Libya has plunged into lawlessness and ruin

Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters.

Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July.

As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria. Read more >>

Did Petraeus mistress reveal secret CIA prison?

Did Paula Broadwell, the alleged mistress of ex-CIA Director David Petraeus, reveal a secret CIA detention center in Benghazi during a public speech she gave last month? Broadwell, a former counterterror operative, co-authored a bestselling biography of Petraeus. She discussed the book during a keynote speech on  Oct. 26 at a University of Denver alumni symposium. The speech is available in full on YouTube.

During a question and answer session, Broadwell was asked about the September 11 attacks against the U.S. mission in Benghazi. She stated: “Now I don’t know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually had taken a couple of Libya militia members prisoner. And they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that’s still being vetted.”

The existence of a U.S. prison or CIA detention center in Benghazi would be a new development in the debate surrounding the attacks there.  The information does not appear to be publicly known.
An extensive KleinOnline search of news media coverage of the Benghazi attacks could find no mention of prisoners being held at the CIA annex. Read more >>

NATO Signs Deal with Northrup Grumman for 'Global Surveillance Capabilities'

As part of NATO's planned multi-year and multi-billion dollar investment in an increased global surveillance capability, building what it calls an 'Allied Ground Surveillance (AGS)' system, the 28-nation military alliance penned a deal with defense contractor Northrop Grumman on Sunday for a fleet of unmanned aerial drones along with the requisite command and control base stations needed to operate them.

The signing of the deal took place between Northrup executives and NATO officials in a quiet room away from the boisterous street protests taking place outside the NATO summit on the streets of Chicago, where citizens voiced their opposition to NATO's continued military presence in Afghanistan and it's increasingly violent role in world affairs in recent years.

NATO has relied heavily on the use of drones owned and operated by the United States in its recent military operations in Afghanistan and in Libya, but this acquisition will allow it to have a vast capability all its own. The system will cost close to $1.7 billion dollars, with billions more needed to maintain and operate the system over the next two decades. More...

IEA Oil Dump A Disaster In The Making

Image via WikipediaBrandon Smith
It’s amazing. In the wake of the 2008 derivatives and housing bubble collapse, created by the U.S. Treasury and the private Federal Reserve with engineered low interest rates and easy money designed to artificially pump up the economy after the effects of the dot-com bust, the faltering markets of 2000-2001, and the rapidly depreciating dollar, we have now seen these same entities pour Trillions, yes, TRILLIONS in fiat injections into every conceivable corner of the markets. They have spent incredible sums on toxic equities (worthless equities, and don’t let anyone tell you different) to “ease” the debt spiral, they have propped up almost every large international bank, they have propped up the Federal Government and the Dollar itself with sizable purchases of our own Treasury debt, and, they have even thrown money into the pockets of foreign institutions and corporate beggars. Keep in mind, that all the debt that these actions generate is eventually placed squarely in the lap of one group of people; the American Taxpayer!

They have manipulated unemployment figures. They have consistently released completely fraudulent CPI (inflation) figures based on calculations which neglect numerous factors that used to be counted only two decades ago. They have used coordinated naked short selling in precious metals markets to hold back the natural spikes in gold and silver values. They have blamed every negative development in the economy (that they could not hide) on extraneous circumstances and outside culprits rather than themselves. They have done all this, to conjure the illusion of recovery for an increasingly agitated general public.

So much tap dancing and snake oil selling, and all it took, was the pain of $4 a gallon gas to wipe everything away…

That’s right, when the cost of driving to work, driving to shop, or driving for vacation doubles, the naïve notion that everything is perfectly normal goes right out the window. Americans complain a lot, but they rarely accept a bad situation as inexorable and take measures to fix it themselves. There is always the “chance” that things will get better tomorrow, or so we tell ourselves. We just ride the wave, and expect the pack of sharks at our back will never quite catch up to our boogie-board of blind optimism. However, when something takes a Great White sized bite out our very wallets, we take notice, and search the horizon for a bigger boat.

I have commented in the past that after only a few months of high gas prices, the wind would easily be knocked right out of our puffed up bailout driven recovery, and so far, that is exactly what is happening. Retail sales are fumbling, vacation destinations are crippled, the housing market continues to dive, in part due to the relentlessly high price of energy. When people travel less, they spend less, they buy less, and they relocate less.

