Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The Russian government has chosen to run a planned new oil pipeline opening its huge eastern Siberian fields up to the Asia-Pacific market via Japan rather than China, Moscow’s ambassador to Tokyo said.
Washington will sell 500 ‘bunker busters’ to Israel with the ability to penetrate Iran’s underground nuclear facilities
One of the reasons for the crippling food shortage is a radical change in the pattern of cultivation, from wheat – the country’s staple commodity – to poppy.
Russian leaders are acutely aware of the need to maintain a delicate balance between the looming giant that is China, and the pesky neighbor that is Japan.
Alarm is spreading that President Bush may seek a military draft, or mobilize more of the National Guard and Army Reserve, to obtain enough combat troops to wage his bogged-down Iraq war.
The dearth of oil and the corresponding need to ensure adequate supply amidst burgeoning demand is viewed as a matter of economic survival. Supply/demand dynamics therefore will fuel America’s hegemonistic impulse and heighten the very geopolitical uncertainties which have given rise to this alleged political risk premium in the oil markets.
What is striking about both books [Blood and Oil by Klare and Oil: Anatomy of an Industry by Yeomans]… is that they argue that the United States can avoid the petro-military dystopia if Americans (a) get Bush out of office, (b) make a concerted effort to create and exploit alternative fuels, and (c) — in Klare’s words — “reduce American dependence on imported oil and … sever the links between our energy behavior and our overseas security commitments.”
Securing supply tops the energy-policy agenda. That is the message coming loud and clear from more than 60 energy-industry leaders, including big-company CEOs and senior government officials, recently surveyed by the World Economic Forum…. History shows that policymakers will put price and supply before social and environmental concerns.
While sought-after commodities like oil can generate immense revenues for an exporting nation, they can also end up inflicting great damage on its economy and political culture.
Ties together the cash-rich oil multinationals, US VP Cheney’s Energy Task Force, and the drive to privatise Middle East oil reserves via a war for ‘freedom and democracy’.
In Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky suggested that our leaders, facing the choice in the book’s title, might well opt for hegemony over survival.
Russian oil major YUKOS, fighting to prevent a cheap fire sale of assets in a tax dispute with the state, boosted oil-reserve estimates of its core Yugansk unit fivefold today.
