American troops and missile batteries arrive on Syrian border

After weeks in which events in Syria took a back seat to the US presidential election campaign, Washington confirmed that the first US troops and equipment had arrived at Incirlik, an air-base in south-eastern Turkey. Other western troops were photographed by Turkish media landing at Gaziantep airport, near the Syrian border and a short drive […]

Hands Off, Oil Industry Warns Government

Jack Gerard, the often-combative chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, said Tuesday that the United States was “at the crossroads of a great turning point” in the nation’s energy history. United States Energy Association Jack Gerard, chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute. As long as Congress and the Obama administration don’t mess it […]

Japan Explores War Scenarios with China

As Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party national defense task force announced on Jan. 8 that it would increase the nation’s defense budget by more than 100 billion yen ($1.15 billion), three of five scenarios explored by the defense ministry recently involve the Self-Defense Forces squaring off against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). While contingencies involving North Korea’s ballistic […]

Orlov: The Image of the Enemy

During my brief winter sojourn in Russia a tiny cold war has erupted between Russia and the USA. First, Mitt Romney calls Russia “our number one enemy” during the presidential election campaign. Then, after the election, the US passes the “Magnitsky Act” which promises to arrest funds and deny visas to certain Russian officials based […]

Endless War Is a Feature – Not a Bug – of U.S. Policy

We are in the middle of a perpetual series of wars. See this, this, this and this. As just one example, in 2010 the war in Afghanistan became the longest war in U.S. history.  But – no matter what you’ve heard – there are no plans to get out any time soon. As Glenn Greenwald […]

Mass protests against government spread in Iraq

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied across Iraq on Friday, charging that Sunni Muslims had been disenfranchised under the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and pressing for detainees to be freed. Protests have raged for weeks and continued even after the Iraqi justice ministry freed nearly a dozen female prisoners and said it […]

Saudi says its air force has not struck al Qaeda in Yemen

Saudi Arabian fighter jets have not attacked al Qaeda targets in Yemen, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Saturday, denying a newspaper report that some strikes attributed to U.S. drones were made instead by the kingdom’s air force. Britain’s Times newspaper on Friday cited an unnamed U.S. intelligence source as saying “some of the […]

Hagel: War for Oil

In a post yesterday waxing enthusiastic about Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, Michael Moore called attention to a statement of Hagel that I don’t believe had been previously much noted. Here it is, from September 2007: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are,” said the Republican Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel […]

A Look Ahead at Energy Policy and Politics in the 113th Congress

The September 2011 bankruptcy of solar manufacturer and stimulus-loan recipient, Solyndra, sparked a national media firestorm and political debate over the role of government in funding emerging clean energy technologies. The issue soon rose to prominence in the presidential campaign with Mitt Romney attacking Barack Obama on the stump and in televised debates over the […]

Iraqi Forces Fire Into Air as Anti-Maliki Demonstrations Spread

Iraqi forces fired into the air to disperse protesters as demonstrations spread to eight regions demanding that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki share more power. Thousands of protesters gathered in the capital, Baghdad, and Ramadi, Falluja, Tikrit, Mosul, Samarra, Kirkuk and Diyala, according to footage shown by Al Jazeera television. “The people want the downfall of […]

Saudi coast guard arrests 21 Iranians

Saudi Arabia has detained 21 Iranian nationals who were aboard two boats near an island off the kingdom’s eastern coast, the Saudi border guard said on Thursday. Separated by about 250 km (150 miles) of Gulf waters, Shi’ite Muslim power Iran and Sunni-led Saudi Arabia have often had tense relations. U.S. ally Saudi Arabia has […]

Iran Evacuates Area Surrounding Nuke Plant

ranian officials have instructed residents of Isfahan to leave the city, renewing concerns that a nearby nuclear site could be leaking radioactive material. An edict issued Wednesday by Iranian authorities orders Isfahan’s one-and-a-half million people to leave the city “because pollution has now reached emergency levels,” the BBC reported. However, outside observers suspect that the […]

Venezuelan Leader Hugo Chavez In a Coma ‘only kept alive by life support’ After Cancer Surgery

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is in an induced coma being kept alive by life support following complications during cancer surgery, it was claimed today. Sources at the hospital in Cuba where he is being treated told a Spanish newspaper he was showing ‘very weak’ vital signs, adding that doctors could decide to switch off the […]

The shale revolution’s shifting geopolitics

It strengthens the United States, reduces China’s energy dependence, and generates a major global stimulus, while potentially destabilising both the Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia The shale energy revolution is likely to shift the tectonic plates of global power in ways that are largely beneficial to the West and reinforce U.S. power and influence during […]

Could Saudi Arabia be next?

Nobody can predict which way the ‘Arab Awakening’ will turn this year. But Robert Fisk has ventured a very tentative punt or two… Syria ‘Yes, Assad will go. One day. He says as much. But don’t expect it to happen in the immediate future.  Or Gaddafi-style.’ Israel and the  Palestinian territories ‘Hamas and Khaled Meshaal […]

Iran Test-Fires Latest Surface-to-Air Missile

Iran “successfully” test-fired a surface-to-air-missile on the fourth day of a military drill around the Strait of Hormuz, the state-run Fars news agency reported, citing a military official. Iranian Navy forces have successfully test-fired the latest version of the indigenous surface-to-air missile Ra’d (Thunder) during the Velayat 91 maneuvers. Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari, the spokesman […]

Inside the West’s economic war with Iran

In his first week as U.S. president, Barack Obama told Iran’s leaders he would extend a hand if they would “unclench their fist” and persuade the West they weren’t trying to build a nuclear bomb. So far, they have not. In response, the United States and the European Union this year took a step they […]

Don’t Be Surprised If There’s A War Between Japan And China In The Next Year

Chinese planes flew near Japanese airspace Monday to assert its claims to Japan’s Senkaku islands (China calls them the Diaoyu islands). The move came just as Japan announced its new prime minister. Hugh White, a professor at Australian National University and a former Australian defense official, believes this is the latest sign the two countries are […]

Iraq Sunni rallies gather steam

Thousands of protesters from Iraq’s Sunni Muslim minority kept up a week-old blockade on a key highway on Thursday and readied mass rallies for Friday to demand concessions from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Protests flared last week after troops loyal to Maliki, who is from the Shi’ite majority, detained bodyguards of his finance minister, a […]

Occupy is not dead, just resting

The desire for collective action remains strong What happens when you bring a group of young political activists together? You might be surprised. Over the last five days, in a sleepy part of Switzerland, we brought together members of the Occupy Movement, the Pirate Party and some of the biggest political NGOs for the first […]

ASPO-USA Meets with DOE Officials: Some Things We Learned

On Monday, December 17, representatives of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA (ASPO-USA) met with senior officials with the Energy Information Administration (EIA), including Administrator Adam Sieminski, and staff from other offices within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The meeting was arranged following a letter that ASPO-USA sent to […]

Saudi Arabia Must Review Its Oil Subsidies

Saudi Arabia will need to reduce fuel subsidies that are becoming an ever-greater fiscal burden as its population grows, a former adviser to the country’s oil minister said. The world’s biggest exporter of crude has a domestic fuel subsidy bill exceeding 162 billion riyals ($43 billion) a year, according to Mohammad Al-Sabban, an independent Saudi-based […]

Iran Launches Week-Long Straits Of Hormuz Naval Drill On Friday, Next To US Aircraft Carrier

With the market still hopeful of some deus ex resolution to the Fiscal Cliff will take place in the last few trading sessions of the year (one where the market itself will not have to be the catalyst for such a resolution, because once the selling starts in earnest, who knows if and when it […]

UK government lifts hydraulic fracturing ban

The UK government lifted a temporary moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, opening the way for exploration and development of unconventional natural gas just days after UK Chancellor George Osborne announced a push for gas development in his Autumn Statement. The fracing mortarium was imposed last year while the UK government looked into events around a Cuadrilla […]

EIA’s crappy forecasting

For instance, EIA, by its own admission, states that they had overestimated crude oil production 62% of the time; they had overestimated natural gas production 70.8% of the time; and they had overestimated natural gas consumption 69.6% of the time. Not the best track record by anyone’s estimation except perhaps EIA’s. It is also noteworthy […]

Iran claims it has worked around oil sanctions

Iran’s oil minister claims his country has successfully circumvented sanctions on the sale of its oil. State TV on Sunday broadcast comments by Rostam Ghasemi that the industry was in “bad shape” about two months ago due to the oil embargo by the West, “but we left the bottleneck behind, almost.” Ghasemi also said that […]

Saudi Will Stick to OPEC Ceiling But Will Meet all Demand Requests

Top oil producer Saudi Arabia will adhere to the 30 million barrels-a-day production ceiling maintained earlier this month by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, but will meet any customer demand for additional crude, the country’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said Friday. “There are customers that will come to every producer and ask for […]

Judge OKs $7.8 bil settlement against BP

A federal judge has given final approval to BP’s settlement with a bulk of businesses and individuals who lost money because of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP PLC has estimated it will pay $7.8 billion to resolve economic and medical claims from more than 100,000 businesses and individuals hurt by […]

Iraq says to withold payments for Kurdish oil

Iraq will not pay oil companies operating in Kurdistan because the autonomous region has failed to export the volume of crude it pledged to, a spokesman for Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq’s deputy prime minister for energy said on Friday. The comments ramp up a standoff between Baghdad and the region, which have been locked in a […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Chaos in the Middle East

Nearly everywhere one looks in the Middle East these days, troubles are growing and new wounds are opening that seem unlikely to heal in the foreseeable future. Now all this would be academic except that most of the world’s readily exploitable oil comes from the region. Despite the hype of “energy independence” the world’s advanced […]

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