The Quickening
Showing posts with label Oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oil. Show all posts
The End of the World as We Know It? An Internal or External Shift?
(Click link if embedded url does not work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kHHZkUiRP30)
The Quickening
The Quickening
Sad But True
"Our entire food chain within the gulf of Mexico is affected, there's no denying that."
Mon, 09 May 2011 
Mangystaum, Kazakhstan -- Some 12-15 dead seals have washed up over the past week on the western Kazakh shore of the Caspian Sea, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.
Erik Utebaliev, a local resident, told RFE/RL he found 10-12 dead Caspian seals of all ages, from full-grown adults to pups, on May 3 and three more on May 8.
Kirill Osin, director of the nongovernmental organization EKO Mangistau, told RFE/RL he and his colleagues planned to inspect the seals on May 10 and take tissue samples for analysis to try to determine whether they were poisoned.
He said he had only seen photos of the dead animals and it was too early to speculate about the cause of death.
Osin recalled that the local authorities attributed a mass death of seals in the region two years ago to a virus and inclement weather.
He rejected that conclusion, noting that dead seals are found only in the vicinity of intensive exploitation of offshore oil deposits.
Erik Utebaliev, a local resident, told RFE/RL he found 10-12 dead Caspian seals of all ages, from full-grown adults to pups, on May 3 and three more on May 8.
Kirill Osin, director of the nongovernmental organization EKO Mangistau, told RFE/RL he and his colleagues planned to inspect the seals on May 10 and take tissue samples for analysis to try to determine whether they were poisoned.
He said he had only seen photos of the dead animals and it was too early to speculate about the cause of death.
Osin recalled that the local authorities attributed a mass death of seals in the region two years ago to a virus and inclement weather.
He rejected that conclusion, noting that dead seals are found only in the vicinity of intensive exploitation of offshore oil deposits.
Gaddafi Tells West to Stay Out of Libya
March 16, 2011
Muammar Gaddafi has denounced backers of plans for a no-fly zone over his country and urged Libyans to take up arms and prepare to confront a possible invasion by Western powers.
Addressing selected supporters late on Tuesday, Gaddafi called the rebels "rats" and denounced Western nations. "They want Libyan oil," he said.
"France now raises its head and says that it will strike Libya," Gaddafi told the gathering at his Bab al-Azizia fortified compound in central Tripoli.
"Strike Libya?" he asked. "We'll be the one who strikes you! We struck you in Algeria, in Vietnam. You want to strike us? Come and give it a try."
His speech came as world powers wrangled over a draft resolution on imposing a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Gaddafi's advancing forces from using their air superiority to take the rebel capital, Benghazi, in the east.
The draft was distributed by Britain and Lebanon at a closed-door UN security Council meeting, on Tuesday, after the Arab League called on Saturday for the Council to set up the no-fly zone.
Nawaf Salam, Lebanese ambassador and Arab League representative, said a no-fly zone would not qualify as foreign intervention in Libya.
However, the military action faced resistance from other nations, including Russia and China.
"Some members have questions and they need clarifications before a decision is made," Li Baodong, China's ambassador, told reporters. But he added: "We are very concerned about the deteriorating situation in Libya".
Concerns Raised
The United States was also being cautious about implementing the no-fly zone. However, Mansour El Kikhia, a political analyst from the University of Texas, told Al Jazeera that the US and president Barack Obama needed to assume more responsibility as a world power.
"[Obama] heightened expectations and didn't follow through ... [this situation] requires an American leader who can actually follow up his words with actions," El Kikhia said.
Opponents of the no-fly zone want to know who will take part in it and how it will be patrolled. Hardeep Singh Puri, India's envoy, raised questions about the ban on "all flights".
Portugal, Germany and South Africa have also raised doubts about the idea of a no-fly zone for Libya.
New "paragraph by paragraph" talks on the draft resolution are to be held on Wednesday, Mark Lyall Grant, Britain's envoy, said. But diplomats said no vote was likely before Thursday.
In his short, emotional speech on Tuesday, Gaddafi attacked Britain for calling for a no-fly zone. "What right do you have? Do we share borders? Are you our tutor?" he said.
Libyans would fight to the death to defend their country, he said.
He criticised the Arab League, which has backed a no-fly zone, saying it was "finished", and the Gulf Co-operation Council, which he said had lost its legitimacy.
"The Arab League is finished. There is no such thing as the Arab League," Gaddafi said.
"The Gulf Co-operation Council is finished. It's actually the 'Gulf Unco-operative Council' ... The Arab people [however] remain."
