the Arab world and of Read more…
Riots Break Out in Bahrain
Police fired tear gas into a crowd of protesters in the Diraz area today. Photographer: -/AFP/Getty Images
Bahraini riot police were deployed to break up protests across the island nation as demonstrators, inspired by revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, demanded more political freedom and jobs.
Police fired tear gas into crowds in the areas of Diraz and Bani Jamrah. Earlier, residents of the Shiite Muslim village of Nuweidrat said clashes broke out between activists and police after morning prayers. Police were present on the outskirts of Nuweidrat, where Shiite flags adorned buildings along alleyways.
”We were starting our peaceful protests when riot police attacked us with tear gas,” Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said in an interview after the protest in Bani Jamrah was dispersed. “We will continue Read more…
US Internet censorship fight falling short: report
WASHINGTON — State Department efforts to combat Internet censorship in China and other countries have fallen short and funding for the drive should be shifted to another US agency, a Senate committee report says.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee report sharply criticizes the State Department for being slow in spending money allocated by Congress for Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology (ICCT).
The report, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, recommends that the funding be given instead to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and other US radio and TV networks.
The report is to be released on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to Read more…
NYC Faces $1 Billion in Budget Cuts
NEW YORK—On Sunday, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) published a report analyzing the proposed Republican budget plan, which will be voted on this week.The congressman said that while there is a deficit that needs to be reduced, this plan is cutting the wrong corners.
“We have found that nearly a billion dollars worth of services that are provided by different government programs are getting cut. Yet programs like [those of] the Department of Defense are held almost entirely harmless,” Weiner said.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers has stated that the total debt has run up to $14 trillion.
“This legislation includes the largest reduction in discretionary spending in the history of our nation, five times larger than any other discretionary cut package ever considered by the House,” Rogers said in a press release. “The CR contains over $100 billion in cuts compared to Read more…
Analyst: U.S. To Lose In Yemen As In Afghanistan, Iraq
US focused on non-actual danger in Yemen
Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Institute of the Middle East:
The modern idea of US security structures is that it is not Osama bin Laden who is the number one danger but a man from Yemen with his al-Qaeda department. The danger from this man to Saudi Arabia and Bab-el-Mandeb – every ship crossing the Suez Canal sails through Bab-el-Mandeb between Yemen and Somalia – is much bigger than from al-Qaeda groups in Yemen.
The current situation may provide for a division of Yemen into two states – the Shafi south and the Zaidi-style north. Especially now that civil war is about to break out and Saudi Arabian influence in Yemen is minimal.
Al-Qaeda in Yemen is no more than an instrument which President Saleh uses to persuade the US administration that he is their strategic partner in need of financial and military support, especially amid present-day conditions.
In this situation, the US came to realize that old plans, which are absolutely irrelevant today, were focused on a non-actual danger. This means that America will lose here as well, just as it happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Food Bubble is About to Burst
We’re fast draining the fresh water resources our farms rely on, warns Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute
What is a food bubble?
That’s when food production is inflated through the unsustainable use of water and land. It’s the water bubble we need to worry about now. The World Bank says that 15 per cent of Indians (175 million people) are fed by grain produced through over-pumping – when water is pumped out of aquifers faster than they can be replenished. In China, the figure could be 130 million.
Has this bubble already burst anywhere?
Saudi Arabia made itself self-sufficient in wheat by using water from a fossil aquifer, which doesn’t refill. It has harvested close to 3 million tonnes a year, but in Read more…
WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia is quickly running out of oil
US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world’s biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%
The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.
The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.
The revelation comes as the oil price has soared in recent weeks to more than $100 a barrel on global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect that the Saudis and their Opec cartel partners would pump more oil if rising prices threatened to Read more…
Google Earth finds Saudi Arabia’s forbidden archaeological secrets
An armchair archaeologist has identified nearly 2,000 potentially important sites in Saudi Arabia using Google Earth, despite never having visited the country.
David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia, used Google Earth satellite maps to pinpoint 1,977 potential archaeological sites, including 1,082 teardrop shaped stone tombs.
“I’ve never been to Saudi Arabia,” Dr Kennedy said. “It’s not the easiest country to break into.”
Dr Kennedy told New Scientist that he had verified the images showed actual archaeological sites by asking a friend working in the Kingdom to photograph the locations.
The use of aerial and satellite imaging has been used in Britain to locate Iron Age and Roman sites in Britain, as well as Nazca lines in Peru and Mayan ruins in Belize.
But few archaeologists have been given access to Saudi Arabia, which has long been hostile to the discipline. Hardline clerics in the kingdom fear that it might focus attention on the civilisations which flourished there before the rise of Islam – and thus, in the long term, undermine the state religion.
In 1994, a council of Saudi clerics was reported to have issued an edict asserting that preserving historical sites “could lead to polytheism and idolatry” – both punishable, under the Kingdom’s laws, by death.
Saudi Arabia’s rulers have, in recent years, allowed archaeologists to excavate some sites, including the spectacular but little-known ruins of Maidan Saleh, a 2,000 old city which marked the southern limits of the powerful Nabataean civilisation.
For the most part, though, access to ancient sites has been severely restricted.
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