Obama announces new oil drilling

Obama has previously vowed to cut US oil imports
© AFP/File Mira Oberman

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama, under pressure over high gasoline prices, Saturday committed to annual oil and gas lease sales in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve and to speeding up production in other areas.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, the US leader admitted that one of the biggest burdens for US consumers in recent months had been the high price of gasoline -- which is more than four dollars a gallon in some areas.

"These spikes in gas prices are often temporary, and while there are no quick fixes to the problem, there are a few steps we should take that make good sense," Obama said.

The president vowed to increase safe and responsible oil production from US resources, at the same time as enhancing safety and environmental standards.

"To do this, I am directing the Department of Interior to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, while respecting sensitive areas," Obama said.

Previously, oil and gas leases had taken placed periodically in the Alaskan National Petroleum Reserve, but not on an annual basis.

Obama also offered to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid- and south Atlantic and to lease new areas of the Gulf of Mexico.

He also pledged to unveil new incentives for the oil industry to develop unused leases which have already been acquired.

In many cases, oil and gas giants say the costs incurred in areas leased out by the government would result in prohibitively expensive costs to be fully explored and exploited.

The inland Alaska National Petroleum Reserve lies to the west of the more famous Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), which Republicans and oil firms have been calling on Obama to open for drilling.

A senior administration official however told reporters "drilling in the Arctic refuge is off the table and we do not support development there."

In March 2010, Obama announced a plan to expand drilling along areas of the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska.

But he reversed the decision later in the year, amid the environmental fallout of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf, and banned drilling in some areas until beyond 2017.

Saturday's move would extend drilling leases in some areas of the Gulf impacted by last year's temporary moratorium and it will establish a new interagency working group to ensure Arctic leases meet environmental standards.

Obama has previously vowed to cut US oil imports, which often come from volatile areas of the world by a third in just over a decade, and has also invested heavily in developing alternative energy sources.

But Republicans have charged that his reluctance to open US energy fields to full exploitation undermines his policy.

The president has also railed against oil industry giants for making huge profits while Americans suffer from rising pump prices and has called for 4 billion dollars in government subsidies to the industry to be revoked.

"Four billion dollars at a time when Americans can barely fill up their tanks. Four billion dollars at a time when we're trying to reduce our deficit. This isn't fair, it makes no sense," said Obama in the address.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

Former Blackwater officials form corporate spying group

The people that operated Blackwater and the military's pre-9/11 data mining operation Able Danger have a new project: corporate spying services for Fortune 500 companies.

Their new company is called Jellyfish Intelligence.

"Our organization is not going to be controversial," Jellyfish CEO and former Blackwater senior executive Keith Mahoney insisted.

The Jellyfish mission is "to protect human lives and their business interests throughout the world," the firm's website claims.

"Operation Jellyfish is an innovative, private sector initiative designed by a team of former military and intelligence operatives, chief executives and corporate strategists offering private intelligence services to CEOs and senior executives of multinational corporations," the group claimed.

A marketing document promises Jellyfish has "figures inside key circles... including within the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, clerical circles in Iran, and tribal leaderships on the Pakistani side of the [Afghanistan-Pakistan] border region."

"The Able Danger days, that’s like 1,000 years ago," Chief Technology Officer J.D. Smith said.

Able Danger was a Pentagon spying program that allegedly identified the lead 9/11 hijacker more than a year before the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

"Working with a technology firm called 4th Dimension Data, Jellyfish builds clients a dashboard to search and aggregate data from across its proprietary intel database, the public internet and specifically targeted information sources," Wired's Spencer Ackerman reported.

While Jellyfish will provide training for "physical security," Mohoney was quick to point out that "Jellyfish Intelligence has no interest in guns and gates and guards."