Regaining Control
During his appearance, a crowd watching on a TV projection on a wall in Benghazi shouted curses and threw shoes at the image.
As before, Gaddafi played down the scope of the conflict in his country. "They said thousands have died, but only 150 have died," he said.
Libyan state television aired calls for the opposition to stop fighting, apparently hoping to sway populations in the east away from support of the rebels.
"Those who are asking you to put down your arms want peace for you, so please help them and stop shedding blood," the broadcaster said.
"Libya is for everyone and by everyone. So let God's word be the highest and the word of evil be the lowest."
Meanwhile, a Libyan official said the government hoped to regain control over all rebel-held territories soon.
"We hope [it will be done] as soon as possible. I hope it will be in a matter of days," Khaled Kaim, the deputy foreign minister, told Reuters in Tripoli.
War Porn is Back
The Roving Eye
March 3, 2011
Forget "democracy"; Libya, unlike Egypt and Tunisia, is an oil power. Many a plush office of United States and European elites will be salivating at the prospect of taking advantage of a small window of opportunity afforded by the anti-Muammar Gaddafi revolution to establish - or expand - a beachhead. There's all that oil, of course. There's also the allure, close by, of the US$10 billion, 4,128 kilometer long Trans-Saharan gas pipeline from Nigeria to Algeria, expected to be online in 2015.
Thus the world, once again, is reintroduced to war porn, history as farce, a bad rerun of "shock and awe". Everyone - the United Nations, the US, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - is up in arms about a no-fly zone. Special forces are on the move, as are US warships.
Breathless US senators compare Libya with Yugoslavia. Tony "The Return of the Living Dead" Blair is back in missionary zeal form, its mirror image played by British Prime Minister David Cameron, duly mocked by Gaddafi's son, the "modernizer" Saif al-Islam. There's fear of "chemical weapons". Welcome back to humanitarian imperialism - on crack.
And like a character straight out of Scary Movie, even war-on-Iraq-architect Paul Wolfowitz wants a NATO-enforced no-fly zone, as the Foreign Policy Initiative - the son of the Project for the New American Century - publishes an open letter to US President Barack Obama demanding military boots to turn Libya into a protectorate ruled by NATO in the name of the "international community".
The mere fact that all these people are supporting the Libya protesters makes it all stink to - over the rainbow - high heavens. Sending His Awesomeness Charlie Sheen to whack Gaddafi would seem more believable.
It was up to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to introduce a note of sanity, describing the notion of a no-fly zone over Libya as "superfluous". This means in practice a Russian veto at the UN Security Council. Earlier, China had already changed the conversation.
In their Sheen-style hysteria - with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton desperately offering "any kind of assistance" - Western politicians did not bother to consult with the people who are risking their lives to overthrow Gaddafi. At a press conference in Benghazi, the spokesman for the brand new Libyan National Transitional Council, human-rights lawyer Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, was blunt, "We are against any foreign intervention or military intervention in our internal affairs ... This revolution will be completed by our people."
The people in question, by the way, are protecting Libya's oil industry, and even loading supertankers destined to Europe and China. The people in question do not have much to do with opportunists such as former Gaddafi-appointed justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who wants a provisional government to prepare for elections in three months. Moreover, the people in question, as al-Jazeera has reported, have been saying they don't want foreign intervention for a week now.
The Benghazi council prefers to describe itself as the "political face for the revolution", organizing civic affairs, and not established as an interim government. Meanwhile, a military committee of officer defectors is trying to set up a skeleton army to be sent to Tripoli; through tribal contacts, they seem to have already infiltrated small cells into the vicinity of Tripoli.
Whether this self-appointed revolutionary leadership - splinter elements of the established elite, the tribes and the army - will be the face of a new regime, or whether they will be overtaken by younger, more radical activists, remains to be seen.
Shower me with hypocrisy
None of this anyway has placated the hysterical Western narrative, according to which there are only two options for Libya; to become a failed state or the next al-Qaeda haven. How ironic. Up to 2008, Libya was dismissed by Washington as a rogue state and an unofficial member of the "axis of evil" that originally included Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
As former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark confirmed years ago, Libya was on the Pentagon/neo-conservative official list to be taken out after Iraq, along with Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria and the holy grail, Iran. But as soon as wily Gaddafi became an official partner in the "war on terror", Libya was instantly upgraded by the George W Bush administration to civilized status.
As for the UN Security Council unanimously deciding to refer the Gaddafi regime to the International Criminal Court (ICC), it's useful to remember that the ICC was created in mid-1998 by 148 countries meeting in Rome. The final vote was 120 to seven. The seven that voted against the ICC were China, Iraq, Israel, Qatar and Yemen, plus Libya and ... the United States. Incidentally, Israel killed more Palestinian civilians in two weeks around new year 2008 than Gaddafi these past two weeks.
This tsunami of hypocrisy inevitably raises the question; what does the West know about the Arab world anyway? Recently the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) praised a certain northern African country for its "ambitious reform agenda" and its "strong macroeconomic performance and the progress on enhancing the role of the private sector". The country was Libya. The IMF had only forgotten to talk to the main actors: the Libyan people.
And what to make of Anthony Giddens - the guru behind Blair's "Third Way" - who in March 2007 penned an article to The Guardian saying "Libya is not especially repressive" and "Gaddafi seems genuinely popular"? Giddens bet that Libya "in two or three decades' time would be a Norway of North Africa: prosperous, egalitarian and forward-looking". Tripoli may well be on its way to Oslo - but without the Gaddafi clan.
The US, Britain and France are so awkwardly maneuvering for best post-Gaddafi positioning it's almost comical to watch. Beijing, even against its will, waited until extra time to condemn Gaddafi at the UN, but made sure it was following the lead of African and Asian countries (smart move, as in "we listen to the voices of the South"). Beijing is extremely worried that its complex economic relationship with oil source Libya does not unravel (amid all the hoopla about fleeing expats, China quietly evacuated no less than 30,000 Chinese workers in the oil and construction business).
Once again; it's the oil, stupid. A crucial strategic factor for Washington is that post-Gaddafi Libya may represent a bonanza for US Big Oil - which for the moment has been kept away from Libya. Under this perspective, Libya may be considered as yet one more battleground between the US and China. But while China goes for energy and business deals in Africa, the US bets on its forces in AFRICOM as well as NATO advancing "military cooperation" with the African Union.
The anti-Gaddafi movement must remain on maximum alert. It's fair to argue the absolute majority of Libyans are using all their resourcefulness and are wiling to undergo any sacrifice to build a united, transparent and democratic country. And they will do it on their own. They may accept humanitarian help. As for war porn, throw it in the dustbin of history.
Oil Spill Link Suspected as Dead Dolphins Wash Ashore
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
The discovery of more than 80 dead dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico is raising fresh concerns about the effect on sea life from last year's massive BP oil spill.
The dead dolphins began appearing in mid-January along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the United States. Although none of the carcasses appeared to show outward signs of oil contamination, all were being examined as possible casualties of the petrochemicals that fouled the sea water and sea bed after BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded last April, killing 11 men and rupturing a wellhead on the sea floor. The resulting "gusher" produced the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, releasing nearly five billion barrels of crude oil before it was capped in July.
The remains of 77 animals – nearly all bottlenose dolphins – have been discovered on islands, in marshes and on beaches along 200 miles of coastline. This figure is more than 10 times the number normally found washed up around this time of year, which is calving season for some 2,000 to 5,000 dolphins in the region. Another seven dead animals were reported yesterday, although the finds have not yet been confirmed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
One of the more disturbing aspects of the deaths is that nearly half – 36 animals so far – have been newborn or stillborn dolphin calves. In January 2009 and 2010, there were no reports of stranded calves, and because this is the first calving season since the BP disaster, scientists are concerned that the spill may be a cause.
"The number of baby dolphins washing ashore now is new and something we are very concerned about," NOAA spokeswoman Blair Mase said. She said that the agency had declared the alarming cluster of deaths "an unusual mortality event", adding: "Because of this declaration, many resources are expected to be allocated to investigating this."
The Institute of Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Mississippi, has been tasked with examining the dead animals. "We are on high alert here," said Moby Solangi, the institute's director. "When we see something strange like this happen to a large group of dolphins, which are at the top of the food chain, it tells us the rest of the food chain is affected."
Mr Solangi said that scientists from his organisation had performed full necropsies – the animal equivalent of autopsies – on about one-third of the dead calves. "The majority of the calves were too decomposed to conduct a full necropsy, but tissue samples were collected for analysis," he said. So far the examinations have been inconclusive.
The spill was the greatest ever in the US – 20 times as big as the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 – and initially it was thought it would prove the worst US environmental disaster, imperiling the rich wildlife of the gulf's semi-tropical waters.
By the end of last year about 7,000 dead creatures had been collected, including more than 6,000 birds and 600 sea turtles. But this compares with the figure of perhaps 250,000 seabirds killed as a result of the March 1989 Exxon disaster.
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