"The Iraqi Oil Ministry on Thursday said it has awarded a consortium led by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC the right to develop the West Qurna-1 oil field, representing the first American-led team gaining access to the country's oil patch.
The pact is the latest in a series of deals Iraq has recently signed or initialed with some of the world's biggest oil companies. Earlier this week, Iraqi officials completed a final agreement with BP PLC and China National Petroleum Corp. and an initial agreement with a consortium led by Italy's Eni SpA. U.S. oil company Occidental Petroleum Corp. participated as a junior partner in the Eni-led team."
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Israel continues evicting Palestinians from homes
The expulsion of Palestinians from their homes, which began in 1947, continues in 2009, especially in East Jerusalem. I think this may be one of the reasons they hate us.
Hat tip to Tony for posting the video and tgia for posting the JPost article.
'The truth is that the State of Israel has never been a victim, and our likening of ourselves to the 6 million has been embarrassing from the beginning - but now? After what we did in Gaza? With the stranglehold we have on that society, while we over here live free and easy?
Victims? Lambs to the slaughter? Us?
No, this has gone beyond embarrassing; this is out-and-out shameful.
And, despite our excuses, it's not that we're "traumatized" by the past into believing that we're still weak, still the frightened, powerless Jews about to be led to the gas chambers. Many Holocaust survivors still believe this, and to some very limited extent, this vestigial fear still takes up space in the Israeli mind.
But by now, 64 years after the Holocaust, 42 years after seeing in the Six Day War how strong we'd become, we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, that we aren't the victims anymore. We know we aren't a continuation of the 6 million but rather a deliberate and stark departure from them.
THE REASON we tell ourselves and the world that we are victims is because we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, that victimhood is power. Victimhood is freedom. A victim can't be told to restrain himself. A victim fighting for survival can't be accused of abusing his power because, after all, his back is to the wall, he's desperate.' ---Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post
Hat tip to Tony for posting the video and tgia for posting the JPost article.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Iraq signs first major oil deal since 2003
'British oil major BP and China's CNPC on Tuesday signed Iraq's first major new oil deal since the 2003 U.S. invasion, snapping up a development contract for the Rumaila oilfield, one of the world's biggest.
The 20-year contract for the southern oilfield is the first of several deals Iraq expects to sign in the coming weeks and months as it tries to catapult itself to third place from 11th in the league of oil-producing nations.'
The 20-year contract for the southern oilfield is the first of several deals Iraq expects to sign in the coming weeks and months as it tries to catapult itself to third place from 11th in the league of oil-producing nations.'
Monday, November 02, 2009
UN investigates "foreign involvement" in terrorism in Iraq
Four years after it was determined that half of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi and most enter Iraq via Damascus, a "U.N. special envoy has met with top Iraqi officials to discuss government complaints of outside involvement in the recent wave of terrorism. Official figures, just released, show the number of terror casualties doubled for the month of October.
Iraqi officials are praising the mission of U.N. envoy Oscar Fernandez-Taranco to Baghdad to investigate allegations of foreign involvement in recent bloody suicide bombings. Taranco's arrival follows lengthy lobbying by the government to hold an independent international inquiry.
Top Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have repeatedly accused Syria of aiding and abetting the perpetrators of two massive suicide bombings in Baghdad on August 19th and October 25. Syria denies involvement in the attacks."
Iraqi officials are praising the mission of U.N. envoy Oscar Fernandez-Taranco to Baghdad to investigate allegations of foreign involvement in recent bloody suicide bombings. Taranco's arrival follows lengthy lobbying by the government to hold an independent international inquiry.
Top Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, have repeatedly accused Syria of aiding and abetting the perpetrators of two massive suicide bombings in Baghdad on August 19th and October 25. Syria denies involvement in the attacks."
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Baathists Inspired by Nazis
Very interesting. Thanks CMAR II - I had not seen this video until you linked to it.
PS: This documentary explains why "Farhood al Yahood" happened in Iraq during WWII.
PS: This documentary explains why "Farhood al Yahood" happened in Iraq during WWII.
Israel steals Palestine's water
This has been happening for decades. Big Kudos to Jon Stewart for trying to expose some of the injustice.
'Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.
These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.
“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.
In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.
Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.
The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.
While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.'
Meanwhile in Iraq, Sunni extremists continue to mass murder Iraqis without Arab protest...
'Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.
These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.
“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.
In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.
Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.
The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.
While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.'
Meanwhile in Iraq, Sunni extremists continue to mass murder Iraqis without Arab protest...
More Iraqis murdered by Al Qaeda
I am still astounded by the lack of Arab condemnation of the Arabs who continue to murder Iraqi Shia. The Arabs have proven time and time again that they care only when Americans kill Iraqis.
Also I find it strange that the media calls it "sectarian" violence only when Shia militias kill innocent Sunni Arabs, as they did in 2006. Are these attacks not sectarian in nature?
"A bicycle loaded with explosives killed five people and wounded 37 at a market in Mussayab, south of Baghdad, on Sunday and a bomb on a bus killed at least three more further south in Kerbala, police and health officials said.
The explosives in the first attack were stored in a water cooler attached to the bicycle, and women and children were among the dead and wounded, police said.
Mussayab, 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, is home to both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, but the town center where the explosion took place is mostly Shi'ite.
Fifteen people were wounded in the second incident, hospital officials in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad said. One of the dead was a police officer at a checkpoint the bus was driving toward. Some police sources put the dead at five.
