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Series of Bombings Kills More Than 20 Across Iraq

A suicide bomber blew up himself near a security checkpoint in Kirkuk on Sunday. BAGHDAD — Militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria gained control of the main road that links Baghdad with the northern provinces for a short time on Sunday, while a series of explosions around Iraq left up to 25 dead, according to security forces. In the deadliest blast of the day, a car bomb was detonated as a joint patrol for the police and army passed through Mosul in the north, killing 10 and wounding 12 others, the security forces said. Members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a powerful jihadist group once affiliated with Al Qaeda, kidnapped five people, including an oil executive, who were traveling on the road in Salahuddin Province that links the north to the capital. All of the attacks came less than a week after the […]

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Prime Minister of Libya Says He Will Resign

Libya’s leadership said Sunday that the interim prime minister had declined a parliamentary mandate to form a new government and would step down, in a move likely to compound the difficulties facing a government already divided and facing widespread unrest and militia violence. The interim prime minister, Abdullah al-Thinni, announced on the government’s website that he was leaving his post but would stay on as leader of the cabinet until a replacement could be found. He is the second Libyan prime minister to resign within two months, underlining the nation’s instability after the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011. Mr. Thinni said that he was stepping down “to protect the interests of the country and so as not to drag different sides into fighting when there can be no winner.” He also said his decision was related to an armed attack on him and his […]

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Discontent Swells as President of Algeria Seeks a Fourth Term

With a presidential election on Thursday, most Algerians see a fourth term for the incumbent, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, as a foregone conclusion. Mr. Bouteflika has already been in power 15 years. In the last election in 2009, he was returned to office with an improbable 90 percent of the vote. So tightly controlled is this North African country that, virtually alone in the region, it passed on the Arab Spring. Yet even as the re-election of Mr. Bouteflika, 77, appears inevitable, his insistence on running again, despite his apparent frail health, has increased popular exasperation, revealed unusual signs of division within the ruling elite and provoked an unlikely show of solidarity among opposition parties, both secular and Islamic, which have united in a call to boycott the election. Exceptionally, a nascent urban middle-class youth movement, Barakat! (“Enough!” in Arabic), styled along the lines of the protests organized through […]

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Two Libyan Oil Facilities on Verge of Reopening

An oil terminal in eastern Libya, which has been occupied by rebels, is on the cusp of loading its first tanker since the takeover, and another terminal has restarted operations, an oil official said Sunday. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, The news is the latest sign Libya’s embattled oil industry could be on its way back to recovery follows a deal between the government and the rebels who had occupied terminals in eastern Libya since the summer seeking greater autonomy in the region, Muhammad el-Harari, a spokesman for Libya’s National Oil Corp., said a first tanker will "start loading one million barrels late Sunday or early Monday" from the Hariga terminal. The group, led by militia chief Ibrahim al-Jathran, has also agreed to leave Zueitina terminal. The rebels have yet to reach an agreement with the government on two larger ports, Ras Lanuf and Es-Sider. The oil company […]

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Sudan: Three-Month Crisis As Fuel Shortage Silences Water Pumps in Gireida, South Darfur

The displaced inhabitants of camps in Gireida locality, South Darfur, face an acute shortage of drinking water as a result of a lack of fuel. One of the camp sheikhs told Radio Dabanga that the crisis in the camp has entered its third month. This is in spite of the fact that the authorities levy fees from all the displaced families to provide fuel. He said that two tins of water from the station within the city now cost SDG 1.5 ($0.26). The sheikh appealed to the authorities to speed-up resolving the problem because the displaced lack the resources and the financial means to fetch water.   Copyright © 2014 Radio Dabanga. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media ( allAfrica.com ). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. […]

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Blast rips up busy bus station in Nigerian capital

An explosion has blasted through a busy commuter bus station on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, as hundreds of people were traveling to work. Many are feared dead. The blast destroyed more than 30 vehicles and caused secondary explosions as their fuel tanks exploded and burned. The Boko Haram terrorist network has been threatening to attack the capital, in the middle of the country and hundreds of miles from its traditional base in the northeast, where it has killed hundreds of people this year. The Islamic extremists claimed a 2011 suicide bombing by two explosives-laden cars that drove into the lobby of the United Nations office building in Abuja. It killed at least 21 people and wounded 60.

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China Blames Oil Leak for Water Contamination

A crude-oil leak contaminated a northwest Chinese city’s water supply and spurred panicked buying of bottled drinking water over the weekend, deepening nationwide concerns over public health risks from environmental hazards. The government in the city of Lanzhou, the capital of northwest Gansu province, said on Friday that tests had revealed that levels of benzene, a carcinogen, measured . The official Xinhua news agency reported that oil had leaked from a pipeline owned by a local unit of state-controlled oil company China National Petroleum Corp. The government’s disclosure prompted residents to rush to buy bottled water in the city. Photos posted online showed hordes of shoppers loading cases of water into shopping carts. Officials said the Yellow River, a major waterway in the area, hadn’t been contaminated. Some 2.4 million people in the city were affected by the contaminated water, Xinhua reported. A spokesman for the oil company referred […]

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Beef prices reach highest level since 1987

The highest beef prices in decades have some consumers spending extra time in meat market aisles as they search for cuts that won’t break their budgets. AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki Shrinking cattle supply, water shortage and growing exports have caused prices to soar and diets to change Beef prices have hit their highest level in almost three decades, causing sticker shock for both consumers and restaurant owners — and relief isn’t likely anytime soon. A  dwindling number of cattle  and growing export demand from countries such as China and Japan have caused the average retail cost of fresh beef to climb to $5.28 a pound in February, up almost a quarter from January and the highest price since 1987. Everything that is produced is being consumed, said Kevin Good, […]

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IMF: North American boom to keep oil prices low

The International Monetary Fund said global crude oil prices have been relatively lower because of the growth in oil supply from North America. With U.S. oil production on pace to eclipse 9 million barrels per day near term, the trend should continue through next year. Skip to next paragraph Nearly all of the growth in global oil production is coming from the United States and Canada. Combined, North American production growth is around 1.2 million barrels per day from U.S. shale oil and Canadian oil sands. IMF said this growth was spilling over to the global marketplace. "Crude oil prices have edged lower, mainly as a result of the continued supply surge in North America," it  said . (Related Article:  Russian Sanctions and the Negative Effect on Global Energy Security ) The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its market  report  for April it expected the price for Brent […]

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Big Oil comes up short in shale

Eons before the first wildcatters smelled oil in West Texas, massive slabs of eroded sediment had fused and folded into thick bands underground, trapping the primordial sludge in layers of earth too deep to reach until modern-day engineers discovered a way. The technological breakthroughs of the past half-decade have made the plains near Odessa and Midland — long considered past their prime — some of the most coveted land in the nation. Pioneer Natural Resources, an Irving, Texas-based independent producer that has been active in the region for decades, estimates that two key Permian Basin plays hold 75 billion barrels of oil in stacked stone wedges. “We have six Bakkens sitting on top of each other,” Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield said recently, referring to North Dakota’s prolific Bakken Shale. But the same North American oil patches that have lifted Pioneer and other independent oil producers to an unprecedented status […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple