Oil

Iran FM: IAEA Inspectors Free to Inspect All Nuclear Sites

January 30, 2012
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Previous inspections have failed to uncover any solid evidence that there is any military program at all, which has only fueled further accusations from Western nations that Iran is hiding them. The IAEA’s current chief Amano Yukiya, has mostly gone along with these allegations, issuing a report warning that they couldn’t prove Iran didn’t...

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Confidential federal tar sands strategy targets Aboriginal and green groups

January 28, 2012
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As controversy increases over the Harper government’s attacks on environmental groups, Greenpeace Canada today released internal government documents obtained under Access to Information legislation showing that the Harper government has explicitly identified environmental and aboriginal groups as “adversaries” in its strategy to increase tar sands exports.   http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/recent/Confidential-federal-tar-sands-strategy-targets-Aboriginal-and-green-groups/ http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=6476  

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Violence on the Rise in Iraq: 434 Killed Since US Troops Left

January 28, 2012
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It is hard to blame the Iraqis for not believing the US is actually gone, particularly with tens of thousands of armed contractors working for the State Department on the ground. Indeed, with bombings continuing and violence still on the rise, Iraq retains all the trappings of a nation at war. http://news.antiwar.com/2012/01/27/violence-on-the-rise-in-iraq-434-killed-since-us-troops-left/

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How to Start a War: The American Use of War Pretext Incidents

January 11, 2012
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With regard to the confrontation in the Persian Gulf, is the Obama administration prepared to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain with a view to triggering public support for a war on Iran on the grounds of self-defense. Those opposed to war must address the issue of the “pretext”and “justification” to wage war....

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Saudis, Gulf states on war alert for early US-Iran clash

January 5, 2012
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The armies of Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states stood ready Thursday Jan. 5, for Washington to stand up to Iranian threats and send an aircraft carrier or several warships through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. Riyadh has been leaning hard on the Obama administration not to let Tehran...

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EU governments agree in principle on Iranian oil ban

January 4, 2012
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BRUSSELS Jan 4 (Reuters) – European Union governments have reached a preliminary agreement to ban imports of Iranian crude to the EU but have yet to decide when such an embargo would be put in place, EU diplomats said on Wednesday. http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFB5E7NR00820120104  

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Foreign Warships Will Need Iran’s Permission to Pass through Strait of Hormoz

January 4, 2012
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Foreign Warships Will Need Iran’s Permission to Pass through Strait of Hormoz

TEHRAN (FNA)- All foreign warships will soon be unable to pass through the Strait of Hormoz unless they first receive a permission from the Iranian Navy ships deployed in the region, an Iranian parliamentarian said, adding that the country’s lawmakers are now working on a relevant plan as the strategic waterway is part of...

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Tehran is expected to strike back hard

December 29, 2011
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The European Union’s 27 member-states meet in January to approve an embargo on Iranian oil, with effect on 25 percent of Iran’s energy exports. Next month, too, President Barack Obama plans to sign into law an amendment authorizing severe penalties for foreign banks trading with Iran’s central bank, CBI, including the loss of links...

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Qatar to overthrow Saudi regime

December 26, 2011
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The Saudi Arabian monarchy will be overthrown by Qatar very soon, a leaked confidential conversation by Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani has revealed. According to an audio file which has gone viral on the Internet, the premier said Qatari troops would occupy Qatif in Eastern Province and the Al Saud...

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Breaking Symmetry: Oil Crisis in 2012

December 26, 2011
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With higher stakes for all of us: even with falling economic growth in Asia, recession in Europe and near recession in the US the global economy still needs about 89 million barrels of oil each day.  Any sharp recovery of the global economy will drive up oil demand and radically drive up prices. Any...

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Marxism -- Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition

"We have always distinguished the social kernel from the political form of bourgeois democracy; we have always revealed the hard kernel of social inequality and lack of freedom hidden under the sweet shell of formal equality and freedom – not in order to reject the latter but to spur the working class into not being satisfied with the shell, but rather, by conquering political power, to create a socialist democracy to replace bourgeois democracy – not to eliminate democracy altogether."

"But socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land, after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Yes, dictatorship! "

"But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class – that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people."


Rosa Luxemburg