US-Iran tensions, who are terrorists?

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Iran blacklists Pentagon, U.S. forces as 'terrorists'

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The Soleimani Assassination | Start Here

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Iran designates all US forces 'terrorists'

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This is what a US-Iran war could look like

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Soleimani's burial underway in his hometown of Kerman, Iran 苏莱曼尼遗体在故乡安葬

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Attacks underway on multiple locations in Iraq -U.S. official .

High alert: Iran strikes back at US with missile attack at bases ...

Iran launches large attack on U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Pentagon says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States believes there have been potentially multiple attacks on locations in Iraq, including the al Asad airbase that hosts U.S. forces, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, without providing additional information.

It was unclear what other sites may have been attacked. Tensions have mounted with Iran following a U.S. drone strike on Friday that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

Another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had confirmed to Reuters earlier that a rocket attack had taken place against al Asad airbase, but did not confirm other sites.

U.S. President Donald Trump visited the base in his December 2018 trip to Iraq.

Iran's parliament designates all US forces as 'terrorists'

The Iranian parliament approved bill on Tuesday that designates United States military forces as terrorists, days after American airstrikes killed top Iranian military leader General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq. The bill is similar to the action the U.S. took last year when the Trump administration designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization.

Members of parliament passed the bill declaring the U.S. military and the Pentagon terrorist entities, according to Iranian state media. Under the bill, the Iranian government will also provide $220 million to the IRGC to "reinforce its defense power in vengeance for General Soleimani's assassination," the news agency reported, as tensions between the U.S. and Iran rise. Iranian parliament voted to designated the U.S. military and the Pentagon terrorist organizations

 

This handout picture shows Iranian lawmakers raising their hands to vote during a parliamentary session in Tehran. Iran's parliament passed a bill designating all U.S. forces "terrorists" over the killing of a top Iranian military commander in an airstrike last week. Icana News Agency

A senior U.S. official told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered a direct attack on American interests in retaliation for the airstrike that killed Soleimani, his top military commander and friend. The official said the U.S. military was "extremely concerned" that the retaliation could come quickly.

When asked by CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer on Tuesday when the Iranian response would come, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif would only say that his country would retaliate at the time of its choosing. While a senior Iranian commander threatened at Soleimani's funeral to "set ablaze" America's supporters in the region, Zarif told CBS News the response would be "proportionate" and "against legitimate targets."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continued leading the Trump administration's defense of the targeted missile strike that killed Soleimani. He insisted that President Trump was right to order the killing and dismissed Iran's claim that Soleimani was in Iraq for diplomatic purposes.

In April, the U.S. declared the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, which makes it illegal for anyone to provide material support to the group. The U.S. Defense Department used the Guard's designation to support the strike last week that killed Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds military force and one of the most powerful figures in the Islamic Republic


Read more:

Iran launches missiles at US airbases in Iraq in retaliation for killing of commander 

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday targeted U.S. bases in Iraq including al-Asad and Harir Camp to the north of Erbil with a second wave of surface-to-surface missiles, semi-official Fars news agency reported

• Iranian embassy to China trending on Chinese social media after rockets hit US bases
• US, Iran need to restrain to avoid WWI repeat after rocket attack: ex-envoy

• US naïve to think Iran won't fight back

  What is happening to Iran is another version of the “America First” policy. But this is a globalized world. How can the US not be affected when the Middle East is in a bad condition? Will it be good for the US if a large-scale Iran war breaks out? If Washington does not want that, why create uncertainty? Is it responsible to take the bet? 

US global economic terrorism

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Global financial markets are facing a stark wake-up call that they need to unite to stand against acts of what can only be described as economic terrorism by a country which unilaterally imposes its will on others and pursues its own goals at the cost of the interests of others.

More than a year after US President Donald Trump fired the first tariff salvo at China, he is extending the battlefield around the world. On Friday, his administration announced that it will end special trade treatment for India, removing a status that exempts billions of dollars of the South Asian country's products from US tariffs. Trump is seriously mulling slapping tariffs on Mexican imports as he believes the country has taken advantage of the US for decades.

Even close allies cannot trust they will be exempt from Trump's tariff addiction. It was reported that the administration considered imposing tariffs on imports from Australia, but eventually decided against the move amid opposition from his aides, "at least temporarily."

Obviously, Trump, a businessman-turned president, is aiming his trigger finger regardless of the targets, be they US competitors or allies. Trump grumbles about his country subsidizing the world and weakening US industry and pledges to make America great again. But he doesn't realize that a great superpower is supposed to provide public goods rather than resorting to coercion for selfish gains. His tactics are nothing short of economic terrorism.

The International Air Transport Association has estimated that the US-China trade war and high fuel prices will wipe $7.5 billion off expected airline profits in 2019. This is just the figure from the airline industry, which is enough to show the disastrous impact the US-initiated economic terrorism has on the globe. Trump may disrupt the global supply chain with the US' economic clout, but how can a disrupted global supply chain serve the US' strategic objectives of being a great country?

What is worse, before the US becomes great again as the president wishes, he is actually employing the strategy of blocking other countries to take the lead, as we see in his actions in quashing Huawei's 5G advancement.

