The Oil Bubble Has Burst?
August 9, 2008
The price of a barrel of crude has been falling: from a peak of $145 in early July, it came down to $117 and was trading yesterday at $120. That’s almost a 20 per cent drop in little more than three weeks, reports the UK Telegraph.
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| A return to relatively normal oil prices would take the sting out of inflation |
If the trend continues into September at anything like the same rate of descent, most of the inflationary spike of the past 12 months will miraculously have been sliced away. This is a dramatic reversal, and it is worth trying to work out why it is happening and what it means.
Just possibly, it means that what investors refer to in shorthand as the great “oil up” story has finally revealed itself not as the fundamental reflection of scarce supply that its adherents liked to claim, but as a simple, speculative bubble that was always going to burst.
3000 Blank British Passports Stolen
July 30, 2008
Around 3,000 blank British passports due to be sent to embassies around the world have been stolen from a van that was hijacked near Manchester, England, in what the government admits was a major security breach.
The Foreign Office admitted that 24 parcels containing blank passports and vignettes - the stickers used for visa stamps - were taken from a vehicle that was traveling from the printers yesterday.
Security experts have suggested that the cargo, which has a street value of almost $10 million was probably targeted deliberately.
The van was hijacked when one of two delivery men got out of the vehicle to buy chocolate and a newspaper. While he was gone, a colleague in the vehicle was threatened and assaulted before the van was driven, with the second delivery man still inside, to a quiet street nearby.
The packages of secure documents were then taken from the van.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman admitted it was a serious breach of security and that the Home Office and Identity and Passport Service had taken “preventative action” to guard against the stolen passports being forged and used to commit fraud.
Recently, Western intelligence agencies alerted the public to the fact that al-Qaeda was recruiting EU passport holders as operatives for upcoming US operations.
Iran Planning Space, ICBM Capability, Says DIA
July 30, 2008
The head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said last week that Iran is developing longer-range missiles.
“According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, if you look at the reports that they have been testifying to along with some of the intelligence reports that we can’t go into here, there’s good evidence that they are developing longer and longer-range missiles and that they are planning to have this capability over the near future,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering July 15.
Obering said intelligence community assessments indicated that by 2015 to 2017 Iran “may even have a missile that could reach the United States, which is an ICBM-class missile.”
The EU Three — Plus Four
July 8, 2008
Deb Riechmann - (AP) President Bush is a straight-talking guy, so what’s he doing talking about the EU-3?
It’s part of Bush diplomatic-speak. Derided by some as a cowboy during his first term, Bush is ending his presidency knee-deep in group diplomacy.
Throughout his weeklong trip through Europe he’s talked a lot about ways the U.S. is huddling with other countries to push for change in rival nations like North Korea and Iran, or push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Diplomatic rhetoric that sounds like alphabet soup is not as snazzy as statements like “dead or alive” — a comment he uttered after the Sept. 11 attacks about Osama bin Laden and one he later had second thoughts about saying.
On Iran, there’s the EU (European Union), the EU-3 (Germany, France and Britain), and if you add the United States, Russia and China, you get the EU-3 plus 3. If Italy eventually makes it into the club, it will become the EU-3 plus 4.
On North Korea, it’s the six-party negotiations pitting Pyongyang against South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
And don’t forget the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers — the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — all nudging Israel and the Palestinians toward a peace accord.
How can the president keep it straight, let alone have confidence that any of these thorny disputes can be resolved in the seven months he has left in office?
The EU-3 is leading the charge on a diplomatic effort to try to get Iran to stop enriching uranium, a pathway to a nuclear weapon. That diplomacy, which Bush talked about throughout his trip, hit a snag Saturday when Tehran said no to a package of incentives the EU group was offering if Iran stopped enriching uranium.
Expecting the rejection, Bush was working to bolster the European partners’ resolve to levy stiffer sanctions on Iran. It’s unlikely, however, that the nuclear standoff, which Europe fears could lead the U.S. or Israel to attack Iran, will be resolved before Bush leaves office. Read more
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