Category:

Iranian Foreign Minister Questions Western Commitment to Nuclear Deal

The Iranian foreign minister raised doubts about the West’s commitment to resolving the nuclear standoff in a pointed message to visiting European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. Baroness Ashton met on Sunday with President Hasan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, Ali Larijani, the powerful speaker of the parliament, and Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was her first visit to the country and one of the highest-profile visits by a Western official since nuclear talks advanced late last year. The talks covered a range of issues from Iran’s disputed nuclear program to the conflict in Syria, human rights and Afghanistan. After lengthy talks, Mr. Zarif publicly questioned the West’s commitment to a full nuclear deal and about whether an interim deal reached in November was being properly implemented. "It is up to the other side [to] come to the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Libya Vows to Block Tanker Attempt to Lift Oil in Rebel Port

Libya ’s government vowed to prevent a tanker from leaving a rebel-held oil port as it struggles to reassert control over the nation’s main source of revenue. The vessel arrived on March 8 in Es Sider, the nation’s largest oil-export terminal, after Libyan armed forces refused government orders to fire on the ship, Prime Minister Ali Zaidan said in Tripoli, the capital. Air force officers told Zaidan they didn’t want to risk harming civilians or causing an oil spill , the Libya Herald newspaper reported. Navy vessels have moved to stop the tanker from leaving, Culture Minister Habib Lamin told a news conference yesterday. “The government should now actively seek a solution” with rebels in the self-proclaimed eastern region of Barqa, Asma Sraibah, a member of parliament, said yesterday in a telephone interview in the capital city. “It would be a disaster if the government loses its main source […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Nigerians Ask Why Oil Funds Are Missing

Even in a country where untold oil wealth disappears into the pockets of the elite, the oil corruption scheme he was investigating seemed outsize — and he threatened to lay it bare at a meeting with Nigeria ’s top bankers. The rabble-rouser was none other than the governor of the country’s central bank. Weeks later, however, he was out, fired by Nigeria’s president in an episode that has shaken the Nigerian economy, filled newspapers and airwaves here, and even inspired a rare street demonstration. The bankers were going to have to open their books, the governor, Lamido Sanusi, warned them at the recent meeting. He wanted to see where the money was going — $20 billion from oil sales that, mysteriously, was not making its way to the treasury, in a country that could soon be declared Africa’s biggest economy and already attracts the most direct […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Nigeria: Fuel Price Hits the Skies, As Scarcity Bites Harder

Fuel scarcity has hit virtually all parts of the country, with scanty evidence that it will abate soon. Aside the irritating scarcity, the hike in the pump price of fuel in some parts of the North has added agony to both dealers and consumers of the commodity, often referred to as ‘black gold,’ reports Weekly Trust. It has been weeks of scarcity of fuel across Nigeria, as motorists spend long hours in queues at filling stations to buy what many now call ‘black gold.’ But what has remained a constant headache to consumers of the commodity is the price hike that has come with the scarcity, at the few filling stationswhich open occasionally. In Kaduna, the fuel shortage has led to long queues in petrol stations, with a concomitant increase in pump price. Investigations revealed that the price of fuel ranges between N100 and N130 per litre, depending on […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Venezuela National Guard attacks barriers

People in the western Venezuelan city of San Cristobal, where the current eruption of anti-government unrest began early last month, say National Guard troops have attacked and dismantled barricades that protesters had raised at key intersections. Local TV journalist Beatriz Font and other witnesses say guardsmen fired a lot of tear gas, including at nearby residential buildings, according to The Associated Press. They say the attack began before midnight and continued into early Monday. Font said the guardsmen broke windows and several people reported from apartment buildings near the intersections that children and elderly people were being affected by the gas. The disturbance began a day after hundreds of National Guardsmen in riot gear and armored vehicles prevented an "empty pots march" from reaching Venezuela’s Food Ministry on Saturday to protest now-chronic food shortages. President Nicolas Maduro’s government, meanwhile, celebrated an Organization of American States (OAS) declaration supporting its […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Poor China exports data damp mood

Disappointing economic data from China, alongside lingering tensions over Ukraine, are causing certain growth-focused assets to retreat at the start of the week. The FTSE All-World equity index is down 0.1 per cent, industrial commodity prices are lower and funds are moving into fixed-income “havens”. Gold is down $6 to $1,334 an ounce. However, the mood has improved since the European session got under way, leaving markets looking muddled as the day’s negative catalysts encounter the underlying long-term bullish trend. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 started down 0.2 per cent, hurt by weak mining stocks and not helped by fears of an escalation of the crisis in Ukraine as media report the continued expansion of Russia’s military presence in the region. The Russian and Ukrainian stock markets are closed for Women’s Day. But the Europe-wide benchmark is now up 0.5 per cent, tracking a rebound by […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China Cities Flunk Air-Quality Test

A man exercises in the morning as he faces chimneys emitting smoke behind buildings across the Songhua River in Jilin. Reuters When it comes to China’s bad air problem, Beijing usually gets all the attention. But it has plenty of company. Only three of the 74 cities monitored by China’s own environmental authorities measured up in terms of air quality last year. According to Wu Xiaoqing, a deputy minister at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the 74 cities were measured against newly introduced air quality standards for particulate matters and gases. The five worst offenders were all in the northern province of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing. Xingtai led the list followed by Shijiazhuang, Handan, Tangshan and Baoding. Hengshui and Langfang, also in Hebei, were in the top ten. But the problem was far more widespread. Xian, Zhengzhou and Jinan were among the worst. Other cities in the monitoring sample […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China auto sales down from record high

China’s automobile sales fell in February from a record high in January mainly due to holiday factors, new data showed on Monday. Sales amounted to 1.6 million units last month, down 25.97 percent from 2.16 million units in January, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said in a statement. Production dropped 20.18 percent from a month earlier to 1.64 million units, the statement said. The association attributed the drops mainly to distortion from the Spring Festival holiday, which ran from Jan. 31 to Feb. 6. On a year-on-year basis, the auto industry maintained strong growth, with sales up 17.84 percent and production surging 21.53 percent. In the first two months of the year, automobile sales rose 10.73 percent from a year earlier to 3.75 million units and production increased by 11.38 percent to 3.69 million units, the CAAM said. China has been the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

After Fukushima, Utilities Prepare for Worst

Stored near the twin nuclear reactors here, safely above the flood level of the Susquehanna River, is a gleaming new six-wheel pickup truck with a metal blade on the front that can plow away debris from an earthquake or other disaster. Attached to the back is a trailer that carries a giant diesel-powered pump that can deliver 500 gallons of water a minute. If the operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan had owned such equipment when the tsunami struck three years ago Tuesday, they might have staved off disaster, plant operators say. Now, here at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant, which has the same […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Keystone Foes Try Flattery to Sway Kerry Against Pipeline

Environmentalists are praising Secretary of State John Kerry in hopes of burying, figuratively speaking, the Keystone XL pipeline. Bill Burton , a former press secretary to President Barack Obama who is helping a coalition of environmental groups opposed to the project, calls Kerry, “one of the great climate leaders of his generation.” Dan Weiss, climate strategy director at the Center for American Progress, put Kerry on par with environmental icons like the naturalist John Muir and anti-pollution writer Rachel Carson. Academy Award winner Jared Leto, along with other activists, sent a letter last week urging him to take a stand against Keystone as he did against the Vietnam War as a young veteran in testimony to a Senate committee in 1971. “We dare to believe that it’s not just an accident of history that this recommendation falls to you,” the group wrote. The accolades are piling up just as […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple