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Bahrain: Police officer dies after bomb blast

Bahraini authorities say a police officer wounded by a bombing on the third anniversary of the start of the Gulf island kingdom’s anti-government uprising has died. The Interior Ministry said Saturday that the officer was one of two injured in what it called a "terrorist blast" the day before in the village of Dair, near the country’s main airport. It did not identify the officer. The ministry also said it arrested 26 people suspected of rioting and vandalism Friday, the anniversary of widespread protests that began in 2011 and set off three years of ongoing unrest in the country. Activists say dozens of protesters have been wounded in recent clashes with police. Opposition groups dominated by the country’s majority Shiites are seeking political rights from the country’s Sunni rulers. © 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten […]

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Venezuela frees some student protesters, unrest continues

Venezuelan authorities freed 25 student protesters on Friday pending trial and said that 74 others arrested after this week’s deadly political turmoil would be processed within hours. Demonstrators gathered in various cities as they have done since Wednesday. In a more affluent part of eastern Caracas, police used teargas and water cannons to clear a square of about 1,000 protesters, some of whom lit fires and threw stones at the security forces. The protesters also briefly blocked a major highway nearby, denouncing President Nicolas Maduro over a litany of grievances including the repression of demonstrations since three people were shot dead this week following an opposition-led march. Speaking at a televised event in the city center alongside top officials from the ruling Socialist Party and pro-government sports stars and entertainers, Maduro said he would not let the protesters cause chaos by closing important arteries. "I’m not […]

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Venezuela’s Leader Pulls Foreign Channel Over Protest Coverage

; Venezuela’s president said that a Colombia-based cable news channel was ordered to be removed from cable lineups in Venezuela because of its coverage of an antigovernment protest. President Nicolás Maduro said Thursday that the channel, NTN24, had tried to “foment anxiety about a coup d’état.” He said that he gave the order to pull the channel because “No one is going to come from abroad and try to perturb the psychological climate of Venezuela.” It was removed on Wednesday, the same day that thousands of people rallied in the capital, Caracas, in the largest antigovernment protest in months. After the rally, a few hundred youths rioted, throwing rocks at the police and government buildings. Two opposition protesters and a man identified as a government supporter were shot to death during the unrest, which Mr. Maduro said was part of a coup attempt. NTN24 is seen as […]

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China Hard Landing War-Gamed for World Economy

A hard landing in China would hobble global growth and buoy the dollar, says Societe Generale SA in a study that war-games the international implications of a steep decline in China’s expansion. A plunge to 2 percent from more than 10 percent in 2010 would be enough to slash 1.5 percentage points from worldwide economic growth in the first year as China’s troubles are transmitted through trade, banking and financial market channels, the French bank said in a Feb. 11 report. Among the reasons to expect such reverberations from what the authors called the “worst reasonable case:” China’s imports are equivalent to 30 percent of its gross domestic product. Asian and commodity-producing nations would be the hardest hit, according to Michala Marcussen, global head of economics research in London . The impact could be aggravated by China’s bias toward investment, which accounts for half of its GDP. Less worrisome […]

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China to Reward Cities and Regions Making Progress on Air Pollution

Chinese officials announced Thursday that they were offering a total of 10 billion renminbi, or $1.65 billion, this year to cities and regions that make “significant progress” in air pollution control, according to a report by Xinhua, the state-run news agency. The announcement came from the State Council , China’s cabinet, after it held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss, among other issues, the country’s immense air pollution problem. “Control of PM2.5 and PM10 should be a key task,” the State Council said in a statement, referring to two kinds of particulate matter that are deemed harmful to human health. The meeting was presided over by Li Keqiang, a member of the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo Standing Committee and China’s prime minister. The announcement of the financial incentives revealed how difficult it has been for some leaders in Beijing to get many Chinese companies and government officials […]

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Saudi America

Frackin’ the Bakken DENNIS LITHGOW is an oil man, but sees himself as a manufacturer. His factory is a vast expanse of brushland in west Texas. His assembly line is hundreds of brightly painted oil pumps spaced out like a city grid, interspersed with identical clusters of tanks for storage and separation. Through the windscreen of his truck he points out two massive drilling rigs on the horizon and a third about to be erected. Less than 90 days after they punch through the earth, oil will start to flow. What if they’re dry? “We don’t drill dry holes here,” says Mr Lithgow, an executive for Pioneer Natural Resources, a Texan oil firm. In the conventional oil business, the riskiest thing is finding the stuff. The “tight oil” business, by contrast, is about deposits people have known about for decades but previously could not extract economically. Pioneer’s ranch sits […]

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Oil Well In North Dakota Out Of Control, Leaking

A Whiting Petroleum Corp oil well in North Dakota was leaking drilling fluids after a blowout late on Thursday, company and state officials said on Friday. The well lost control after a blowout preventer failed and was leaking between 50 and 70 barrels per day of fracking fluid that contains chemicals, water and sand, a company spokesman said. The leak, close to the frozen Cherry Creek in McKenzie County, was contained and the fluids were being collected and trucked from the site. No liquids entered the water, Whiting said. Fracking fluid is pumped into a well under pressure to fracture rock deep underground to release oil or natural gas. A blowout typically occurs when an unexpected burst of high pressure comes up the well, causing a loss of control. "The well is not under control," said Kris Roberts, a spokesman for the North Dakota […]

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Study concludes that NG leakage higher than reflected in inventories; transportation fuel climate benefits questioned

A review of 20 years of technical literature on natural gas (NG) emissions in the United States and Canada comprising more than 200 papers has concluded that official inventories consistently underestimate actual CH4 emissions due to leakage from the natural gas system. “Atmospheric tests covering the entire country indicate emissions around 50 percent more than EPA estimates,” said lead author Adam Brandt at Stanford University. The study, which is authored by researchers from seven universities, several national laboratories and federal government bodies and other organizations, is published in the journal Science.

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Gulf of Mexico key to energy security, U.S. officials say

One billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of gas could be produced from acreage up for auction in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. government officials said. U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Tommy Beaudreau announced plans for a lease sale in the so-called Eastern Planning Area in the gulf. The BOEM said an estimated 40 million acres will be up for auction in New Orleans in March. Beaudreau said that, with the Gulf of Mexico accounting for 20 percent of all U.S. oil production and 6 percent of natural gas production, the lease would help ensure North American energy security. "As a critical component of the nation’s energy portfolio, the gulf holds vital energy resources that can continue to generate jobs and spur economic opportunities for gulf producing states as well as further reduce the […]

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U.S. Energy Rigs Drop for Second Week, Baker Hughes Says

Rigs targeting oil and natural gas in the U.S. declined by seven this week to 1,764, according to Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) Oil rigs increased by seven to 1,423, the most since August 2012, data posted on the company’s website show. The gas count dropped by 14 to 337, the lowest level since 1995, the Houston-based field services company said. The total rig count has fallen by 21 this month as a series of storms dumped snow and ice on the Gulf Coast and the eastern U.S., slowing oil- and gas-drilling operations in major plays. The Energy Department cut crude-output forecasts by 120,000 barrels a day for this year and 100,000 for 2015. The forecasts were cut on “indications that severe weather this winter has caused temporary slowdowns in completing new wells,” the Energy Information Administration in Washington said in its short-term energy outlook released Feb. 11. U.S. oil […]

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