Sunday, July 31, 2011

Skimming the Guardian's Middle East Reports...

Aside from the tanks rolling on protesters in Syria...

Nato warplanes have bombed Libyan state TV satellite transmitters in Tripoli in an attempt to stem the incitement of violence against those not loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the military alliance has said.

  UK Guardian

It’s just straight-up regime change. And we don’t care who knows.

Government airstrikes targeting Islamist militants in southern Yemen have accidentally killed 14 allied tribesmen in a further deterioration of the country's security situation.

[...]

Anti-government tribes in the mountainous Arhab region north of the airport have been battling Yemen's army for months. The tribes, which have long complained of neglect, say the elite Republican Guard is shelling and bombing their villages, killing civilians.

  UK Guardian

So, maybe it wasn’t so much an accident. Everybody just knows to call whomever they want to kill Islamist. Or even better, just say you were aiming at Islamists. That works, too.

BP has been accused of taking a "stranglehold" on the Iraqi economy after the Baghdad government agreed to pay the British firm even when oil is not being produced by the Rumaila field, confidential documents reveal.

The original deal for operating Iraq's largest field – half as big as the entire North Sea – has been rewritten so that BP will be immediately compensated for civil disruption or government decisions to cut production.

  UK Guardian

Sounds like the accusation is well-founded.

Apparently BP can afford all the bad publicity they can accrue.

"Iraq's oil auctions were portrayed as a model of transparency and a negotiating victory for the Iraqi government," said Greg Muttitt, author of Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq. "Now we see the reality was the opposite: a backroom deal that gave BP a stranglehold on the Iraqi economy, and even influence over the decisions of Opec."

Son, in politics and commerce, there is always a backroom deal.

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