Later this month, leaders from the world's top economies will meet at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan to discuss key economic issues that plague the world. The conventional views of globalization and its benefits are still shared by most countries, and many countries and regions are continuing to open their economies. They should unite to face the chaos created by the Trump administration and find a way forward, so the process of globalization will not be held hostage by the US' economic terrorism. - By Zhang Yi


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China says US trade provocations are 'naked economic terrorism

• Trump's new tariffs on Mexico "wakeup call" to global markets, says US neconomist
• White House official defends Trump's tariffs on Mexico despite wide-ranging criticism
• Trump to end preferential trade treatment for India on June 5

Provoking trade rows is 'naked economic terrorism', says China ...

China aligns with world order by improving it

As a civilization that is thousands of years old, China has always been integrating into the current international system and taking responsibility to defend the international order after the world wars and the international rule of law coming into force. At the same time, China is dedicated to promoting democratization and legalization of international relations.

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A screen shot of Liu Xin of China Global Television Network appearing on Trish Regan's show on Fox Business Network on Thursday Beij.

China lays out official stance on trade talks with U.S.in white paper

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CHINA AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY COOPERATION by Gen. Wei Fenghe, State Councilor and Minister of National Defense, PRC

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Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei survived a famine, but can he weather President Trump?

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• Ren Zhengfei leads Huawei Technologies, one of the world's largest manufacturer of telecommunication hardware and mobile phones.
• Ren is the son of school teachers and grew up in a mountainous town in southern China's Guizhou Province.
• Ren held technician posts in China's military and worked for Shenzhen South Sea Oil before establishing Huawei with the equivalent of $3,000 in 1987.
• Huawei today does business in more than 170 countries with 180,000 employees.

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Mr Ren Zhengfei survived Mao Zedong's great famine and went on to build a telecom giant with US$92 billion in revenue that strikes fear among some policymakers in the West.PHOTO: EPA-EFE

HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) - At the sprawling Huawei Technologies campus in Shenzhen, the foodcourt's walls are emblazoned with quotes from the company's billionaire founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei.

Then there's the research lab that resembles the White House in Washington. Perhaps the most curious thing, though, are three black swans paddling around a lake.

For Mr Ren, a former People's Liberation Army soldier turned telecom tycoon, the elegant birds are meant as a reminder to avoid complacency and prepare for unexpected crisis. That pretty much sums up the state of affairs at Huawei, whose chief financial officer, Ms Meng Wanzhou, who's also Mr Ren's daughter, is in custody in Canada and faces extradition to the United States on charges of conspiracy to defraud banks and violate sanctions on Iran.

The arrest places Huawei in the cross-hairs of an escalating technology rivalry between China and the US, which views the company, a critical global supplier of mobile network equipment, as a potential national security risk.

Hardliners in President Donald Trump's administration are especially keen to prevent Huawei from supplying wireless carriers as they upgrade to 5G, a next-generation technology expected to accelerate the shift to Internet-connected devices and self-driving cars.

Mr Ren is a legendary figure in the Chinese business world. He survived Mao Zedong's great famine and went on to build a telecom giant with US$92 billion (S$126 billion) in revenue that strikes fear among some policymakers in the West. Huawei is the No. 1 smartphone maker in China, and this year eclipsed Apple to become second maker globally, according to research firm IDC.

Though it has a low profile compared with China's Internet giants, Huawei's revenue last year was more than Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings and and Baidu Inc combined. About half of its revenue now comes from abroad, led by Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The company's high-speed global expansion has come under fire for years, starting with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US' derailing of an acquisition in 2008. More recently, Australia, New Zealand and the US have blocked or limited the use of Huawei gear.

The arrest and prosecution of Ms Meng in US courts comes amid a far bigger US-China struggle for technology dominance in the decades ahead - and could have huge, and potentially severe, consequences for Huawei. Mr Ren declined an interview request from Bloomberg News.

"It gives Trump a bargaining chip," said Mr George Magnus, an economist at Oxford University's China Centre. "She's the daughter of the CEO, Ren Zhengfei, himself a former PLA officer, and Huawei's alleged dealings with Iran are just the latest in a string of concerns."

An outright ban on buying American technology and components, should it come to that, would deal Huawei a crushing blow. Earlier this year, the Trump administration imposed just such a penalty on ZTE Corp, also a Chinese telecom, and threatened its very survival before backing down.

Both Huawei and ZTE are banned from most US government procurement work.

A full-blown, commercial ban in the US would not only apply to hardware components, but also cut off access to the software and patents of US companies, Mr Edison Lee and Mr Timothy Chau, analysts with Jefferies Securities, wrote in a report.

"If Huawei cannot license Android from Google, or Qualcomm's patents in 4G and 5G radio access technology, it will not be able to build smartphones or 4G/5G base stations," they note.

The company's legal troubles in the US may also spill into other markets.

"Government telecommunication infrastructure requirements are essentially locking out the Chinese supplier in critical growth markets," noted Morningstar Research equity analyst Mark Cash in an e-mail. "Additionally, telecom providers without government imposed restrictions may start limiting their usage of Huawei equipment for their 5G network build-outs."

If there's a Darth Vader in the minds of Chinese national security hawks in Washington worried about China's rising tech power, it's Mr Ren. In China, though, he's feted as a national hero, who rose from humble beginnings to the pinnacle of wealth and status in Chinese society.

