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Crude oil prices need an excuse to spike anymore? Reuters, via EX-SKF:
Here's the short snippet from Reuters (8/15/2012):
Saudi Arabia tells citizens to leave Lebanon immediately - SPA
(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon "immediately", the state news agency reported in an SMS alert on Wednesday.
"The Saudi Arabian embassy in Lebanon calls all Saudi citizens to leave Lebanon immediately," the alert said, without elaborating.
And here's the chart:
Last week, it was the oil refinery fire(Has the oil industry built any new refineries lately? Lately being the last 20 plus years.. Answer: No). This week, it's the imminent(Since the last eight years or so) Israeli attack on Iran. What's next week's excuse going to be? Oh yeah; I wonder how much Saudi Arabia profited from this bit of "news?"
Syria Arrests Turkish Army General in Aleppo. Maybe he's on "foodie" vacation. There's better hummus in Syria, donchaknow.. Fars News Agency:
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian Army announced that it has recently apprehended a Turkish general who commanded the terrorists trying to seize control of Aleppo.
According to an informed source in Syria, the Turkish general was arrested during the Syrian Army's clashes with the terrorists in Aleppo.
News reports said that the Turkish general has been taken to Damascus for further interrogations.
Earlier, Turkish media also reported that Syria has detained 40 Turkish military officers in different parts of the country, and said that efforts to release them have failed.
Turkey along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been supporting terrorists and rebel groups in Syria and have practically brought a UN peace initiative into failure to bring President Assad's government into collapse.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.
Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.
The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.
In October 2011, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of increasing unrests in Syria.
Turkey is rapidly becoming Gladys Kravitz or Iago of the middle east. There's probably going to be some blowback for this set of shenanigans. Coupled with the insurgents targeting Christians, might the West be backing the wrong horse?
It must be nice to consistently act without thinking.. Washington's Blog:
Why Are Americans Supporting a “Humanitarian” War Where Minorities Are Being Targeted by Terrorists?
Everyone from the Vatican to priests on the ground in Syria have reported that the Syrian opposition is persecuting Christians.
Now even the New York Times is starting to report the truth:
Syria’s 2.3 million Christians, constituting about 10 percent of the country’s population, have generally known a more privileged existence under the Assad dynasty than even the Shiite Alawi sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.
***
As the rebellion became suffused with Sunni militants sympathetic to or affiliated with Al Qaeda, Christians recoiled.
A churchgoing Syrian told me that he used to see himself primarily as “Syrian” and that religious identity, in political terms, was an idea that never occurred to him — until an opposition gang attacked his family earlier this year in Homs. “It’s a label they pinned on us,” he said. “If their revolution is for everyone, as they keep insisting it is, why are Christians being targeted? It is because what they are waging is not a struggle for freedom, and it’s certainly not for everyone.”
As Saudi Arabian arms and money bolster the opposition, the 80,000 Christians who’ve been “cleansed” from their homes in Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan in Homs Province in March by the Free Syrian Army have gradually given up the prospect of ever returning home.
The rebels’ conduct has prompted at least some Sunnis who had supported the rebels and once-wavering Syrians to pledge renewed loyalty to Assad. Many who once regarded the regime as a kleptocracy now view it as the best guarantor of Syria’s endangered pluralism.
***
This is the work of the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia,” he added, referring to the ultra conservative Sunni sect.
Repeated attempts by Free Syrian Army fighters to destroy a shrine to Sayyida Zeinab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad revered by Shiites, have not yet caused the area’s Sunni minority to flee — many Shiites here have refused to blame their Sunni neighbors for the rebels’ crimes.
Over the past week, more than a dozen Syrians — chiefly Alawi and Christian, but also a handful of Sunnis — affirmed to me their determination to pick up arms to defend Assad.
The seeming indifference of the international community to the worsening condition of Syria’s religious minorities — and the near total absence of censure of the opposition forces by the Western governments arrayed against Assad — is breeding a bitter anti-Americanism among many secular Syrians who see the United States aligning itself with Saudi Arabia, the fount of Wahhabism, against the Arab world’s most resolutely secular state.
***
Washington is aware of the scale of the problem. As early as June 2011, Robert Stephen Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, briefed his counterparts in Damascus about Al Qaeda’s penetration of the opposition forces. By still ploughing ahead with its support for Saudi Arabia’s effort to destabilize Syria, Washington, far from assisting Israel or weakening Iran, is helping to fuel a humanitarian crisis that will come back to haunt the United States.
The fact that so many Americans – including progressive liberals – still support a “humanitarian war” where minorities are being targeted and Al Qaeda has somehow become our closest ally shows the power of modern propaganda.
What? The Syrian opposition isn't a bunch of rag-tag good guys fighting the good fight? But that narrative is so heartwarming! Can't we still pretend it's true?