The attacks bore hallmarks of Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda, who often attack crowded, mostly Shi'ite areas, but many Iraqis also fear an increase in intra-Shi'ite rivalries ahead of a parliamentary election in January."
Update: 'The bombs Sunday, the first day of the Iraqi work week, killed both police officers and civilians and struck Sunni as well as Shiite areas.
In the deadliest of the attacks, a bomb placed on a parked motorcycle exploded near a police patrol and a crowded kabob restaurant near the southern city of Hilla, killing five people and wounding 37.
“No ambulance came at the beginning — that happens all the time,” said Habeb Alwan, 25, who said he saw the blast. “Police closed the area of the explosion and people started to fight with them because they wanted to get to the scene to check on their relatives.”
Hilla, a predominantly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad, was the site of a 2005 suicide bomb that killed at least 114 people, until then the deadliest single attack since the 2003 invasion.
Elsewhere, a magnetic bomb attached to a minibus filled with 21 passengers exploded near a checkpoint in the Karbala province, southwest of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 12 others. Karbala, home of one of the most sacred Shiite mosques, had been relatively peaceful until a spate of attacks in the past few months.
Near Ramadi, the southwest point of Iraq’s Sunni Triangle, a car bomb and a suicide bomber wearing a belt laden with explosives killed two police officers and wounded five people. Ramadi, once one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq, has for two years been a model for progress in Iraq since tribal leaders and United States counterinsurgency forces defeated an Al-Qaeda cell. But recent attacks there have led to concern that Al-Qaeda and other insurgent forces may be regaining strength.
Sheik ali Al-Hatem, a leader of the Sunni Awakening, the group credited with bringing down violence, blamed the “deteriorating of the security situation” on the police and provincial council, saying, “There are no police here — they are just a name with no actions.”
Since September, at least eight attacks on police officers and other officials have killed more than 70 and wounded dozens more in Anbar Province, which includes Ramadi.
Also on Sunday, an improvised explosive device in Mosul province killed two Iraqi soldiers and injured a third, and four police officers were killed in two shootings there.
In October, 453 Iraqi civilians and security personnel were killed, up from a low of 379 in September but considerably below a high of 677 in April, according to the Ministry of Information. The statistics do not count deaths in the northern Kurdish region. In June, United States troops withdrew from cities and towns, handing security responsibilities to Iraqi forces.'
Also I find it strange that the media calls it "sectarian" violence only when Shia militias kill innocent Sunni Arabs, as they did in 2006. Are these attacks not sectarian in nature?
"A bicycle loaded with explosives killed five people and wounded 37 at a market in Mussayab, south of Baghdad, on Sunday and a bomb on a bus killed at least three more further south in Kerbala, police and health officials said.
The explosives in the first attack were stored in a water cooler attached to the bicycle, and women and children were among the dead and wounded, police said.
Mussayab, 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, is home to both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, but the town center where the explosion took place is mostly Shi'ite.
Fifteen people were wounded in the second incident, hospital officials in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad said. One of the dead was a police officer at a checkpoint the bus was driving toward. Some police sources put the dead at five.
The attacks bore hallmarks of Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda, who often attack crowded, mostly Shi'ite areas, but many Iraqis also fear an increase in intra-Shi'ite rivalries ahead of a parliamentary election in January."
Update: 'The bombs Sunday, the first day of the Iraqi work week, killed both police officers and civilians and struck Sunni as well as Shiite areas.
In the deadliest of the attacks, a bomb placed on a parked motorcycle exploded near a police patrol and a crowded kabob restaurant near the southern city of Hilla, killing five people and wounding 37.
“No ambulance came at the beginning — that happens all the time,” said Habeb Alwan, 25, who said he saw the blast. “Police closed the area of the explosion and people started to fight with them because they wanted to get to the scene to check on their relatives.”
Hilla, a predominantly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad, was the site of a 2005 suicide bomb that killed at least 114 people, until then the deadliest single attack since the 2003 invasion.
Elsewhere, a magnetic bomb attached to a minibus filled with 21 passengers exploded near a checkpoint in the Karbala province, southwest of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 12 others. Karbala, home of one of the most sacred Shiite mosques, had been relatively peaceful until a spate of attacks in the past few months.
Near Ramadi, the southwest point of Iraq’s Sunni Triangle, a car bomb and a suicide bomber wearing a belt laden with explosives killed two police officers and wounded five people. Ramadi, once one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq, has for two years been a model for progress in Iraq since tribal leaders and United States counterinsurgency forces defeated an Al-Qaeda cell. But recent attacks there have led to concern that Al-Qaeda and other insurgent forces may be regaining strength.
Sheik ali Al-Hatem, a leader of the Sunni Awakening, the group credited with bringing down violence, blamed the “deteriorating of the security situation” on the police and provincial council, saying, “There are no police here — they are just a name with no actions.”
Since September, at least eight attacks on police officers and other officials have killed more than 70 and wounded dozens more in Anbar Province, which includes Ramadi.
Also on Sunday, an improvised explosive device in Mosul province killed two Iraqi soldiers and injured a third, and four police officers were killed in two shootings there.
In October, 453 Iraqi civilians and security personnel were killed, up from a low of 379 in September but considerably below a high of 677 in April, according to the Ministry of Information. The statistics do not count deaths in the northern Kurdish region. In June, United States troops withdrew from cities and towns, handing security responsibilities to Iraqi forces.'
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