His grandfather was a master of curing ham in his village in Zhejiang province, which afforded Mr Ren's father the chance to become the village's first university student, according to a 2001 essay by Mr Ren about his upbringing, which was published on a website linked to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

His father, Mr Ren Moxun, was a Communist Youth League member, who later worked as a teacher and an accountant at a military factory, but who kept up his rebel fervour under the Kuomintang by selling revolutionary books.

After moving to rural Guizhou province, he met his wife Cheng Yuanzhao and gave birth to Mr Ren Zhengfei, the oldest of two sons and five daughters.

The family lived on modest teaching salaries. In one of Mr Ren's speeches, he remembered how his mother read him the story of Hercules, but withheld the ending until he came home with a good report card.

Famine Years

During the Great Leap Forward campaign that started in the late 1950s, a famine came to his home town after Communist Party industrialisation and collectivisation policies went off the rails. Mr Ren recalled in his essay how his mother stuffed into his hand each morning a piece of corn pancake while asking about his homework. His good grades gained him entry to the Chongqing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture.

After graduation, he worked in the civil engineering industry until 1974, when he joined the PLA's Engineering Corps as a soldier, and worked on a chemical fibre base in Liaoyang. Huawei says he rose to become deputy director, but did not hold military rank. He does, however, often pepper his speeches with military references.

"Our managers and experts need to act like generals, carefully examining maps and meticulously studying problems," Mr Ren said in a speech posted on a website for Huawei employees.

Mr Ren's Communist Party credentials aren't as deep as his father's. He attended the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party in 1982, and once cited the party's dogma of "a struggle that never ends" when defending the company's tough work hours.

But Mr Ren was a bookworm as a child and was denied acceptance into the Communist Youth League, according to the book Huawei: Leadership, Culture And Connectivity, a book co-authored by David De Cremer, Tian Tao and Wu Chunbo.

He didn't become a Communist Party member in the PLA until late in his military career. However, a 2012 House permanent Select Committee on Intelligence report on Huawei asked why a private company had a Communist Party Committee, which has become common among China's Internet giants.

Mr Ren retired from the army in 1983, and joined his first wife to work at a Shenzhen company involved in the city's special economic zone. It was around then that he had to sell off everything to pay a debt related to a business partner, and lost his job at Shenzhen Nanyou Group, as well as his first marriage, according to Ren Zhengfei And Huawei by author Li Hongwen.

Comeback Play

After a period of sleepless nights while living with family members, Mr Ren saw an opportunity. When China began its economic opening under Deng Xiaoping, the telephone penetration rate was lower than the average rate in Africa, or 120th in the world. He founded Huawei with four partners in 1987 with 21,000 yuan in initial working capital, just above the minimum threshold required under Shenzhen rules.

Huawei started out as a trader of telecom equipment, but the company's technicians studied up on switchboards and were soon making their own. Workers put in long hours in Shenzhen's swampy heat with only ceiling fans. Mr Ren kept up morale with subtle gestures, like offering pigtail soup to workers putting in overtime.

The company became known for its "mattress culture" in which workers would pass out on office mattresses from exhaustion. In 2006, a 25-year-old worker Hu Xinyu, who had made a habit of working into the wee hours and then sleeping at the office, died of viral encephalitis. Some Huawei employees subsequently committed suicide.

The deaths triggered a revision of the company policy on overtime, and the creation of a chief health and safety officer role.

It wasn't the only move Mr Ren made to stabilise morale. He used to pay his workers only half their salaries on payday, but eventually decided to convert the other half of employee salaries and bonuses into shares. The company's 2017 report shows that he has a 1.4 per cent stake, giving him a net worth of US$2 billion.

Wolf Culture

Huawei struggled for market share, with foreign companies using so-called "wolf culture" of aggressive salesmanship, which sometimes materialised in the form of Huawei employees flooding sales events with several times more salespeople than competitors.

The company ventured into international markets in the 2000s, with telecom equipment that was more affordable than products of competitors such as Cisco Systems. Huawei later admitted to copying a small portion of router code from Cisco and agreed to remove the tainted code in a settlement.

Mr Ren since stepped up the company's research and development. Of its 180,000 employees, about 80,000 are now involved in R&D, according to the company's 2017 report, and the company has been known to recruit some of China's top talent out of universities.

The company recently refocused on existing markets after the US government called Huawei a national security threat, and cited concerns over its possible control of 5G technologies. Mr Trump signed a Bill banning government use of Chinese tech including Huawei's, and has even contacted allies to get them to avoid using Huawei equipment.

Collectively owned by its employees, the company is known for a culture of discipline, in which no one, Mr Ren included, has their own driver or flies first class on the company dime. Lately, Mr Ren has been warning employees against using fake numbers or profit to enhance performance. The company set up a data verification team in 2014 within the finance department, which was overseen by Mr Ren's daughter.

In a recent speech posted on the Huawei employee network, however, he called for patience with critics, but rejected foreign intervention. "We will never give in or yield to pressure from outside," he said.

That maxim is going to be soon put to the test by the US Department of Justice.


Source: Bloomberg

Related:

Huawei CFO 'unlikely' to be extradited

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei, who was granted a $7.5 million bail, is unlikely to be extradited to the US because she is charged for political reasons, analysts said.


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China's Chang'e-4 spacecraft, a world's first mission to moon's far side, boosts Beijing a space superpower

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Did Huawei violate Iran sanctions? No, it shows deeper US-China battle for global influence as power coming from high-tech sector

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Professor Dr. Wang
Former Executive of Halliburton

DID HUAWEI VIOLATE IRAN SANCTIONS?