Here Are The Refineries And Nuclear Power Plants Threatened If The Morganza Spillway Is [Opened|Shut]

As we reported previously, Obama has found himself on the verge of another environmental scandal now that he has no choice but to redirect the Mississippi river via the Morganza spillway - either lose millions in barrels of daily refined production and potentially the impairment of the Colonial Pipeline, two events which would promptly cause gas prices to soar to new records, or redirect the river via the Spillway, and cause the flooding of millions of acres, and numerous towns and cities, and possibly another New Orelans bases crisis. It seems Obama has picked the lesser of two evils: i.e., protect the oil: "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Friday it anticipates opening the Morganza Spillway on the western bank of the swollen Mississippi River to divert floodwaters into the Atchafalaya River basin and protect Baton Rouge, Louisiana, New Orleans and refineries from flooding. The Corps of Engineers had been planning next week to open the spillway, about 45 miles (72 km) northwest of Baton Rouge, but could do so as soon as Saturday as high water continues making its way downriver." On the other hand, opening the spillway will also lead to plant impairments: " Opening the spillway will disrupt operations at Alon USA Energy's 80,000-bpd Krotz Springs, Louisiana, refinery. An Alon spokesman said on Friday that the plant was operating normally as crews continued to build a second levee to prevent Atchafalaya River waters from flooding the refinery within 10 to 14 days of the Morganza opening. The new levee will supplement existing levees." And there is more: it appears that not only are refineries in danger, but three nuclear power plants are also in danger of being flooded: Entergy's 1,176-megawatt Waterford nuclear plant in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana; its 978-megawatt River Bend nuclear plant in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, and the 1,268-megawatt Grand Gulf nuclear station in Clairborne County, Mississippi."

Below are the refineries which are threatened unless the Morganza is open:

• Alon USA Energy Krotz Springs, Louisiana : 80,000
• Chalmette Refining Chalmette, Louisiana: 192,500
• ConocoPhillips Belle Chasse, Louisiana: 247,000
• Exxon Mobil Corp Baton Rouge, Louisiana: 504,500
• Marathon Oil Corp Garyville, Louisiana: 436,000
• Motiva Enterprises Convent, Louisiana: 235,000
• Motiva Enterprises Norco, Louisiana: 234,700
• Murphy Oil Corp Meraux, Louisiana: 120,000
• Valero Energy Corp Memphis, Tennessee: 180,000
• Valero Energy Corp St. Charles, Louisiana 185,000

And here are those in danger if the Spillway is open:

• BP America Production Co 10,703
• Petroquest Energy LLC 8,757
• Apache Corp 4,986
• ConocoPhillips Inc 2,661
• Stone Energy Corp 2,232
• Chevron USA Inc 1,467
• Dune Operating Co 1,407
• Swift Energy Optg LLC 1,241

Additionally, the following traffic has been impaired:

SHIP TRAFFIC:

The tanker Zaliv Baikal turned back from going to a dock in Baton Rouge because its captain didn't think the vessel had enough clearance beneath the I-10 Bridge over the Mississippi at Baton Rouge.

Berths at Exxon's docks in Baton Rouge were flooding on Thursday, which may make docking tankers difficult in the coming days, according to sources familiar with refinery operations. Exxon said the refinery continues to operate normally.

BARGE TRAFFIC:

Barge traffic is moving along the Mississippi River with some restrictions and no closures. Barges were running near Baton Rouge, but facing difficult river conditions.

Mississippi River restrictions include length of barge (no greater than 600 feet), energy requirement (greater than 250 horsepower), speed (3 miles/hour) and prior notification requests before navigation starts. To that end, barge traffic is open in places like St. Louis and Memphis with restrictions.

TERMINALS SHUT:

Magellan Midstream Partners said it discontinued operations at its 2.8 million-barrel storage terminal in Marrero, Louisiana, close to New Orleans, after it finished loading barges on Friday.

Nearly 20 percent of barge terminals that the U.S. Coast Guard monitors on the Ohio River remained closed on Thursday. The Smithland Lock and Dam at mile marker 918.5 on the river remains closed, obstructing barge traffic both up and downstream.

Nobel Prize winner argues austerity measures limit growth; message aimed for Brussels or Washington?

Joseph Stiglitz (left) in 2001 receiving his
Nobel Prize in economy from
Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said that countries adopting an austerity-based economic policy were sure to fail. Speaking in Copenhagen on Friday, he accused European leaders of what he called “deficit fetishism,” arguing that budget cutting in lean times retards rather than encourages economic growth.

Bloomberg News quotes the Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor, paraphrasing the famous Einstein quote about insanity. Said Stiglitz: “Austerity is an experiment that has been tried before with the same results.”

The Stiglitz criticism comes on the heels of first-quarter economic results that proved stronger than expected for Europe’s leading economies, Germany and France. Even Greece, whose solvency issues triggered Europe’s economic crisis, eked out its first economic expansion in three years, with growth of 0.8% for the quarter, which matched the EU average.

Possibly bolstering the economist’s case, the U.K. and Spain, two prominent budget cutters, posted quarterly growth of 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.

The Stiglitz comments may also be aimed at influencing the economic policy debate currently raging on Capitol Hill, ahead of expectations the U.S. will reach its debt ceiling limit of $14.3 trillion on Monday. The current consensus in Washington is that the deficit must be reduced, but Democrats and Republicans agree on little else. Before the 2010 midterm elections that brought a House Republican majority, the Democratic administration favored a stimulative fiscal policy in contrast to Republican budget cutting preferences.

Now the differences lie in how deep budget cuts should be, with Republicans wanting to take on large entitlement programs and Democrats seeking tax hikes. Some officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, have stated that failure to lift the debt limit could wreak havoc in the bond markets. A Gallup poll released Friday confirmed months of earlier polling suggesting the American public opposed raising the debt ceiling.

Eurozone crisis is still dangerous, IMF warns

Sovereign debt problems could spread and lead to a second credit crunch

Europe remains highly vulnerable to another systemic banking crisis, itself sparked by the continuing sovereign debt problems in Greece and other distressed "peripheral" eurozone member states, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday.

The fund, which is funding around a third of the cost for the rescues of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, states: "Contagion to the core euro area, and then onwards to emerging Europe, remains a tangible downside risk."

In its latest Regional Outlook for Europe, the fund states: "Financial linkages between countries with sovereign debt troubles and the rest of Europe could potentially pose more risk to the outlook. Banks in the core countries of advanced Europe carry substantial exposure to the euro area periphery on their books, and a shock to confidence could spread quickly throughout Europe". As with the original credit crunch in 2007, that could trigger a further collapse in already fragile business and consumer confidence, itself adding to banks' bad debts and creating a "negative feedback loop". This time, though, the loop would be even harder to break as few European countries have much "fiscal headroom" to launch new stimulus packages or fund further sovereign bailouts or bank recapitalisations.

The European financial system remains highly vulnerable to systemic risk if the Greek and other government bonds owned by financial institutions, including the major banks, are devalued in any restructuring of sovereign debt, voluntary or otherwise. The intimate linkages between Europe's major banking groups – including the UK's – means that a crisis in Greece could soon prove a systemic risk to the entire continent, raising fears of a "second credit crunch".

The fund concludes: "Financial spillovers from sovereign debt problems remain a tangible risk. For this reason, it is urgent to implement agreed enhancements to the framework for crisis management in the euro area."

Looking forward to the EU-wide "stress tests" to be run by the European Commission in June, the IMF urges the European and national authorities to "deal with weak banks in a swift and effective manner" to "dispel lingering uncertainties about the overall health of the banking sector and the potential fiscal cost of propping them up". The stress tests "will only make a real difference if backed by a programme of recapitalisation, restructuring and resolution". At its Spring Meetings in Washington earlier this year, the IMF said that one third of Europe's banks were operating with inadequate capital.

Apart from Greece's own banks, those European banks with the highest exposure to Greek bonds are: BNP Paribas, Dexia, Commerzbank, SocGen, ING and RBS. The European Central Bank holds about 20 per cent of Greece's debt.

There is broad support for the UK Government's strategy to cut the budget deficit, but they add: "Despite some support from the depreciated pound and a rapid unfreezing of past investment decisions, stronger headwinds from a 'front-loaded' fiscal strategy and higher household debt levels will restrain growth somewhat". The IMF sees the British economy expanding by 1.7 per cent this year and 2.3 per cent in 2012.

The next stage in Europe's long-running debt crisis is a vote in the Finnish parliament today on the Portuguese rescue, without which it cannot go ahead. If, as is expected, the proposals survive that, then European finance ministers will meet next week to launch the Portuguese deal formally and, perhaps, to make fresh announcements on change to the Irish deal or further assistance to Greece. For Athens, markets would now be surprised if the country did not eventually organise a "voluntary restructuring", probably involving an extension of the maturities of its bonds. Some expect a "haircut" in bond values of 70 per cent.

Nonetheless, such a move would crystallise fears as well as losses, and could again spark a wave of panic in the debt and currency markets. Most observers agree that if Spain manages to escape infection the euro itself, for the time being, should be safe.

Jury Rejects State Charges against 7/7 Ripple Effect’s Muad’Dib

At 4pm on Thursday 12^th May at Southwark Crown Court the jury returned and declared Muad’Dib (Anthony John Hill) innocent of attempting to ‘pervert the course of justice’.

Mr. Hill has spent 151 days incarcerated in Wandsworth prison over the past few months and this verdict spared him, mercifully, a sentence of up to 20 years in jail.

His offence? He had sent six DVD copies of his film ‘7/7: The Ripple Effect’ to various persons at the time (in 2008) of the trial in Kingston of three ‘terror’ suspects, alleged co-conspirators with the London ‘suicide bombers’. The DVD’s were intercepted and never reached their targets. The Kingston suspects were found innocent (only to later be retried for the same offences, but that’s another story).

Muad’Dib’s trial started on Monday 9^th May, with a challenge to the monarchy and, hence, the authority of the court. This was ruled ‘out of order’ by the judge. On Tuesday a jury were sworn in.

On Wednesday they watched all of his film, ‘The Ripple Effect’, in open court.

Over the Tuesday and Wednesday the jury heard in-depth discussions of both 7/7 and 9/11, with Mr Hill laying out clearly, and at his own leisurely pace under cross-examination, the reasons he believes that both these ‘attacks by terrorists’ were, in fact, false flag attacks by agencies of the state against its own people carried out with the purpose of providing a pretext for invasion of innocent countries in the middle east in order to control their natural resources.

This was surely the first ever fully-explored set of such allegations of false flag terror made against any state before an ordinary collection of the citizens of that state.

It is also clear from the verdict that, when such information is placed before such ordinary citizens the majority of them ‘get it.’ The jury had announced that it could not be unanimous, so the judge allowed a ‘majority verdict’, i.e. ten or more of the 12.

It is surely not unfair to deduce that Southwark Crown Court’s jury of ordinary persons did not reject Muad’Dib’s false-flag narrative as outrageous or even necessarily untrue. One wonders how many of that jury have now themselves been converted into active ‘troofers’?

During the trial (on Wednesday) JAH/Hill/Muad’Dib was asked why he moved to Ireland: “To pursue my study of the lost Ark of the Covenant” was his reply. Here is a character, both serious and refreshing, who brings a mythic dimension into life. Onlookers were impressed by the way he was able to conduct himself without fear in the witness-box, sometimes pausing 5-10 seconds to reflect, before replying. A group of up to 25 supporters attended the four days of the trial, a couple travelling from as far afield as Finland and the state of Montana.

Let’s hope that will be the end of the persecution of Mr JAH by the British state – and, that he soon starts on a 2nd edition of his Ripple Effect.

It’s the opinion of Sheffield University social-sciences professor Ridley-Duff, that Mr Hill’s Ripple Effect’s narrative of what happened on that day, is more plausible and better fits the facts than did the BBC’s 7/7 ‘Conspiracy Files‘ program. His well-referenced study focussed very much on what happened at Canary Wharf on that morning, seeing the Ripple narrative, whereby the young alleged bombers had been inveigled into a terror drill that morning, then fled to Canary wharf where they were shot – as the best account yet. The new 3^rd edition of my book Terror on the Tube endorses this view. In contrast, the so-called ‘July 7^th Truth Campaign’ has scoffed at the Ripple narrative calling it ‘evidence-free conjecture,’ a quite breathtaking (and very revealing) remark.

3rd Edition available from Amazon:

The 7/7 Ripple Effect: