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Brazil, Uruguay move away from US dollar in trade

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Reuters/Andrew RC Marshall

Reuters/Andrew RC Marshall

by RT

Brazil and Uruguay have switched to settling bilateral trade with local currency to stimulate turnover, bypassing the US dollar.

Payments in the Brazilian real and Uruguayan peso started on Monday. The agreement was signed on November 2 by the head of Brazilian Central Bank Alexandro Tombini and his Uruguayan counterpart Alberto Grana. Both countries believe such a move would strengthen trade across Latin America.

“The agreement was the result of long negotiations between the countries belonging to Mercosur [the common market of South American countries – Ed.], as well as the global strategies of BRICS,” RIA quotes Carlos Francisco Teixeira da Silva, Professor of International Relations at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Silva says the measure is a “step forward” in Latin American monetary independence, and “the best opportunity for the countries of South America to get rid of the old mechanisms of economic regulations dictated by the United States.”

If the new mechanism proves to be successful, it can be further expanded to countries such as Paraguay, Bolivia, or Venezuela.

Alex Luis Ferreira, a doctor of economic sciences from the University of Sao Paulo, says “the Brazilian real is likely to be used as an exchange and reserve medium.”

In November President Vladimir Putin said Russia plans to leave the “dollar dictatorship” of the market and increase the use of the ruble and the yuan in trading with China. Settlements in yuan between China and Russia have increased 800 percent in annual terms between January and September 2014.

Russia, China and Latin American countries are not the only ones interested in ditching the US dollar. The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) which also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan is planning to create a single market for financial services by 2025 which will simplify switching to dollar-free trading. Earlier this week the Russian State Duma proposed the creation of a single area for payment in national currencies. Such measures are expected to minimize Western influence on the economy of the EEU.

The CIA’s torture orgy: 100 or more prisoners tortured to death in U.S detention

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CIA torture, crushing democracy and Britain’s new military base in Bahrain all deliver a toxic message

Guantanamo Bay

by Seumas Milne, The Guardian

We may have known the outline of the global US kidnapping and torture programme for a few years. But even the heavily censored summary of the US senate torture report turns the stomach in its litany of criminal barbarity unleashed by the CIA on real and imagined US enemies.

The earlier accounts of US brutality in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo pale next to the still sanitised record of forced rectal “infusions” and prolapses, multiple “waterboarding” drownings and convulsions, the shackled freezing to death of a man seized in a mistaken identity case, hooded beatings and hanging by the wrists, mock executions, and sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours.

What has been published is in fact only a small part of a much bigger picture, including an estimated 100 or more prisoners tortured to death in US detention. Added to the rampant lying, cover-ups and impunity, it’s a story that the champions of America’s “exceptionalism” will find hard to sell around the world. And it’s hardly out of line with a CIA record of coups, death squads, torture schools and covert war stretching back decades, some revealed by an earlier senate report in the 1970s.

There is of course nothing exceptional about states that preach human rights and democracy, but practise the opposite when it suits them. For all the senate’s helpful redactions, Britain has been up to its neck in the CIA’s savagery, colluding in kidnapping and torture from Bagram to Guantánamo while dishing out abuses of its own in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So you’d hardly think this reminder of the horrors unleashed in the name of the war on terror was the time for Britain to announce its first permanent military base in the Middle East for four decades. The presence of western troops and support for dictatorial Arab regimes were, after all, the original reasons given by al-Qaida for its jihad against the west.

The subsequent invasions, occupations and bombing campaigns led by the US, Britain and others have been endlessly cited by those who resisted them in the Arab and Muslim world, or launched terror attacks in the west. But last week, foreign secretary Phillip Hammond proudly declared that Britain would reverse its withdrawal from “east of Suez” of the late 1960s and open a navy base “for the long term” in the Gulf autocracy of Bahrain.

The official talk is about protecting Britain’s “enduring interests” and the stability of the region. But to those fighting for the right to run their own country, the message could not be clearer. Britain, the former colonial power, and the US, whose 5th Fleet is already based in Bahrain, stand behind the island’s unelected rulers. No wonder there have already been protests against the base.

Bahrainis campaigning for democracy and civil rights, in a state where the majority are Shia and the rulers Sunni, were part of the Arab uprisings in 2011. With US and British support, Saudi Arabia and the UAE crushed the protests by force. Mass arrests, repression and torture followed.