No, they didn’t.

CFO Meng was arrested supposedly for “violating Iran sanction”. This has to be the most grotesque distortion of justice since the US was the country who unilaterally pulled out IN VIOLATION of an agreement they had signed with multiple nations earlier !!! In other words, the guy who broke a solemn promise made, violated the agreement, then made sanction an American domestic law is now force feeding this law arbitrarily on the rest of the world by arresting someone who refuses to violate the agreement ! Is this making any sense to anybody?

Huawei created a subsidiary to do business with Iran, and the CFO is being charged with lying about the relationship between Huawei and the subsidiary.

This seems totally ridiculous to me since when I worked at Halliburton, we did EXACTLY the same thing ! Not only was our CEO never arrested, he was invited to join the government & became Vice President Dick Cheney !!!!!!!

The moral of this story is for normal businesses to be extremely vigilant & recognise the true faces of America & Saudi! One tosses you in jail for breaking twisted laws they make up as they go along & the other goes after you with a bone saw. Both are gangsters, far worse than the Mafia, because the Mafia at least have the decency to commit crimes secretively, while the thugs in American & Saudi governments commit their crimes blatantly in the open, with complete disregard to the laws & sovereignty of another country, bullying their way through, trying to justify their actions by smearing the victims... then run publicity campaigns to sway public opinions while accusing others of crimes against human rights.. ??!!

I am sure there are nice people in USA & in Saudi & i don’t want to generalise, but i have seen time & again in the States that if ever their oversized egos feel threatened, they can turn into totally evil, nefarious subhumans capable of the most despicable deeds.

The arrest of Meng is a case in point.

I went to the States starry eyed with high hopes & expectations, ready to learn a democratic system far superior than ours. Well, after my Ph.D and a few working years, I stand corrected.

Life in the States has taught me to be proud of my people and my country. Grass is definitely NOT greener on the other side. America is very strong in “hypes”, they talk big but deliver little. China does the opposite. American government spends on military, lives in “now”, supports the rich, & works for re-election. The Chinese government spends on infrastructure, works for the people, eradicated poverty & follows 5-30 year plans. These are facts, not propaganda, not campaign promises.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be home again. Not only is the food much better, more importantly, I can finally stop worrying myself sick... about my elderly mom getting mucked, my attractive wife getting raped...my children getting bullied, drugged or shot in schools...Having to live in constant fear everyday is the ultimate violation of my human rights.

Gosh, it’s good to be back in civilisation.

Dr. Wang Wins Halliburton

Huawei clash shows deeper US-China battle for global influence as power coming from high-tech sector

Bail hearings proceeded this week after Meng Wanzhou(pic), the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co, was arrested in Canada on Dec 1 because of alleged violations of US sanctions against Iran. The case threatens to derail a trade truce struck the same day between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

HONG KONG: The Trump administration has insisted the arrest of a top Huawei executive has nothing to do with trade talks. In Beijing, it’s just the latest US move to contain China’s rise as a global power.

Bail hearings proceeded this week after Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co, was arrested in Canada on Dec 1 because of alleged violations of US sanctions against Iran. The case threatens to derail a trade truce struck the same day between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

Even if the two leaders manage to strike a broader deal, the arrest shows that the US-China conflict goes far beyond trade. The world’s biggest economies are now engaged in a battle for global influence that will ultimately determine whether the US remains the globe’s predominant superpower, or China rises as a viable counterweight.

“The sentiment in Washington now is not just a Trumpian mercantilism – the desire to bring back factory jobs to Wisconsin or wherever,” said Nick Bisley, a professor of international relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne who has written books on great-power politics. “It is a desire to significantly cut ties with China because of that larger perception it presents a strategic risk.”

A bipartisan consensus has emerged in Washington that China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation hollowed out US manufacturing and allowed it to grow rich. That increased economic power is now at a point where it risks eroding key American military advantages around the globe.

China insists it plays by the rules, and doesn’t challenge US dominance. Even so, three areas in particular worry American strategic planners: Technology, the dollar and the ability to project military power overseas.

A year ago, the White House identified China’s growing technological prowess as a threat to US economic and military might. American companies have long argued that China forces them to transfer intellectual property and sometimes steals trade secrets – all of which Beijing denies.

In justifying tariffs, Trump’s team has cited Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” strategy to become a global leader in state-of-the-art technologies from aerospace to robotics. So far, China has resisted those demands, arguing that doing so would crush its economic potential.

Huawei in particular epitomises the threat. Earlier this year, Trump blocked Broadcom Inc’s US$117bil hostile takeover bid for Qualcomm Inc over concerns that Huawei would end up dominating the market for computer chips and wireless technologies.

The fear is that wireless carriers may be forced to turn to Huawei or other Chinese companies for 5G technology, potentially giving Beijing access to critical communications. Those concerns have prompted the US to ban Huawei’s products for government procurement, and Australia, Japan and New Zealand have reportedly followed.

China has fought back, with foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang saying this week that Huawei didn’t “force any enterprise to install forced backdoors.”

“The competition is really focused in the areas where future strategic and economic dominance come from,” said Michael Shoebridge, director of the defense and strategy programme at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“The Huawei arrest is right in the middle of this because both America and China see their future global power as coming from the high-tech sector.”

The dominance of the dollar has allowed the US to effectively control the world’s financial system, underpinning its superpower status. Yet Trump’s increased use of sanctions to assert its foreign-policy goals has prompted a wide range of nations – from China to Russia to the European Union – to look for an alternative.

The Trump administration added nearly 1,000 entities and individuals to its sanctions list in its first year, almost 30% more than the Obama administration’s last year in office, according to law firm Gibson Dunn. The complete list now runs to more than 1,200 pages.

Sanctions are a key tool for the US to subdue potential adversaries like North Korea, but they also can affect friends and allies. The EU, which objected to reimposing sanctions on Iran, this month unveiled plans to mitigate the so-called “exorbitant privilege” of the dollar.

During a visit to China last month, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the two nations were looking at ways to boost the use of their currencies through allowing the use of China’s UnionPay credit card in Russia and Russia’s Mir card in China. “No one currency should dominate the market,” he said.

“We are potentially at the beginning of a systemic shift that may take some time to play out,” said Gregory Chin, associate professor at York University in Toronto, and a political economy specialist. “The political will is building and coalescing.” — Bloomberg

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Oil Prices: What’s Behind the Drop? Simple Economics

 

    Some think it will be years before oil returns to $90 or $100 a barrel, a price that was pretty much the norm over the last decade. Credit Michael Stravato for The New York Times

The oil industry, with its history of booms and busts, is in its deepest downturn since the 1990s, if not earlier.

Earnings are down for companies that made record profits in recent years, leading them to decommission more than two-thirds of their rigs and sharply cut investment in exploration and production. Scores of companies have gone bankrupt and an estimated  250,000 oil workers have lost their jobs.

The cause is the plunging price of a barrel of oil, which has fallen more than 70 percent since June 2014.

Prices recovered a few times over the last year, but the cost of a barrel of oil has already sunk this year to levels not seen since 2003 as an oil glut has taken hold.

Also contributing to the glut was Iran’s return to the international oil market after sanctions were lifted against the country under an international agreement with major world powers to restrict its nuclear work that took effect in January.

Executives think it will be years before oil returns to $90 or $100 a barrel, a price that was pretty much the norm over the last decade.

What is the current price of oil?

Brent crude, the main international benchmark, was trading at around  $38 a barrel on Wednesday.

The American benchmark was at around $37 a barrel.

Why has the price of oil been dropping? Why now? 

This a complicated question, but it boils down to the simple economics of supply and demand.

United States domestic production has nearly doubled over the last several years, pushing out oil imports that need to find another home. Saudi, Nigerian and Algerian oil that once was sold in the United States is suddenly competing for Asian markets, and the producers are forced to drop prices. Canadian and Iraqi oil production and exports are rising year after year. Even the Russians, with all their economic problems, manage to keep pumping.

There are signs, however, that production is falling because of the drop in exploration investments. RBC Capital Markets has calculated projects capable of producing more than a half million barrels a day of oil were cancelled, delayed or shelved by OPEC countries alone last year, and this year promises more of the same.

But the drop in production is not happening fast enough, especially with output from deep waters off the Gulf of Mexico and Canada continuing to build as new projects come online.

On the demand side, the economies of Europe and developing countries are weak and vehicles are becoming more energy-efficient. So demand for fuel is lagging a bit.

Who benefits from the price drop?

Any motorist can tell you that gasoline prices have dropped. Diesel, heating oil and natural gas prices have also fallen sharply.ny motorist can tell you that gasoline prices have dropped. Diesel, heating oil and natural gas prices have also fallen sharply.

The latest drop in energy prices —  regular gas nationally now averages just above $2 a gallon, roughly down about 40 cents from the same time a year ago — is also disproportionately helping lower-income groups, because fuel costs eat up a larger share of their more limited earnings.

Households that use heating oil to warm their homes are also seeing savings.

Interactive Graphic: Why Oil Is Plummeting »

Who loses?

For starters, oil-producing countries and states. Venezuela, Nigeria, Ecuador, Brazil and Russia are just a few petrostates that are suffering economic and perhaps even political turbulence.

The impact of Western sanctions caused Iranian production to drop by about one million barrels a day in recent years and blocked Iran from importing the latest Western oil field technology and equipment. With sanctions now being lifted, the Iranian oil industry is expected to open the taps on production soon.
In the United States, there are now virtually no wells that are profitable to drill.

Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP have all announced cuts to their payrolls to save cash, and they are in far better shape than many smaller independent oil and gas producers.

States like Alaska, North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana are  facing economic challenges.

There has also been an uptick in traffic deaths as low gas prices have translated to increased road travel. And many young Saudis have seen cushy jobs vanish.

What happened to OPEC?

Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador and Algeria have all pressed OPEC, a cartel of oil producers, to cut production to firm up prices. At the same time, Iraq is actually pumping more, and Iran is expected to become a major exporter again.

Major producing countries will meet on April 17 in Qatar, and some analysts think a cut may be possible, especially if oil prices approach $30 a barrel again.

King Salman, who assumed power in Saudi Arabia in January 2015, may find it difficult to persuade other OPEC members to keep steady against the financial strains, even if Iran continues to increase production. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the revenues of Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies will slip by $300 billion this year.

Interactive Graphic How the U.S. and OPEC Have Controlled Prices »

Is there a conspiracy to bring the price of oil down?

There are a number of conspiracy theories floating around. Even some oil executives are quietly noting that the Saudis want to hurt Russia and Iran, and so does the United States — motivation enough for the two oil-producing nations to force down prices. Dropping oil prices in the 1980s did help bring down the Soviet Union, after all.

But there is no evidence to support the conspiracy theories, and Saudi Arabia and the United States rarely coordinate smoothly. And the Obama administration is hardly in a position to coordinate the drilling of hundreds of oil companies seeking profits and answering to their shareholders.

When are oil prices likely to recover? 

Not anytime soon. Oil production is not declining fast enough in the United States and other countries, though that could begin to change this year. But there are signs that supply and demand — and price — could recover some balance by the end of 2016.

Oil markets have bounced back more than 40 percent since hitting a low of $26.21 a barrel in New York in early February.

Some analysts, however, question how long the recovery can be sustained because the global oil market remains substantially oversupplied. In the United States, domestic stockpiles are at their highest level in more than 80 years, and are still growing.

But over the long term, demand for fuels is recovering in some countries, and that could help crude prices recover in the next year or two. - The New York Times

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The hypocrisy of some nations

Video:U.S. Hypocrisy? Telling Russia To Stay Out of Ukraine

Double standards are on display as Western leaders attack Russia regarding Ukraine, while they themselves commit or endorse worse aggression on other countries.

WORLD attention has focused on Ukraine recently. With President Victor Yanukovych making his exit and a new government formed, events shifted to Crimea, with accusations that the Russian military took over the region.

Yanukovych, resurfacing in a Russian town, said he left as his life was at risk, the new regime is illegitimate, and he is still the president.

Sizeable crowds in Crimea (many of whose population are ethnic Russian) are showing anti-Kiev and pro-Russian feelings and the Crimean Parliament had decided to hold a referendum on whether to remain in Ukraine or break away and be part of Russia.

Western leaders have attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin for his alleged invasion of Crimea.

The Russian argument is that it has not invaded, that in any case it has a legitimate interest in Crimea due to historical links and the ethnic Russians who live there have asked for protection against the new and illegitimate Kiev regime.

Whatever the merits or otherwise of Russia’s position and actions, it is clear that there has been a long historical Russian-Crimea-Ukraine relationship. The complex condition requires a correspondingly complex solution.

The rhetoric of some Western leaders is aggressive. They accused Russia of violating sovereignty and international law, among other things.

The United States plans to ban visas for selected Russian officials, followed by sanctions on Russian banks, freezing assets of its companies, and possibly trade measures.

US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have accused Putin of making use of false claims for its invasion, that Crimea is in danger.

“This is the 21st century and we should not see nations step backwards to behave in a 19th or 20th century fashion,” said Kerry. “It is not appropriate to invade a country and at the end of a barrel of a gun dictate what you are trying to achieve.”

Obama said “Russia cannot with impunity put its soldiers on the ground and violate basic principles that are recognised around the world”, adding that Russia is “on the wrong side of history”.

Listening to the American leaders lecturing Russia in their self-righteous tone, one is struck by the double standards and hypocrisy involved.

They don’t seem to realise how they have violated the same principles and behaviour they demand of Russia.

It was after all the United States that invaded Iraq in 2003, massively bombing its territory and killing hundreds of thousands, on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction.

The UN Security Council would not give the green light. No weapons of mass destruction were found. Many experts considered the war against Iraq a violation of international law, a view also expressed in a media interview by the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal in 2011 found former US president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide as a result of their roles in the Iraq war.

The United States also waged war in Afghanistan, changing the regime, resulting in thousands of deaths. In Libya, the US and its allies carried out massive bombing, which aided opposition forces and led to the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Even now there are sanctions and the threat of military action against Iran on the suspicion it wants to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran has denied.

In contrast, the US turns a blind eye on Israel’s ownership of nuclear weapons. And when Israel conducted the blanket bombing of Lebanon and Gaza in recent years, with thousands of deaths, there was no condemnation at all from the US, which has also blocked UN Security Council resolutions and actions on its ally.

The US has also come under attack from human rights groups for its use of drones against suspected terrorists but which has also killed many civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Last week, the UN Human Rights Council published a Special Rapporteur’s report which detailed the deaths of civilians caused by US drone attacks, and raised many questions of possible violations of international human rights law.

All these actions were done in the 21st century, which adds to many other actions in the 20th century.

It’s thus remarkable that Obama and Kerry could with a straight face accuse Russia of not acting in a 21st century manner, and being on the wrong side of history.

There appears to be still one law for the most powerful, and another for others. The former can invade and kill, while lecturing self-righteously to others.

Whatever one thinks of Russia’s action in Crimea, it should be noted that no one has been killed because of it, at least not yet. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands or millions, who have died and suffered from past and present wars of the US and other Western countries.

Though much of the mainstream media also takes the establishment view, some Western journalists have also pointed out their leaders’ hypocrisy.

In an article, “America’s Staggering Hypocrisy in Ukraine,” the well-known American journalist Robert Parry remarked: “Since World War II, the United States has invaded or otherwise intervened in so many countries that it would be challenging to compile a complete list …

“So, what is one to make of Secretary of State John Kerry’s pronouncement that Russia’s military intervention in the Crimea section of Ukraine – at the behest of the country’s deposed president – is a violation of international law that the United States would never countenance?

“Are Kerry and pretty much everyone else in Official Washington so lacking in self-awareness that they don’t realise that they are condemning actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin that are far less egregious than what they themselves have done?”