In response, the IEA (International Energy Agency), an organization of 28 countries, has made a very sudden and startling announcement; each member nation will begin dumping their strategic crude oil reserves onto the global marketplace to flood the supply side of the equation, and, in theory, drive down overall oil prices. The IEA will release over 60 million barrels a day for at least 30 days into the markets, half of which will come directly out of the strategic reserves of the U.S. This is only the third time in the 37 year history of the IEA that this kind of action has been taken. Surely, governments around the world have finally realized that inflation in energy is going to completely derail what’s left of our financial structure, and they are working to prevent this, right…? More...

Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama is now waging war in five separate countries

Image via WikipediaUS military forces are now waging simultaneous drone missile attacks, bombings, special forces assassination raids and ground combat in five separate countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen.

President Barack Obama, who owed his 2008 election victory in large measure to the popular revulsion felt by millions of Americans toward the wars of aggression launched by the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, has more than fulfilled George W. Bush’s predictions concerning the “wars of the 21st century.”

He has gone his Republican predecessor at least one better. Bush proclaimed an infamous doctrine that asserted the right of US imperialism to wage war against any country that it perceived as a potential threat, now or at any time in the future. In doing so, he embraced the principle of “preventive war,” a form of aggressive war for which the surviving leaders of the Third Reich were tried at Nuremberg.

In justifying the war against Libya, Obama has promulgated his own doctrine, which dispenses with even the pretense of a potential threat as the justification for war. Instead, he claims that the US is within its rights to wage war wherever it deems its “interests and values” to be at stake, even if the targets for attack pose no conceivable threat to US security.

In his speech on Libya, Obama included among these inviolable American values “maintaining the flow of commerce,” i.e., the flow of profits into the coffers of US oil companies and other corporations. More...

Five Reasons Oil Prices Will Likely Stay High

Sean Brodrick
After tumbling last week, crude oil prices rebounded hard this week. So who can blame investors for being confused? Are oil prices going to march higher again, or slump back to more “reasonable” levels? And what is reasonable after crude oil’s 30% surge higher this year?

Let me give you my reasons why I think crude oil prices are likely to stay high and go higher — and how you can play it.

Reason #1: Iraq Cuts Future Production Target in HALF.

Over the weekend, Iraq announced that it will now pump between 6.5 million and 7 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2017 — way, way down from its original plan of 12 million bpd.

It’s not because of low oil prices — oil prices have doubled since the 12-million bpd target was set two years ago.

Currently, Iraq produces about 2.68 million barrels a day, barely higher than under Saddam Hussein.

Iraq was one of the great hopes of the oil cornucopians — those folks who think we’ll always find more oil. Apparently, we aren’t finding it in Iraq.

Reason #2: The Saudis Failed to Cover Libya’s Shortfall.

You’ll remember that when Libya — the world’s 17th largest oil producer, 3rd largest producer in Africa and that continent’s largest holder of crude oil reserves — fell into civil war in February, its 1.6 million bpd production was quickly cut in half. Saudi Arabia said it would make up the difference.

Saudi Arabia DID pump more oil in February — but that was the culmination of long-term projects. But more recently, Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi revealed that the country’s crude oil production for the month of March fell by 833,000 bpd from February’s production level.

The Saudis blame lower demand for their sour crude. And maybe that’s true. But if so, this doesn’t do much to reassure the oil market that the Saudis can make up the difference when producers of light sweet crude falls short.

Also, before the Libyan crisis, the Saudis claimed they could tap 4.2 million bpd of spare capacity at any time. During the Libyan crisis, the Saudis downsized their claimed spare capacity to 2.5 million to 3.5 million bpd. And some analysts believe the Saudis only have 1 million bpd in spare capacity. That’s really not a lot of wiggle room if something else goes wrong … and something always goes wrong.

Reason #3: The Mystery in the Desert.

The Saudis are always up to something. Recently, Saudi Arabia announced it was going to spend $100 billion on solar, nuclear and other renewable energy sources. That is a lot of money for a country that is supposedly floating on all the oil and natural gas it should ever need.

The Saudis say they are doing this to boost the amount of spare oil they have for export. And to be sure, the Saudis currently consume 2.7 million bpd (27% of total production) and that is expected to grow to 8 million bpd by 2025. In case you’re wondering, us fuelhog Americans consume 19.5 million bpd.

Still, if the Saudis have all that spare oil, why don’t they just sink a few more wells? Unless, maybe, they don’t have that spare capacity. Hmm …

Reason #4: The Global Economy Runs on Oil.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), expects global economic growth for 2011 to be 4.4%, according to a recent report.

This will put more strain on a system that already saw global oil consumption grow by 2.6% in the first quarter of 2011, on top of 4.1% growth in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the International Energy Agency.

What’s more, the second quarter typically sees an uptick in crude oil demand as refineries come out of maintenance. That should lead to higher oil prices.

Now the good news for U.S. consumers is that we are swimming in oil thanks to oil shale deposits that are coming into play — so much so that U.S. crude oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate trades at a $13-per-barrel discount to an international benchmark like Brent Crude. But that discount will come under pressure as more U.S. oil is shipped overseas to fast-growing economies.

Speaking of which …

Reason #5: Asia Puts the Pedal to the Medal.

While the IMF expects the world economy to grow at 4.4% pace, emerging market economies are growing much faster. The Asian Development Bank expects a growth in the region’s economy, of 7.8% and 7.7% for 2011 and 2012 respectively.

That’s bullish for oil prices because automobile ownership and gasoline and diesel usage is growing at a furious pace in those countries.

According to Financial Times, while European crude oil demand for February was largely flat, and U.S. oil demand might grow 2.9%, Asia as a whole is expected to see its oil demand rise 5.9% and China’s should rise 9.6%.

And it should keep rising. In China, a big driver has been growth in the domestic automobile market. Auto sales increased 2.6% in February, and March data released by the Chinese Auto Association shows sales grew 5.36% on a year-over-year basis.

There you have it — five reasons why oil prices should stay high. Of course, no one can foresee the future. There is a flip side … More...

Country-by country update of Arab unrest

www.sbs.com.au/news
LIBYA: The premier denounced a "plot" to turn his country into a terrorist base, as anti-regime protests reached the capital and world powers slammed an iron-fisted crackdown said to have cost hundreds of lives.

IRAN: A massive police deployment in Tehran prevented large-scale protests from erupting, although Iranian opposition websites reported stray clashes and officials said the capital remained calm.

BAHRAIN: Bahrain's Sunni Muslim ruling family came under increased pressure to open in-depth talks with the Shiite-led opposition, as protesters erected more tents on the capital's Pearl Square and unions called off a strike.

MOROCCO: Thousands staged rallies in Moroccan cities demanding political reform and limits on the powers of King Mohammed VI, with protesters shouting "the people want change."

KUWAIT: Hundreds of stateless Arabs demonstrated for the third day running to press for basic rights and citizenship of the oil-rich Gulf state, and Human Rights Watch called for the release of dozens detained on Friday.

YEMEN: Hundreds of students demonstrated on the eighth straight day of anti-regime protests in Sanaa, while police shot dead a protester in south Yemen and the opposition vowed to join protests.

EGYPT: Three police officers in Alexandria face questioning over the shooting of protesters in the early days of the Egyptian uprising, as banks reopened and workers at Egypt's largest factory ended a strike.

TUNISIA: Tunisia's interim government asked Saudi Arabia to extradite deposed strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as it faced a second day of protests on the streets of Tunis, demanding its resignation.

DJIBOUTI: Djibouti authorities have "provisionally released" three top opposition leaders briefly detained after unprecedented protests demanding regime change, the state prosecutor said.

IRAQ: At least eight people, four police and four civilians, were reported wounded when clashes erupted during a rally in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.

JORDAN: King Abdullah II urged speedy reforms, comprehensive dialogue and more efforts to battle corruption amid popular discontent and pro-reform protests.

SYRIA: A jailed Syrian Kurdish blogger and rights activist, Kamal Hussein Sheikho, is on a hunger strike, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

ALGERIA: Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci told Spain's El Pais newspaper the anti-government revolts in Tunisia and Egypt will not spread to Algeria, a day after riot police clashed with protesters in the centre of Algiers.