Three years later, Bahrain’s human rights situation has got worse, and even the US government voices concerns. But British ministers purr about the “progress” of the monarchy’s “reforms”, praising phoney elections to a toothless parliament, boycotted by the main opposition parties. Last week Bahraini activist Zainab al-Khawaja was sentenced to three years in jail for tearing up the king’s photograph. Her father, Abdulhadi, is already serving a life sentence for encouraging peaceful protest.

In reality, the British base’s main job won’t be to prop up the Bahraini regime, but to help protect the entire network of dictatorial Gulf governments that sit on top of its vast reserves of oil and gas – and provide a springboard for future interventions across the wider Middle East. British troops never really left the region and have been part of one intervention after another.

The US itself controls an archipelago of military bases across the Gulf: in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE, as well as Bahrain. And despite Barack Obama’s much-heralded pivot to Asia, they are also clearly there for the long haul. After the US accepted the overthrow of the Egyptian dictator Mubarak three years ago, the Gulf autocrats are looking for extra security, which Britain and France are glad to provide. For the London elite, the Gulf is now as much about arms sales and finance as about oil and gas – and a web of political, commercial and intelligence links that go to the heart of the British establishment.

So the British military is also looking to beef up its presence in the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait. The crucial thing is that these colonial creations remain in the grip of their ruling families and democratisation is put on the back burner. That’s the only guarantee that this corrosive relationship will endure – on the back of disenfranchised populations and armies of grotesquely exploited migrant labour.

On a larger scale, the return of western-backed dictatorship in Egypt, the Arab world’s most important country, has helped re-establish the conditions that led to the war on terror in the first place. Obama has traded the CIA’s Bush-era kidnap-and-torture programme for expanded special forces and CIA drone killings, often of people targeted only by their “signatures” – such as being males of military age. And British forces have this week been accused of training and providing intelligence for Kenyan death squads targeting suspected Islamist activists.

The impact of all this – the revelations of the CIA’s torture orgy, the growing western military grip, the vanishing chances of democratic change – on the Arab and Muslim world should by now be obvious, along with the social backlash in countries such as Britain.

But with its new commitment to station troops in Bahrain, we can have no doubt where the British government stands: behind autocracy and “enduring interests”. Just as the refusal to hold previous US governments to account for terror and torture laid the ground for what happened after 9/11, the failure of parliament even to debate the decision to garrison the Gulf is an ominous one. Britain’s new base isn’t in the interests of either the people of Britain, Bahrain or the Middle East as a whole – it’s a danger and affront to us all.

UNICEF declares 2014 ‘devastating year' for millions of children trapped by conflict

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Nearly 400,000 children in Gaza are suffering from psychosocial distress as a result of the 50-day armed conflict in 2014. Photo: UNICEF/Alessio Romenzi

Nearly 400,000 children in Gaza are suffering from psychosocial distress as a result of the 50-day armed conflict in 2014. Photo: UNICEF/Alessio Romenzi

by Countercurrents

Globally, an estimated 230 million children now live in countries and areas affected by armed conflicts, said the UNICEF.

As many as 15 million children are caught up in violent conflicts in the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, the State of Palestine, Syria and Ukraine – including those internally displaced or living as refugees, informed UNICEF. “Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality”, said Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director.

A New York/Geneva, December 8, 2014 datelined UNICEF press release said:

The year 2014 has been one of horror, fear and despair for millions of children, as worsening conflicts across the world saw them exposed to extreme violence and its consequences, forcibly recruited and deliberately targeted by warring groups.

Yet many crises no longer capture the world’s attention, warned the global organization.

“This has been a devastating year for millions of children,” said Lake. “Children have been killed while studying in the classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been orphaned, kidnapped, tortured, recruited, raped and even sold as slaves.”

In 2014, hundreds of children have been kidnapped from their schools or on their way to school. Tens of thousands have been recruited or used by armed forces and groups. Attacks on education and health facilities and use of schools for military purposes have increased in many places.

Facts

A few of the facts provided by the UNICEF include:

  • In the Central African Republic, 2.3 million children are affected by the conflict, up to 10,000 children are believed to have been recruited by armed groups over the last year, and more than 430 children have been killed and maimed – three times as many as in 2013
  • In Gaza, 54,000 children were left homeless as a result of the 50-day conflict during the summer that also saw 538 children killed, and more than 3,370 injured.
  • In Syria, with more than 7.3 million children affected by the conflict including 1.7 million child refugees, the UN verified at least 35 attacks on schools in the first nine months of the year, which killed 105 children and injured nearly 300 others.
  • In Iraq, where an estimated 2.7 million children are affected by conflict, at least 700 children are believed to have been maimed, killed or even executed this year. Women and girls have suffered physical and sexual assault, sexual slavery, trafficking and forced marriage. Some have been sold in open markets. Children have been tortured by ISIL and many have been forced to watch and take part in executions and torture.
  • In Syria and Iraq, children have been victims of, witnesses to and even perpetrators of increasingly brutal and extreme violence.
  • In South Sudan, an estimated 235,000 children under five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. An estimated 1.7 million children are internally displaced mainly as a result of conflict and more than 320,000 are living as refugees. According to UN verified data, more than 600 children have been killed and over 200 maimed this year, and around 12,000 children are now being used by armed forces and groups. According to UN verified data, nearly 100 were subjected to sexual violence and 311 were abducted.
  • In Ukraine, the number of internally displaced children is estimated at 128,000. At least 36 children were killed and more than 100 were injured in Donetsk and Luhansk regions between mid-April and end of October.
  • Adding further suffering of the children, in countries stricken by Ebola, at least 5 million children aged 3-17 are unable to go back to school because of the outbreak. Thousands of children have lost one or two parents to the disease.

Forgotten

The UN organization said:

The sheer number of crises in 2014 meant that many were quickly forgotten or captured little attention. Protracted crises in countries like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, continued to claim even more young lives and futures.

This year has also posed significant new threats to children’s health and well-being, most notably the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, which has left thousands of children orphaned and an estimated 5 million out of school.

Hope

The world is still struggling to save the children. There is still hope.

The UNICEF SAID:

Despite the tremendous challenges children have faced in 2014, there has been hope for millions of children affected by conflict and crisis. In the face of access restrictions, insecurity, and funding challenges, humanitarian organizations including UNICEF have worked together to provide life-saving assistance and other critical services like education and emotional support to help children growing up in some of the most dangerous places in the world.

In Central African Republic, a campaign is under way to get 662,000 children back to school as the security situation permits.

Nearly 68 million doses of the oral polio vaccine were delivered to countries in the Middle East to stem a polio outbreak in Iraq and Syria.

In South Sudan, more than 70,000 children were treated for severe malnutrition.

In Ebola-hit countries, work continues to combat the virus in local communities through support for community care centers and Ebola treatment Units; through training of health workers and awareness-raising campaigns to reduce the risks of transmission; and through supporting children orphaned by Ebola.

“It is sadly ironic that in this, the 25th anniversary year of the Convention on the Rights of the Child when we have been able to celebrate so much progress for children globally, the rights of so many millions of other children have been so brutally violated,” said Lake. “Violence and trauma do more than harm individual children – they undermine the strength of societies. The world can and must do more to make 2015 a much better year for every child. For every child who grows up strong, safe, healthy and educated is a child who can go on to contribute to her own, her family’s, her community’s, her nation’s and, indeed, to our common future.”
The New York Times report by Rick Gladstone said:

“The report was basically a summation of the well-documented afflictions that affected children in 2014. But taken in their entirety, they presented what Unicef called a devastating picture.”

Citing the UNICEF report the NYT report added:

“The nearly four-year-old war in Syria, which spilled into Iraq this year with the ascendance of the militant group the Islamic State, was a leading contributor of trauma to children.”

UK and Israel supported Kenyan program of extrajudicial killings

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Kenyan officers suggest program in which terrorism suspects were killed without trial on basis of Western intelligence

Kenya extrajudicial killings

by Al Jazeera

Kenyan police have assassinated nearly 500 terrorism suspects as part of an extrajudicial killing program supported by intelligence provided by Israel and the United Kingdom, an Al Jazeera investigation has revealed.

Officers from four units of Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) said that police assassinated terrorist suspects on government orders.

The police killings, according to an ATPU officer, were ordered by Kenya’s National Security Council and run into the hundreds every year. “Day in, day out, you hear of eliminating suspects,” the officer said.

“Since I was employed, I’ve killed over 50. Definitely, I do become proud because I’ve eliminated some problems,” said another officer.

The ATPU officers contend that Kenya’s weak judicial system forced them to resort to assassinations, as police have failed to produce strong enough evidence to prosecute terrorism suspects.

“If the law cannot work, there’s another option … eliminate him,” an officer explained.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and National Security Council members — including the deputy president, defense secretary and policy chief — denied the allegations.

In April, Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, an armed fighter known as Makaburi, was gunned down outside a Mombasa court after being charged under Kenya’s terrorism laws. Human rights groups allege police killed him.

ATPU officers confirmed the allegations. “Makaburi was killed by the police,” said one officer. “That execution was planned in Nairobi by very top, high-ranking police officers and government officials.”

Confidential police reports obtained by Al Jazeera allegedly show Makaburi had extensive links to Somali armed group Al-Shabab and planned and financed bombings in Kenya.

According to the ATPU officers, the intelligence that drives Nairobi’s “elimination program,” is supplied by Western intelligence agencies.

“Once they give us the information, they know what they have told us. It is ABCD — ‘Mr. Jack’ is involved in such and such a kind of activity. Tomorrow he’s no longer there. We have worked. Definitely the report that you gave us has been worked on,” the officer said.

A Kenyan National Police spokesman refused to comment on the allegations.

According to the officers, Israel and the U.K. provide training, equipment and intelligence to Kenyan officers on how to “eliminate” suspects targeted by Kenyan security forces.

Israel and the U.K. denied involvement. The U.K. Foreign Office added that it had “raised concerns” with Kenya over the “serious allegations.”

Mark Ellis, head of the International Bar Association, a leading organization of legal practitioners, said the alleged complicity of these countries could violate international law.

“It’s clear, based on these interviews, that there’s at least prima facie evidence to suggest that these third-party countries are involved, and therefore they all have responsibility to investigate,” Ellis said. “We should stop providing any type of assistance or training to police units in Kenya until there is a clear change … in how the Kenyan authorities deal with suspects.”

UN Reveals Israeli Links With Syrian Rebels

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Reports by UN observers in the Golan submitted to 15 members of Security Council detail regular contact between IDF officers and armed Syrian opposition figures at the border.

Israeli soldiers stand near the border with Syria in the occupied Golan Heights as they prepare to evacuate a wounded Syrian let in for medical treatment, September 23, 2014. Photo by Reuters

Israeli soldiers stand near the border with Syria in the occupied Golan Heights as they prepare to evacuate a wounded Syrian let in for medical treatment, September 23, 2014. Photo by Reuters

by Barak Ravid, Haaretz

Reports by UN observers in the Golan Heights over the past 18 months reveal the type and extent of cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures. The reports, submitted to the 15 members of the UN Security Council and available on the UN’s website, detail regular contacts held on the border between IDF officers and soldiers and Syrian rebels.

The observer force, UNDOF, was established in 1974 as part of the separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria. The agreement set up a buffer zone several kilometers wide. About 1,000 UN observers supervised the implementation of the agreement until 2013, when the Syrian civil war severely reduced the force’s ability to function.

While Croatia and Austria pulled out and Ireland, Fiji and India agreed to send troops, the increase of attacks on UN forces in recent months caused the force to abandon many of its positions along the front and to transfer its command to the Israeli side of the border.

The observers have continued to file reports to New York, which were relatively mundane; but their content changed in March 2013, when Israel started admitting injured Syrians for medical treatment in Safed and Nahariya hospitals. The Syrian ambassador to the UN complained of widespread cooperation between Israel and Syrian rebels, not only treatment of the wounded but also other aid.

Israel at first asserted the injured were civilians reaching the border of their own initiative and without prior coordination because they could not obtain suitable treatment in Syria. Later, as the numbers increased, Israel said it was coordinating with civilians but not opposition groups. However, the reports reveal direct contact between the IDF and armed opposition members.

According to a report from December 3, 2013, a person wounded on September 15 “was taken by armed members of the opposition across the ceasefire line, where he was transferred to a civilian ambulance escorted by an IDF vehicle.” Moreover, from November 9 to 19 the “UNDOF observed at least 10 wounded persons being transferred by armed members of the opposition from the Bravo side across the ceasefire line to IDF.”

Further reports indicated similar incidents. However, cooperation between the IDF and Syrian rebels that was revealed in UN observer reports does not just include transferring the wounded. Observers remarked in the report distributed on June 10 that they identified IDF soldiers on the Israeli side handing over two boxes to armed Syrian opposition members on the Syrian side.

The last report distributed to Security Council members, on December 1, described another meeting between IDF soldiers and Syrian opposition members that two UN representatives witnessed on October 27 some three kilometers east of Moshav Yonatan. The observers said they saw two IDF soldiers on the eastern side of the border fence opening the gate and letting two people enter Israel. The report, contrary to previous ones, did not note that the two exiting Syria were injured or why they entered Israel.