Parry concludes that the overriding hypocrisy of the media, Kerry and nearly all of Official Washington is their insistence that the United States actually promotes the principle of democracy or, for that matter, the rule of international law.

Global Trends - By Martin Khor

> The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.

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Baying for blood, again

Nobody wants to have a war with Iran except Israeli premier Binyamin Netanyahu, so it could still happen.

IF a deeply troubling international situation suddenly looks too good to be true, it usually is just that – and so desperately bad as to need looking good.

And so it is with the positions of the permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) over Israel’s push to attack Iran, a situation that can soon become much more desperate.

China and Russia have long resisted the Israel-United States axis’ efforts to recreate West Asia in its own image, or at least to its own preference. The point was driven home when, under cover of “protecting innocents” through a ceasefire and no-fly zone in Libya last year, Western countries openly attacked government forces.

Now that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya are gone, the only Muslim nation capable of standing up to the axis is Iran. But how to fashion a case against Iran that looks at least half-credible internationally?

On attack mode: If the United States still insists on staying away, without even red lines or deadlines for Iran to conform to, Israel may well go it alone and attack Iran. — EPA

 

Israel, the only nuclear-armed country in the region, does not pretend it has evidence of Iranian plans for nuclear bombs. So its best pretext is that Iran may one day have them, despite Teheran’s repeated assurances that its nuclear energy production and medical research are not a prelude to nuclear armaments.

China and Russia have no desire to see a nuclear-armed Iran either, in fact quite the reverse. Their intelligence services report that there are no grounds to assume that Iran has or even wants to have nuclear weapons.

The conclusion is shared by US and Israeli intelligence, and cited by no less than Israel’s military chief, among others. But that is “only” the pure outlook of professionals and technocrats before getting tweaked by politicians.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems bent on creating an imploding situation, pushing and pulling to make it want to explode and involve other countries in supporting roles. Chinese and Russian diplomats have consistently kept well clear of it all.

Sensing that Obama’s Washington had lately also been keeping its distance, Netanyahu piled on the pressure for days on end. Then his ultimatum was delivered on Tuesday: that if the US still insists on staying away, without even red lines or deadlines for Iran to conform to, Israel may well go it alone and attack Iran.

And if that happened, Washington could be made to look bad in failing to live up to its God-given mission of protecting the free world. In an election season, those kinds of terms can make a difference, and they did.

News then came the next day that Beijing and Moscow had at last “agreed” to add their weight to Western-Israeli condemnation of Iran’s attitude, if not its actions or policies. That may seem like the hitherto elusive consensus among the UNSC’s permanent five, except that it never was.

After Israel’s quiet ultimatum following long days of hard lobbying, its bottom line finally made Washington scramble – not the fighter jets, but UN diplomats in persuading Beijing and Moscow to swing their support behind an alternative approach pre-empting Israel’s further war cries.

At any rate, the resolution at the IAEA (UN nuclear watchdog) on Thursday would have no binding effect. If diplomatic declarations are mere symbols of policy intentions, then the proposed resolution is the most symbolic of all.

Yet at the most superficial of official levels, Israel also agrees that diplomacy should still be the first option before military action. But there is no denying that Netanyahu is gung-ho on another attack on another Muslim nation, preferably with other countries rather than Israel doing the work.

Walking the tightrope

Iran has no plan or policy for nuclear weapons, much less those weapons themselves. For Netanyahu’s campaign to target Teheran it needed to spread fear and vilification, while official texts could refer only to Iran’s attitude and posturing.

Yet despite all his huffing and puffing, or rather because of them, he is making matters worse for the entire region. Anyone in a less emotional state can see the thin tightrope he is treading.

By seeking to force Iran, a country justly proud of its history and culture, to bow to unreasonable demands, Netanyahu is only making a rebuff from Teheran inevitable. That would in turn force Israel to plummet into war, since it would also not want to lose face.

Then by making clear that the push for war “has to come now” rather than later when Iran may possess nuclear weapons, Netanyahu is confirming to Teheran that nuclear weapons work as a deterrent against foreign attacks. Even if Iran never wanted nuclear weapons before, it would be sorely tempted to seek them now.

One result is that Israeli leaders themselves are divided over an attack on Iran. Its military leaders, President Shimon Peres and Netanyahu’s own Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor (in charge of intelligence and nuclear affairs) are among those who disagree with him on the need to attack Iran.

Meanwhile, a top-level US report bearing the seal of more than 30 retired diplomats, admirals, generals and security chiefs advise that a war with Iran will be more painful and costly than the Iraq and Afghan invasions combined.

Previous estimates had found that an attack on Iran would only delay its nuclear programme by several months. This latest report says that a full-scale attack involving aerial bombardment, ground troops, cyberwarfare and a military occupation, among other requirements, would only delay a nuclear programme by several years, not stop it.

However, the likes of Netanyahu are determined to press on regardless. He seems to have calculated that a US election season can give him an edge by pressuring incumbent Obama to lend him unambiguous support.

Iran may also be hoping that public anxieties in the US over jobs and a faltering economy can, in an election season, constrain the urge of US hawks to join Israel. So far Teheran appears to not want to relent by appeasing the doubters.

Nonetheless, the prospect of war is still closer than anyone other than Netanyahu would wish. There are at least five reasons for this.