Big implications, so of course you'll find this in the Friday afternoon/Olympics news dump.. BIG doin's, people.. AntiWar:
Syrian President Bashar Assad, amid growing unrest, has granted control of parts of northern Syria over to militant Kurds, long branded as terrorists by Turkey, in a provocation that could lead the conflict to break out internationally.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had earlier said that Turkey would not accept an autonomous Kurdish area in Syria, fearing separatist Kurds in Turkey would use it as a safe-haven to launch cross-border attacks.
Late on Thursday Turkey mobilized and deployed tanks and missile batteries on the Syrian border near the Kurdish region, with Erdogan commenting if the Kurds control these areas, “then intervening would be our most natural right.”
Kurdish control of these border areas are an apparent consequence of the chaos of Syria’s internal conflict, in which the US and its allies are sending aid, intelligence, and weapons to the Syrian rebels, despite numerous crimes and ties to terrorist groups.
Turkish military intervention against the Assad regime came close to being a reality back a few months ago when Syria downed a Turkish fighter jet that went into Syrian airspace. Turkey has shown little hesitation to attack its neighbors if they feel their Kurdish threat demands it, as cross-border attacks into Iraq’s Kurdish region in recent months has shown.
If Turkey, a NATO member, involves itself in the Syrian conflict in a direct and belligerent way, it could have far reaching consequences, with possible implications of a US intervention.
This is an interesting turn of events. Will Turkey show restraint to an obvious provocation? I wonder how Turkish Kurds will feel about their government's reaction to Assad's latest move? Erdogan should probably do a little bit of yoga or deep breathing before initiating any response.. This could be the weekend that the situation in Syria becomes international. Stay tuned!
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has yet to understand the new deal struck between Russia and the US. When you put it that way.. Analysis by Pepe Escobar. Al Jazeera. Excerpts:
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan never saw it coming.
He knew he was in trouble when the Pentagon leaked that the Turkish Phantom RF-4E shot down last week by Syrian anti-aircraft artillery happened off the Syrian coastline, directly contradicting Erdogan's account, who claimed it happened in international air space.
And it got worse; Moscow, via Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, offered "objective radar data" as proof.
There was not much to do except change the subject. That's when Ankara introduced a de facto buffer zone of four miles (6.4km) along the Syrian-Turkish border - now enforced by F-16s taking off from NATO's Incirlik base at regular intervals.
Ankara also dispatched tanks, missile batteries and heavy artillery to the 500 mile (800km) border, right after Erdogan effectively branded Syria "a hostile state".
What next? Shock and awe? Hold your (neo-Ottoman) horses.
Lord Balfour, I presume?
The immediate future of Syria was designed in Geneva recently, in one more of those absurdist "international community" plays when the US, Britain, France, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council's Qatar and Kuwait sat down to devise a "peaceful solution" for the Syrian drama, even though most of them are reportedly weaponising the opposition to Damascus.
One would be excused to believe it was all back to the Balfour Declaration days, when foreign powers would decide the fate of a country without the merest consultation of its people, who, by the way, never asked them to do it on their behalf.
Anyway, in a nutshell: there won't be a NATO war on Syria - at least for now. Beyond the fact that Lavrov routinely eats US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for breakfast, Russia wins - for now.
Predictably, Moscow won't force regime change on Assad; it fears the follow-up to be the absolute collapse of Syrian state machinery, with cataclysmic consequences. Washington's position boils down to accepting a very weak, but not necessarily out, Assad.
The problem is the interpretation of "mutual consent", on which a "transitional government" in Syria would be based - the vague formulation that emerged in Geneva. For the Obama administration, this means Assad has to go. For Moscow - and, crucially, for Beijing - this means the transition must include Assad.
Expect major fireworks dancing around the interpretation. Because a case can be made that the new "no-fly zone" over Libya - turned by NATO into a 30,000-sortie bombing campaign - will become Syria's "transitional government", based on "mutual consent".
One thing is certain: nothing happens before the US presidential election in November. This means that for the next five months or so Moscow will be trying to extract some sort of "transitional government" from the bickering Syrian players. Afterwards, all bets are off. A Washington under Mitt Romney may well order NATO to attack in early 2013.
A case can be made that a Putin-Obama or US-Russia deal may have been reached even before Geneva.
Russia has eased up on NATO in Afghanistan. Then there was the highly choreographed move of the US offering a formal apology and Pakistan duly accepting it - thus reopening NATO's supply routes to Afghanistan.
It's crucial to keep in mind that Pakistan is an observer and inevitable future full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) - run by China and Russia, both BRICS members highly interested in seeing the US and NATO out of Afghanistan for good.
The "price" paid by Washington is, of course, to go easy on Damascus - at least for now. There is not much Erdogan can do about it; he really was not in the loop.
The Turkey/Syria/Iran media drumbeat has calmed down, for now. The media coverage just kind of vaporized, yeah? I was wrong about the back channel triangle of Tel Aviv, Ankara, and Damascus. If there were communications, they didn't matter: It's still all about Washington, Moscow, and Beijing's interests. So, while the Syrian civil war continues to escalate, the international players will remain in stasis until November, and that includes Turkey.
Another day, another escalation. The Extinction Protocol. Excerpts:
Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah and Iran will fight alongside the Syrian regime if it is attacked by foreign forces, a pro-Damascus Palestinian fighter leader said on Tuesday. In the event of “a foreign attack, we discussed with our brothers (in the Syrian regime), with (Hezbollah chief) Hassan Nasrallah and our brothers in Iran, we will be part of this battle,” said Ahmad Jibril of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. In an interview with Beirut-based Mayadeen television, Jibril said that if a “Turkish-European alliance or NATO escalate… we will take to the streets and fight on behalf of all those with honour and our Syrian brothers.” Jibril also cited Nasrallah as saying Hezbollah would fight on behalf of the Syrian regime, and described the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance as “one axis” that the PFLP-GC is part of. He added that he met recently with Nasrallah, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, without specifying when. He also noted that the Hezbollah chief “said he would join this battle, in the event of a foreign attack” on Syria. The Iranian regime, he said, told him it would not allow a strike on Syria. “We have warned the Turks several times not to play with fire,” Jibril said. Echoing the Syrian regime’s discourse, the PFLP-GC chief said the 16-month uprising against Assad was not a genuine local movement, but rather “a change in the foundations of this region in order to create a new Middle East,” referring to a term coined in 2006 by former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Jibril described the defence of the Syrian regime as “a decisive battle.” Victory would be necessary, he said, in order to “defeat the American and Zionist projects.” –Gulf News
Iran says missiles could destroy US missile bases: .. Amir Ali Haji Zadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace division, was quoted by Fars news agency as saying. Haji Zadeh said 35 U.S. bases were within reach of Iran’s ballistic missiles, the most advanced of which commanders have said could hit targets 2,000 km (1,300 miles) away. ‘We have thought of measures to set up bases and deploy missiles to destroy all these bases in the early minutes after an attack,” he added. It was not clear where Haji Zadeh got his figures on U.S. bases in the region. U.S. military facilities in the Middle East are located in Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Turkey, and it has around 10 bases further afield in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. Reuters
U.S. increases military presence: The United States has quietly moved significant military reinforcements into the Persian Gulf to deter the Iranian military from any possible attempt to shut the Strait of Hormuz and to increase the number of fighter jets capable of striking deep into Iran if the standoff over its nuclear program escalates. The deployments are part of a long-planned effort to bolster the American military presence in the gulf region, in part to reassure Israel that in dealing with Iran, as one senior administration official put it last week, “When the president says there are other options on the table beyond negotiations, he means it.” New York Times
Turkey recovers pilots’ bodies: Turkey on Wednesday found the bodies of two pilots shot down by Syria last month during a contested flight that pushed the neighbors’ relations to a new low almost a year after Ankara threw its weight behind the opposition to oust President Bashar al-Assad from power. The military General Staff in Ankara said on Wednesday that it was working to remove the bodies of Captain Gokhan Ertan and Lieutenant Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy from the Mediterranean. Turkey didn’t identify the location of the dead pilots or provide any additional details. The armed forces weren’t immediately able to provide comment. Wall Street Journal
The roundup courtesy of The Extinction Protocol. Again, there seems to be more going on here..
BBC:
Turkey has scrambled six F-16 fighter jets near its border with Syria after Syrian helicopters came close to the border, the country’s army says. Six jets were sent to the area in response to three such incidents on Saturday, the statement said, adding that there was no violation of Turkish airspace. Last month, Syrian forces shot down a Turkish jet in the border area. The incident further strained already tense relations between former allies. Turkey’s government has been outspoken in its condemnation of Syria’s response to the 16-month anti-government uprising, which has seen more than 30,000 Syrian refugees enter Turkey. On Friday, Turkey said it had begun deploying rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns along the border in response to the downing of its F-4 Phantom jet on 22 June. The move came after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Turkey had changed its rules of military engagement and would now treat any Syrian military approaching the border as a threat.
Wall Street Journal:
A plan by world powers for a Syrian political transition appeared doomed Sunday, with Bashar al-Assad’s regime interpreting the outcome as a fresh lifeline from Russia—its principal international backer—while the lack of any reference in the plan to Mr. Assad’s departure from office angered the Syrian opposition. With no sign of any commitment by Syria’s warring sides to embrace the transition plan outlined in Geneva on Saturday, many warned that violence could worsen even beyond the levels seen in June, which is now believed to have been the bloodiest month in the Syrian conflict.
