Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Iraq’s interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said those who attack the country’s power grid and oil pipelines are “traitors” and “not freedom fighters,” and he called on Iraqis to defeat the saboteurs.
Over the past several years, Bush and his foreign policy team have done something almost no one expected when they took office – they have made Africa a priority. It would be an uplifting story, the fulfillment of countless bleeding-heart dreams, except for one thing. Africa is a Bush priority for one reason: oil.
China’s insatiable, growing appetite for oil will direct future events in the East Asia. It’s not just commodity and stock prices that will be affected either… we maybe looking at a major military conflict in the Far East…
It is an unfortunate truth about human history that social systems, no matter how unjust, tend to reproduce themselves and that change emerges only from crises.
Full text of a lost speech. “By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from?… Oil is unique in that it is so strategic in nature. We are not talking about soapflakes or leisurewear here. Energy is truly fundamental to the world’s economy.”
ASPO’s 42nd newsletter is a must-read.
When oil was found in 1996 in Equatorial Guinea, the former Spanish colony in West Africa was one of the poorest countries in the world. Today, this small and sparsely populated country of 465,000 inhabitants has an offshore production of 350,000 bpd, making it the third largest sub-Saharan producer of oil, behind Nigeria and Angola. According to the African Development Bank, a year after oil was found, gross domestic product went up 76 %.
The CIA are staging a subtle coup against Bush and Cheney over the Plame Case writes Michael C. Ruppert.
Political reengineering in the muslim world– Clash of civilization by many names– The greater middle east initiative and the partnership for future success
The European Union says it has modified an ambitious U.S. plan to promote democracy in the Middle East. [propaganda warning]
Presentations by independent investigators at the international inquiry on 9/11 held in San Francisco in March.
OSLO: In a world growing increasingly worried about oil supplies, there is one large white spot on the fossil fuel map, eyed eagerly by both Norway and Russia, but accessible to neither without a treaty.