First, by pushing the option of a military attack to the maximum, Israeli policymakers would be loath to effect a turnaround short of a major Iranian concession. And that would be highly unlikely.

Second, Netanyahu’s primary aim is not the destruction of Iran but key surgical strikes against suspected nuclear sites. He and his advisers may well see this as “doable”, even though the consequences can easily and quickly become unmanageable.

Third, Iran is likely to retaliate in more ways than one, including through forms of asymmetrical warfare. Israel has launched “spot attacks” on Iraq’s and Syria’s installations before and got away with it, but it has never engaged a country as large and powerful as Iran.

Fourth, an attack by Israel, or jointly by Israel and the US, would immediately invite endless rounds of counter-attacks by militant Muslim groups and individuals around the world. These are just some of the consequences that are not clearly foreseeable or controllable.

Fifth, when push comes to shove, both Democratic and Republican candidates in the US presidential election are likely to side with Israel.

Once Netanyahu as Prime Minister sets the country on a war footing, even the naysayers in his own administration will feel the need to acquiesce in the national decision.

Behind The Headlines By Bunn Nagara

Global arms market hits post-Cold War high point

Experts say increase due to rising security risks around the world

Despite the gloomy world economy, Chinese observers have cast their sights to a prosperous global arms market, which has hit the post-Cold War peak in 2012 according to a Russian report issued earlier this month.

The seemingly abnormal situation, driven by complex factors including turmoil in the Middle East and big appetites of international arms dealers, is likely to cast shadow over the already troublesome situation in East Asia, they said.

According to the report Russia's Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade issued in early August, global military equipment exports are to hit $69.84 billion this year, the highest level since the end of the Cold War.

It is a 3.84 percent increase on the $67.26 billion in 2011, which was already nearly 20 percent higher than the $56.22 billion in 2010.

Increases in 2010 and 2011 were a result of weapon deals that had been delayed by the financial crisis that started in 2008, said the report.

Li Qinggong, deputy secretary of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies, said the recent surge is due to rising security risks around the world, especially turmoil in West Asia and North Africa, and escalating terrorism threats.

"Many countries, not only the ones in West Asia and North Africa, now feel more threatened. The traditional risks are still there, and new ones keeping emerging," Li said.

"Major weapon exporting nations are also trying to support the industry to stimulate the dim economy," he said.

Li said the trade had also benefited from countries worldwide updating their weapons.

Su Hao, an expert on political and security affairs with China Foreign Affairs University, noted escalating tensions in East Asia.

"Rising uncertainties in the region is also a contributing factor," he said.

Tensions on the rise

Tensions in the South China Sea have increased in recent months following a confrontation between China and the Philippines near China's Huangyan Island in April. The US and Japan have announced plans to help further equip the Philippine armed forces.

The Russian report said exports will hit $77.5 billion in 2015, after a slight drop in 2013 and 2014. The peak in 2015 is due to "huge contracts" signed between the United States and Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Near East, it said.

"Turmoil in the Middle East is likely to maintain and even escalate in the near future, so it is not hard to understand Saudi Arabia's need to better equip itself," Su said.

"In another view Western countries also need a strong Saudi Arabia and other regional powers to balance their traditional enemies such as Iran."

According to the report, Russia is the world's second-largest weapon supplier in 2012, with an export volume of $13.29 billion - 19 percent of the world market.

Russia had a good sales result, although it lost markets in Iran and Libya due to arms sanctions on the two nations and partly lost the Syrian market. It has also been crowded out of the market in Saudi Arabia by the US. 

The Russian report showed France ranked third, with $5.61 billion in exports, a figure expected to rise to $19 billion by 2015.

France is followed by Germany, which has $4.57 billion in exports, the United Kingdom with $3.24 billion and Iran with $2.8 billion. Italy, China, Spain and Sweden rank successively after Iran.

Hu Siyuan, an expert with PLA Defense University, said China's weapon exports are second-class compared with the world's leading exporters, "especially in the fields of material and sensing technique".

Li Qinggong said China sells combat fighters to Pakistan and training jets to other countries.

Japan relaxed its self-imposed decades-old ban on military equipment exports in December 2011, and the Philippines became its first consumer.

Japan is not a big player in the world arms market, but it is now trying to have a finger in the pie to help boost the domestic economy, Li said.

"But Japan may not manage to achieve that goal, as Washington will not allow it to sell weapons based on technology mainly learned from the US," he added.

US leads market

The US leads the global arms market, with its export volume hitting $25.52 billion, or 36.53 percent of the global figure. Its status will further be consolidated in 2013, accounting for 40 percent of the world share.

Chen Fei, a scholar majoring in international issues at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law based in Central China's Hubei province, said on a TV program on Sunday the Obama administration's fanning of tensions in East Asia is partially driven by US arms dealers.

"Congressmen, political figures and arms dealers in the country have formed a close mutual interest community," he said.

Neither presidential candidate has talked about domestic gun control this year, as it has been deemed a "politically toxic" topic.

Chen said that under such a political environment, the Obama administration has to create a more favorable outside environment for arms dealers through moves including its high-profile strategic pivot to East Asia.

In late July, on the last day of a UN conference involving the 193 member nations aimed at forging a world regulation on weapon deals, Washington blocked efforts by insisting that all member nations should have veto rights on the document.

By Li Xiaokun, Zhou Wa  (China Daily)