GMA News(Phillipines)
At least 83 people were killed, mostly civilians, in violence across Syria on Saturday, and hundreds more were trapped in Douma as regime forces stormed the town in Damascus province, monitors said. In the single most serious incident, mortar fire killed 30 civilians who were attending a funeral in the town of Zamalka, 10 kilometers (six miles) east of the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights said. The Observatory did not give any further details on the Zamalka incident but published two videos from people on the ground. The first showed several dozen people, mostly men waving Syrian revolutionary flags and shouting slogans as they accompanied the funeral cortege, when the picture was interrupted by an explosion. The second, which could not be confirmed as being shot at the same scene, showed people running away from a cloud of dust that gradually dissipated to show numerous bodies lying on the ground.
Updates to come.
Tensions continue to rise. The Times of Israel. Excerpts:
The Turkish military mobilized large numbers of reinforcements from its eastern provinces to the Syrian border on Tuesday, amid rising tension with Damascus, after the downing by Syria of a Turkish Air Force jet on Friday, Turkish media reported.
Large numbers of Turkish troops — including at least 15 long-range artillery pieces and tanks – moved to the Syrian frontier from the eastern city of Diyarbakir. A video published by the Turkish Cihan News Agency showed Turkish tanks being transported by carrier trucks toward the frontier.
The mobilization followed statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the Turkish military will respond to any future violation of its border by Syrian military elements.
“As awe-inspiring as Turkey’s friendship is, Turkey’s wrath is equally awe-inspiring,” Erdogan told the Turkish parliament on Tuesday. (He seems angry..)
“The rules of engagement of the Turkish Armed Forces have changed,” Erdogan said. “Any military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria posing a security risk and danger will be regarded as a threat and treated as a military target.”
Erdogan closed his remarks with an especially harsh condemnation of Syrian President Bashar Assad: “Turkey and the Turkish people will continue to provide all support until the people of Syria have been saved from this tyrannical, murderous, bloody dictator and his gang.”
But not everyone is in favor of Erdogan's tough stance, including the father of one of the missing pilots..
The father of one of the two missing pilots who were shot down in Friday’s incident told Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News that he opposed Turkey going to war over his son.
“It is not appropriate for a country to go to war over a pilot, an airplane or 50 airplanes,” Ali Erton said. He said he was aware of the risks his son took as a military pilot, but added “what matters is that my son serves his country.”
NATO’s North Atlantic Council condemned Tuesday Syria’s downing of the Turkish jet on Friday, but did not recommend military action for the act, as Ankara has requested.
At an emergency meeting, requested by Turkey and chaired by NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the council clearly denounced Syria’s aggression “in the strongest terms,” calling the shooting down of a Turkish jet over the Mediterranean “unacceptable.”
“It is another example of the Syrian disregard for international norms, peace and security, and human life,” said the NATO chief, expressing his solidarity with Turkey, but making no mention of retaliatory action.
The back channel lines between Damascus and Ankara and Ankara and Tel Aviv must be burning up right about now.. I'm having a really hard time believing that there's not more going on here, and that none of it is what it seems. Maybe I'm just a paranoid conspiritard, but this still doesn't pass the smell test, and NATO doesn't seem to be having any of it, either.. As always, I could be spectacularly wrong, so keep watching the Turkish/Syrian border babies!
The crisis in Syria just got decidedly hotter. Syria says it shot down Turkish air force jet NDTV. Excerpts:
Ankara, Turkey: Syria said Friday it shot down a Turkish military plane that entered Syrian air space, and Turkey vowed to "determinedly take necessary steps" in response. It was the most clear and dramatic escalation in tensions between the two countries, which used to be allies before the Syrian revolt began in March 2011. Turkey has become one of the strongest critics of the Syrian regime's brutal response to the country's uprising. Late Friday, Syria's state-run news agency, SANA, said the military spotted an "unidentified aerial target" that was flying at a low altitude and at a high speed.
"The Syrian anti-air defenses counteracted with anti-aircraft artillery, hitting it directly," SANA said. "The target turned out to be a Turkish military plane that entered Syrian airspace and was dealt with according to laws observed in such cases." Turkey issued a statement Friday night following a two-hour security meeting led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying Syrian forces downed the plane and that the two Turkish pilots remain missing.
It said Turkey "will determinedly take necessary steps" in response, without saying what those actions would be. "Following the evaluation of data provided by our related institutions and the findings of the joint search and rescue efforts with Syria, it is understood that our plane was downed by Syria," the statement said, without providing other details. Relations between Turkey and Syria were already tense before the downing of the F4 plane on Friday.
Turkey has joined nations such as the U.S. in saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad should step down because of the regime's brutal suppression of the uprising in his country. Turkey also has set up refugee camps on its border for more than 32,000 Syrians who have fled the fighting. Syria and Turkey have expelled each other's ambassadors and Syria has accused Turkey of supporting Syrian opposition and even allowing Syrian rebels to operate out of Turkish soil. Turkey strongly denies the allegations.
Syria now takes the lead in the category "Global Flashpoint/Global War." Also, could Syria and Turkey actually be geo-political "frenemies?"
Twist: Major. Zero Hedge. Excerpts:
Two months ago, we warned that while the world had decided to blissfully move on from last year's topic #1, the MENA revolutions, and specifically the massive power vacuum left in their wake, things in the region were far from fixed. Quite the contrary, and as we added back then "it is very likely that the Mediterranean region, flanked on one side by the broke European countries of Greece, Italy, Spain (and implicitly Portugal), and on the other by the unstable powder keg of post-revolutionary Libya and Egypt, will likely become quite active yet again. Only this time, in addition to social and economic upheavals, a religious flavor may also be added to the mix". Yet nobody cared as after a year of daily videos showing Molotov Cocktails dropping like flies, people had simply gotten habituated and needed some other source of excitement. Nobody cared also when a week ago Art Cashin warned that the hidden geopolitical risk is not Spain but Egypt. Today, Egypt just reminded at least one country why perhaps caution about the instability caused by having a military in charge of the most populous Arabic country and the one boasting "the Canal", should have been heeded after Egypt just announced that it is cutting off its natural gas supplies to Israel, which just so happens relies on Egypt for 40% of its energy needs.
..
Furthermore, if the Egyptian move is indeed an escalation in strategic alliance shifts in the region, it could have truly huge implications:
The Egyptian decision is a potential blow to the country's ties with Israel, already tested by the toppling of Israeli ally President Hosni Mubarak a year ago.
Egypt was the first of two Arab countries to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979, followed by Jordan in 1994.a
This is a big deal. Coal, Petroleum and Gas make up over 99 percent of Israel's energy consumption. Close to One Half of One Third of their resources are now gone. Imagine the impact in your own country, say three weeks in.. Imagine you and yours dealing with a much larger disruption than this one: What do you think? What if an energy crisis occurs world-wide? Humanity Freaks the Geek OUT. Unless the situation is corrected, there will probably be a lot of repercussions, both intended and not.
If this supply disruption lasts for any length of time, tensions in the region will increase.. Very, very quickly.
The Back Channel Prelude to WW3 continues.. Zero Hedge. Excerpts:
Two months ago we explained very diligently, why courtesy of the strategic Russian Naval base in Tartus, Syria, the Russian regime will never, repeat never, let the Syrian government be replaced by various insurgent forces (very much like in other parts of MENA(Middle East/North Africa), which now are suffering from an absolute political vacuum and even greater corruption in the aftermath of the Arabian Spring). Granted, while Ambassador Rice may say she is "disgusted" with the subsequent Security Council vote which courtesy of Russia and China halted a intervention in Syria based on unbiased media reports showing one side of the story, one can only imagine how disgusted the rest of the world may have be with the stupid placement of Iran in such close proximity to all those US army bases. Subsequently there were various reports of Russian troops arriving in Tartus, both confirmed and denied by Russia, which were promptly forgotten: after all distractions from other, far greater problems can not become too repetitive or else the general audience will habituate.
But all that was a month ago, and attention spans these days are short, so it is time to once again escalate, and sure enough yesterday the AP reported that Obama has approved an aid package to the Syrian rebels. Naturally, since this whole theater is all about severing strategic Russian national interests in the Mediterranean, and thus, into the Suez, Arabian Gulf, and ultimately Persian Gulf, German Spiegel reports of the immediate tat to America's tit.. as apparently yet another Russian-chartered, German ship has been intercepted carrying military equipment and munitions into Syria.
As the geo-political rankings continue to shuffle and re-shuffle, Syria remains near the top of the standings for "The country that, directly or indirectly, officially lights the fuse to all-out war." Congratulations, Syria; Your friends AND enemies must be so proud of their efforts!
Iran Halts Greek Oil Shipments After Bills Left Unpaid – UPDATE [REPORT] G Captain. Excerpts:
Iran stopped shipping oil to Greece and may halt supplies to Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN, RDSA, RDSB) over unpaid bills, Iran media said Friday, as the impact of sanctions widens. The news suggests a decline in Iranian oil exports last month may accelerate as banking sanctions add to an upcoming European ban on Tehran oil. That could lead to upward pressure on oil prices, which have recently surged to a four-year high.
The Mehr news agency said that, due to unpaid bills, Iran stopped deliveries to Greek refiners Hellenic Petroleum (ELPE.AT) and Motor Oil (MOH.AT). Greece has long been the European Union country relying the most on Iranian oil–sometimes for as much as a third of its supplies.
And:
Iran halts oil sales to two major Greek firms Tehran Times. Excerpts:
The Islamic Republic of Iran has terminated oil sales to two major Greek firms over their failure to pay for their crude purchases from Tehran, Press TV reports.
Iran’s decision to bar Hellenic Petroleum and Motor Oil Hellas from purchasing Iranian crude came after they defaulted on their purchases from Tehran.
The interruption of oil flow from Iran is expected to further deepen the financial crisis in Greece.
Oil prices have shot up in recent months in the wake of Iran’s decision to halt its crude exports to certain European countries in response to the European Union (EU) oil embargo on Tehran.
Iran has already cut oil exports to France and Britain in retaliation for the Western-led sanctions imposed on its oil industry.
Interesting. The EU/West imposes sanctions on Iran, hurting(?) it's economy. Iran refuses sales of oil to the weakest of EU members(Remember--If one goes, that starts the dominoes!), kickstarting Greece's economic death-spiral. And the whole world takes a few more steps to financial meltdown and all-out war. Neat, huh?
And the geo-political Circle of Life is complete. Until the next crisis manifests, drawing close The Inevitable, that is..
So far, its all quiet on the Western MSM front (Red Alert! Tom Brady said something scandalous!), but the tension has definitely ramped up between Greece and Israel and Turkey(and consequently, Russia, the U.S., and China..).
The reasons vary, but combine for some potentially deadly inertia. Turkey is angry because of Israel's actions concerning the Freedom Flotilla earlier this year. Israel is pissed because Turkey supports political reform in Middle Eastern countries involved in 2011's Arab Spring, reforms that will further isolate Israel, and the Israelis are also mad that Turkey downgraded their diplomatic status. So now Israel has started hanging out with Turkish enemies the Greeks, the Armenians AND the Kurds. This all pretty intense, seeing how these two nations(Israel and Turkey) were strong allies only months ago..
And now, the Greeks and the Turks are at odds of Turkey's oil exploration in the Mediterranean. Due to the activation of existing defense pacts, if hostilities escalate, Israel and Greece (and Russia!) will be on one side, Turkey, Iran, and the United States will be on the other. Uh-Oh! And to really send the whole situation into Defcon 1 land, China might end up siding with Turkey, Iran, and the U.S. Overlapping diplomatic and defense pacts are awesome! And they'll probably insure our complete involvement, confusion, and ultimately, destruction!
And please, bear in mind, my explanation is terribly simplistic, not factoring in other alliances with nation-states (Syria, Lebanon..), political factions(Hezbollah, PKK), escalating tensions between Palestinians and Israelis, Palestine's lobbying for U.N. Statehood status, and rich, western countries sticking their ass in this ever-growing potential apocalypse.. And the fact these people have hated each other for a millennia..
Imagine a tangled ball of Christmas lights the size of your house. Untangle it. Oh yeah; it's electrified. That's kinda what we're dealing with, here..
It's a good thing this will be on television, or I'd be worried that it's all real!
I think we're going in the wrong direction, here.. From MSNBC..
The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.
The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.
On Friday, American jets killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. According to witnesses, four civilians were also killed in the airstrike. Weeks earlier, drone aircraft fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who the United States government has tried to kill for more than a year. Mr. Awlaki survived.
Lebanese Fear Collateral Damage From Syrian Crisis. NPR. Excerpts:
The unrest in neighboring Syria has the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on edge. Thousands of refugees have poured over the border, the demand for weapons is skyrocketing, and the pro-Syrian Alawite minority is warning of chaos if Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime falls.
Though Hezbollah is the best known of the pro-Syrian actors in Lebanon, residents in Tripoli are more worried about the Alawites, members of the same minority that has ruled Syria for more than 40 years. Their numbers may be small, but they are well-armed and fiercely loyal to Damascus
The Alawite community of Jabal Mohsen stands on the hill above Bab al-Tabbaneh, a poor Sunni neighborhood in Tripoli. Three years ago, it was the scene of intense armed clashes that left dozens dead and hundreds of families displaced. Nobody here wants to see that repeated.
..
Rifaat Eid, who heads the Alawite Arab Democratic Party, agrees with Syria's argument that chaos will erupt across the region if Assad's regime is threatened.
"If anything happens in Syria, all the Middle East will be divided," he says. "The serious danger in this is that all the minorities will end in the Middle East, especially the Christians, OK? And I will tell you, as minorities the Jewish will — can't — afford to stay in the Middle East."
..
Sunni leaders see the situation differently. Lawmaker Khaled Daher says the catastrophic warnings from Syria and its supporters are simply a tired replay from the Arab dictator's playbook: Back me or face chaos.
"The Syrians are very good at putting fear into people," he says. "I mean, their problem is with their people. They want rights, democracy; this is what they should be working on, their problems with their people. Instead, what are they doing? From the beginning, you know, the Syrians have tried to move the focus from their problem to others."
Libyan rebels: Gaddafi's forces attacking Benghazi From The Jerusalem Post.
US claims Libyan gov't violating ceasefire; French UN envoy says military intervention may be launched "hours after" upcoming int'l summit; Gaddafi calls UN resolution "blatant colonialism."
..
Large explosions were heard in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi early on Saturday, and residents said that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces were attacking the rebel stronghold.
..
A unilateral ceasefire declared on Friday by the Libyan government appeared to have done little to convince outside powers to hold off on plans for air strikes to force an end to an increasingly bloody civil war.
