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Iran uses maritime confrontations to project power in Gulf

ANKARA Iran is using its sea power in the Gulf to show it will not be cowed by Washington’s newly assertive Arab allies, prompting critics to accuse Tehran of destabilizing the region. Iranian ships fired shots at a Singapore-flagged tanker which it said damaged an Iranian oil platform, causing the vessel to flee, and seized a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil route, over a debt row. The incidents coincided with a push by Washington to reassure Gulf Arab monarchies that their interests would not be threatened by a nuclear accord that Tehran and world powers are trying to reach by the end of June. In an escalating confrontation with Saudi Arabia over Yemen, Tehran criticized Arab states for recklessness and brutality in that country, where a Saudi-led coalition is attacking an Iranian-allied militia. Iran has also sent an aid ship, the Iran […]

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No contact with U.S. on oil, Iran says

Iran hasn’t been in contact with representatives in the U.S. oil sector, contract revision official says. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI TEHRAN, May 18 (UPI) — Though doors may be opening to the Iranian oil sector, the government in Tehran hasn’t been in contact with any U.S. companies, a top official said Monday. Iran aims to do away with buy-back contract offers, whereby the host country agrees to buy produced hydrocarbons at a set price, and replace them with joint venture projects in an effort to woo foreign companies back to the Iranian energy sector. Mehdi Hosseni, the head of a contract revision committee in the Iranian Oil Ministry, said nearly a dozen new exploration and production projects are envisioned under the terms of a new contract regime under review. Iran’s oil minister in early March hosted multinational corporate representatives at a four-day energy conference in Tehran. Prior to […]

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Fall of Ramadi to ISIS Highlights Iraqi Premier’s Weakening Authority

Photo Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq at the Capitol in Washington last month. Credit James Lawler Duggan/Reuters BAGHDAD — The campaign to retake Anbar Province from the Islamic State was supposed to be Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s show. The script went like this: American air power plus a ground force of Iraqi security forces and local Sunni tribal fighters would push out the militants, with Iran and its Shiite militias nowhere to be seen. Now, with Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, fully in the hands of the Islamic State , thousands of Shiite militiamen on Monday were rushing to Sunni territory to try to turn the fight around, officials said. And Mr. Abadi’s rivals within Iraq ’s Shiite political bloc, many of whom accuse him of doing too much to work with Sunnis rather than just empowering the militias, were enjoying another setback for the increasingly weakened prime […]

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Senate bills would give more coastal states offshore revenue shares

US senators introduced a trio of bills on May 11 to establish or increase shares of federal revenue with states that have federal oil and gas leases off their coasts. Measures sponsored by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) will be discussed with 23 others dealing with energy supplies during a May 19 committee hearing. The bills would establish offshore revenue sharing in areas adjacent to their sponsors’ states. Warner’s bill, S. 1279 , differs from the other two because it’s bipartisan. Cosponsors are Virginia’s other US Senator, Timothy M. Kaine (D), as well as Republicans from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Murkowski’s bill, S. 1278 , includes a provision that directs 2.5% of qualified revenue for Alaska’s higher education institutions and workforce investment boards to provide training programs for pipeline and environmental management employees. Another 2.5% […]

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U.S. fears Shi’ite militias could worsen Iraqi sectarian fires

WASHINGTON The use of Shi’ite militias to try to take back the Iraqi city of Ramadi from Islamic State risks unleashing more sectarian bloodletting, current and former U.S. officials said, but Washington and Baghdad appear to have few other options. The prospect of Iranian-backed militias leading efforts to retake Ramadi underlines Washington’s dwindling options to defeat Islamic State in Iraq, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s grip on power weak, a national army still in its infancy and Tehran increasingly assertive. Islamic State’s capture of Ramadi, despite months of U.S.-led air strikes and military advice, marked a fresh low for the shattered Iraqi army, which beat a chaotic retreat from the city over the weekend. Abadi immediately turned to the Shi’ite militia groups, backed by Iran, which together have become the most powerful military force in Iraq since the national army first collapsed last June in the face of sweeping […]

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Islamic State Solidifies Foothold in Libya to Expand Reach

ENLARGE An image made available by an Islamist media outlet in February purports to show Islamic State militants parading in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Islamic State leaders in Syria have sent money, trainers and fighters to Libya in increasing numbers, raising new concerns for the U.S. that the militant group is gaining traction in its attempts to broaden its reach and expand its influence. In recent months, U.S. military officials said, Islamic State has solidified its foothold in Libya as it searches for ways to capitalize on rising popularity among extremist groups around the world. “ISIL now has an operational presence in Libya, and they have aspirations to make Libya their African hub,” said one U.S. military official, using an acronym for the group. “Libya is part of their terror map now.” Islamic State’s growth as a powerful anti-Western force has militant groups […]

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ISIS Fighters Seized Advantage in Iraq Attack by Striking During Sandstorm

Photo Iraqis displaced when Islamic State fighters took control of Ramadi last week waited to cross a bridge on their way to Baghdad. Credit Ahmed Ali/European Pressphoto Agency WASHINGTON — Islamic State fighters used a sandstorm to help seize a critical military advantage in the early hours of the terrorist group’s attack on the provincial Iraqi capital of Ramadi last week, helping to set in motion an assault that forced Iraqi security forces to flee, current and former American officials said Monday. The sandstorm delayed American warplanes and kept them from launching airstrikes to help the Iraqi forces, as the Islamic State fighters evidently anticipated. The fighters used the time to carry out a series of car bombings followed by a wave of ground attacks in and around the city that eventually overwhelmed the American-backed Iraqi forces. Once the storm subsided, Islamic State and Iraqi forces were intermingled in […]

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Venezuelan Officials Suspected of Turning Country into Global Cocaine Hub

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. http://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelan-officials-suspected-of-turning-country-into-global-cocaine-hub-1431977784 U.S. probe targets No. 2 official Diosdado Cabello, several others, on suspicion of drug trafficking and money laundering ENLARGE Diosdado Cabello, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, is a leading target of U.S. investigations into alleged drug trafficking and money laundering by senior officials in the South American nation, a Justice Department official said. Mr. Cabello has denied wrongdoing. Photo: Marco Bello/Reuters U.S. prosecutors are investigating several high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including the president of the country’s congress, on suspicion that they have turned the country into a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the probes. An elite unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington and federal prosecutors in New York and Miami are building […]

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Environmental Trial Tests Beijing’s Nerve on Pollution

ENLARGE Environmental groups are suing to try to restore a wooded area in Nanping, in China’s Fujian province, that they allege was illegally stripped by mine operators. Photo: Friends of Nature BEIJING—An environmental dispute involving a stone quarry in southeastern China marks the first test of a new government effort to use the courts to help clean up the country’s massive pollution problems . In a trial that began Friday in China’s southeastern Fujian province, environmental groups accused four mine operators of stripping a mountainous area of trees and causing about two hectares’ worth of damage. They are suing to either force the defendants to restore the area themselves or pay 1.1 million yuan ($177,000) for a third party to do so. For their part, the defendants have said that the group doesn’t have the right to sue and disputed the sum requested, saying that the way it was […]

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