Other regimes emboldened by Gadhafi's tactics
..But in the end, it was Gadhafi's willingness to use brute force and the tools of his police state that has helped him so far avoid the fate of neighboring autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt who were swallowed up by popular revolutions.
Regimes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Syria appear to have taken note, confronting their uprisings with a hard wall of state-sponsored violence.
On Friday, government agents fired on a peaceful protest in Yemen, security forces in Syria reportedly shot several demonstrators dead, and Bahrain's ruling monarchy tore down a 300-foot sculpture at Pearl Square, where protesters had been routed in a deadly confrontation just two days earlier.
Libya shuts air space in face of strikes
Libya shut down its air space on Friday as Britain and France were expected to scramble fighter jets against Moammar Gaddafi's forces after they secured the UN Security Council's blessing.
Eurocontrol, the continent's air traffic agency, said Tripoli "does not accept traffic" until further notice, citing information from Maltese authorities, as France announced air strikes would be imminent.
Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam said Friday his family was "not afraid" as the Libyan foreign ministry said Tripoli was ready for a ceasefire but wanted to discuss its terms.
Meeting Thursday, the UN Security Council voted by 10-0 to permit "all necessary measures" to establish the no-fly zone, protect civilian areas and impose a ceasefire on Gaddafi's military.
This paragraph is of long(looonng) term interest..
Five countries on the 15-strong council abstained, including permanent members China and Russia, who did not use their veto power. India and Brazil also abstained in addition to Germany.
Brazil
Russia
India
China..
and
Germany.
BRIC plus Germany. This is not a coincidence.
Gadhafi plays deadly war games
Trying to outmaneuver Western military intervention, Moammar Gadhafi's government declared a cease-fire against the rebel uprising faltering against his artillery, tanks and warplanes. The opposition said shells rained down well after the announcement and accused the Libyan leader of lying.
Wary of the cease-fire, Britain and France took the lead in plans to enforce a no-fly zone, sending British warplanes to the Mediterranean and announcing a crisis summit today in Paris with the U.N. and Arab allies. In Washington, President Barack Obama ruled out the use of American ground troops but warned that the U.S., which has an array of naval and air forces in the region, would join in military action.
..
Parts of eastern Libya, where the once-confident rebels this week found their hold slipping, erupted into celebration at the passage of the U.N. resolution. But the timing and consequences of any international military action remained unclear.
Britain, France and NATO held emergency meetings Friday on using military force to enforce the no-fly zone, which was approved by U.N. Security Council on Thursday. Officials announced that the leaders of Britain, France and Germany and the chiefs of the United Nations and Arab League would join other world leaders for the emergency summit on Libya today in Paris.
France's ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, told BBC Newsnight that he expected military action to begin in Libya within hours of the Paris meeting.
Libya accuses revolutionaries of breaching truce
So far Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Qatar, Spain, Sweden and the United States have said they will help to implement the no-fly zone.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said "everything is ready" to intervene in Libya, but he refused to give a timetable.
And:
Some 300,000 people have already fled Libya since the rebellion began and many more are expected to leave if full-blown war breaks out, the agencies said.
EU to back sanctions on Libya oil company next week
The European Union will move to add Libya's National Oil Corp. to its list of sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi's government at a summit on March 24/25, EU diplomats said on Friday.
The move follows Thursday's U.N. Security Council resolution which authorised a no-fly zone over Libya and expanded sanctions against Gaddafi and his inner circle that were first imposed in February. These measures include an order to freeze the assets of the oil company as well as Libya's central bank.
Indict Muammar Gaddafi now for War Crimes in Sierra Leone
With international pressure already mounting on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and with the International Criminal Court now in the process of gathering information on civilian deaths in Libya, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court have a profound opportunity to indict Gaddafi for war crimes and crimes against humanity he has committed in Sierra Leone. The United Nations has already sanctioned Gaddafi’s government, and now it’s time his prior crimes in West Africa are brought to justice, too.
Muammar Gaddafi was the mastermind and key financier of the brutal war that left hundreds of thousands dead in Sierra Leone in West Africa in the 1990s. The war would not have happened in the first place had it not been for the desire of the Libyan leader to punish the government of Sierra Leone for what he regarded as its siding with the West in the 1980’s when Gaddafi was at loggerhead with particularly the United States and Britain. It was also part of Gaddafi’s broader agenda including his geopolitical ambition to destabilize much of West Africa and establish satellite states in the region to be headed by puppet regimes that will be doing his biddings. The decade-long war ripped Sierra Leone apart. Thousands of its victims, whose arms and limbs were chopped off by rebels, were reduced to paupers, roaming the streets as beggars in Freetown and other cities. Children as young as a day old were also among those whose arms and limbs were hacked off by Gaddafi’s rebels. Pregnant women, too, were disemboweled with delight in their display of ghastly brutality.
Yemen on agenda as PM lands in Oman Psst.. Yemen. You're freaking England out. PM David Cameron's talking to Oman behind your back..
The threat of terrorism from an unstable Yemen will be high on the agenda for Prime Minister David Cameron as he ends a four-day Middle East tour in neighbouring Oman.
..
Mr Cameron met with Omani Sultan Qaboos Bin Said last night in part to thank the country for its key logistical role as a "bridge" for UK armed forces deploying to Afghanistan.
Yemen leader defiant; Oman officials booted
Yemen's besieged president defiantly rejected a proposal Saturday to leave office early and possibly end weeks of protests and bloodshed, while Oman's ruler pushed out three more top-level officials in attempts to quell widening demands for economic reforms and justice for the killing of a demonstrator.
Turkish Defense Exports To Mideast Unaffected By Revolts
Just when Turkey’s local industry thought it caught a niche in several Middle Eastern markets, the region began to shake with popular revolts, but Ankara's export planners say "it is business as usual."
A senior procurement official dealing with exports of Turkish-made systems mostly to Middle Eastern and eastern markets said that previous contracts would not be affected by the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
"Egypt is a market and partner with previously signed contracts. Tunisia and Libya were prospective markets. They still are for the longer term. As the dust settles we will roll up our sleeves to help the (Turkish) industry for new contracts," he told Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review Thursday.
Kuwait awaits protests but is no stranger to upheaval
Kuwait has the Gulf's most powerful parliament, and opposition lawmakers already have taken bold shots at the ruling emir's inner circle, including two no-confidence motions since December 2009 that nearly brought down the prime minister. The plan now is to take demands for a political overhaul to the streets.
..
Libya and Yemen are all-or-nothing fights to bring down the leadership. Oman seemingly has cooled after an angry start — with protesters staging sit-ins to push for more jobs while being careful not to speak ill of the lute-playing sultan who has ruled for 40 years. Bahrain's protests tap into deep-rooted claims of discrimination by the majority Shiites against the Sunni monarchy.
The rumblings in Saudi Arabia — where protesters have called for a show of force Friday — seek even small breaks in the absolute control in the ruling House of Saud.
..
Kuwait joins the protest roster with quite a bit of experience. Its opposition bloc in parliament — a mix of Islamists and reformists — has gone toe-to-toe for years with the hand-picked government of the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, over allegations that include financial mismanagement and attempts to roll back political freedoms. The dissident lawmakers draw heavily from the desert provinces outside Kuwait City, where many feel cut out of oil wealth.
The most significant change this week could be adding pro-reform youth groups into the fray. At a strategy meeting last week, some organizers of new youth-oriented factions — including one called Kafi, or Enough, in Arabic — pledged to occupy a main square in Kuwait City to copy the round-the-clock stand by demonstrators in Bahrain's Pearl Square.
This is Western Africa, but it's relevant.. Ivory Coast 'forgotten emergency'
Chals Wontewe, Oxfam's Country Director in Liberia said: "This could become Africa's latest forgotten crisis. Thousands of civilians are fleeing for their lives yet the international community is failing to respond adequately. The world risks being seriously unprepared for the escalating crisis in West Africa.
"For more than three months now the people of Ivory Coast have been living with the threat of violence, intimidation, economic collapse and sexual assault. The situation is now deteriorating rapidly and urgent action is needed to avert a humanitarian crisis. The conditions for refugees and communities hosting them in Liberia are extremely worrying. People are in dire need of the very basics - clean water, food and shelter."
Tensions ignited in Ivory Coast following the contested presidential election in November 2010 and has resulted in months of instability and a steep increase in violent clashes in the past week. As well as rising political and military tensions, many banks remain closed, prices of basic goods are rocketing and more than 500,000 people have lost their jobs.
It' on.. Rebel violence, looting continue to spread in Ivory Coast
Rebels opposed to the strongman Laurent Gbagbo seized a town near the Liberian border yesterday, a rebel spokesman said, in a further sign of Ivory Coast’s possible slide toward civil war.
A top commander of Gbagbo-allied forces in the west, near the border, declined to comment, but the head of a leading civil society organization in the region confirmed that the town of Toulepleu had fallen to the rebels, extending an advance in which they have taken several small towns on the Liberian frontier in the past 10 days.
A weeklong campaign of looting and burning in Abidjan aimed at the homes of ministers allied with Gbagbo’s rival, Alassane Ouattara, continued yesterday, underscoring the growing lawlessness in this sprawling economic capital.
Ouattara won a presidential election in November, according to most of the international community, but Gbagbo refused to step aside. The standoff prevailing here since then has taken an increasingly violent turn.
Last week, it was the oil refinery fire(Has the oil industry built any new refineries lately? Lately being the last 20 plus years.. Answer: No). This week, it's the imminent(Since the last eight years or so) Israeli attack on Iran. What's next week's excuse going to be? Oh yeah; I wonder how much Saudi Arabia profited from this bit of "news?"
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