This specific event is of particular interest in light of what happened on the Syrian side of the border in the exact same region. According to the report, UN observers stated that tents were set up about 300 meters from the Israeli position for some 70 families of Syrian deserters. The Syrian army sent a letter of complaint to UNDOF in September, claiming this tent camp was a base for “armed terrorists” crossing the border into Israel. The Syrians also warned that if the UN would not evacuate the tent camp, the Syrian army would view it as a legitimate target.

Uruguay set to take six Guantanamo prisoners

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President Mujica said Uruguay was offering its hospitality to "human beings who have suffered a terrible kidnapping in Guantanamo Bay"

President Mujica said Uruguay was offering its hospitality to “human beings who have suffered a terrible kidnapping in Guantanamo Bay”

by BBC

Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica has confirmed his country will resettle six Guantanamo Bay prisoners on humanitarian grounds.

President Mujica was himself held for over a decade in terrible prison conditions during his country’s period of military rule in the 1970s and 80s.

An October opinion poll showed 58% of Uruguayans were opposed to bringing in the prisoners.

Newspaper reports say they are expected to arrive by Tuesday morning.

The arrival date for the prisoners was not confirmed by President Mujica.

He also called on the United States to release three Cuban prisoners held in United States jails on spying charges.

He also called for the release of a Puerto Rican detainee held for more than 30 years on conspiracy charges for demanding the island’s independence from the US.

He made the decision to take detainees from Guantanamo in March but the move was delayed until after the elections in November.

Former President Tabare Vazquez, who led the country from 2005 to 2010, won in the second round of presidential elections and is due to start his new mandate next March.

More than half of the 172 men still in Guantanamo have been cleared for transfer but have nowhere to go because their countries are unstable or unsafe.

More than 50 countries have accepted former Guantanamo detainees.

In Latin America, El Salvador is the only country to have given Guantanamo prisoners sanctuary, taking two in 2012.

UK signs deal to expand naval presence in Bahrain

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“This new base is a permanent expansion of the Royal Navy’s footprint and will enable Britain to send more and larger ships to reinforce stability in the Gulf,” said British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.

DESTROYER COMPLETES ESCORT OF RUSSIAN TASK FORCE PAST UK COASTLINE

by World Bulletin

Britain said on Friday it had sealed a deal to expand and reinforce its naval presence in Bahrain that would allow it to operate more and bigger ships in the Gulf on a long-term basis.

Under the agreement, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said onshore facilities at the Mina Salman Port in Bahrain, where Britain bases four mine-hunter warships on a permanent basis, would be improved.

The base, which will now be expanded to include a new forward operating base and a place to plan, store equipment for naval operations and accommodate Royal Navy personnel, is used to support British Destroyers and Frigates in the Gulf.

“This new base is a permanent expansion of the Royal Navy’s footprint and will enable Britain to send more and larger ships to reinforce stability in the Gulf,” said British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.

“We will now be based again in the Gulf for the long term.”

The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is also based in Bahrain.

U.S: Hundreds Protest the Killing of Another Black Man in Phoenix

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Yet another case of a white policeman killing an unarmed black man in the United States. Rumain Brisbon in this photo with two of his children. (Photo: thefreethoughtproject.com)

Yet another case of a white policeman killing an unarmed black man in the United States. Rumain Brisbon in this photo with two of his children. (Photo: thefreethoughtproject.com)

by teleSUR

Unarmed Rumain Brisbon was delivering dinner to his family Tuesday night when a police officer shot and killed him.

A fourth case of a white policeman killing unarmed black persons has arisen in Phoenix, prompting hundreds of angered persons to march to police headquarters in the capital city of the state of Arizona to demand justice for 34-year-old Rumain Brisbon, a father of four, local media reported Thursday.

Phoenix Police Department has said that Brisbon was sitting in a SUV outside a convenience store on Tuesday evening, when police officers approached him after witnesses said he was selling drugs.

A seven-year veteran, according to official statements, told the man to show his hands, but Brisbon, apparently fearing for his life, fled only to be chased. When the officer caught up with him, they struggled and the officer reported that Brisbon introduced his hand to his pocket and that he thought he was reaching for a gun. Instead, Brisbon was holding on to a small jar of pills, when shot twice on the torso and killed.

The police department said, according to Reuters, that back-up officers arrived after the shooting, and while they and members of the fire department treated Brisbon, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

As website The Free Thought Project said, “The Phoenix Police Department has not yet revealed the name of the officer responsible for the murder, but the smear campaign, by the media, against the victim has already begun.”

According to this website, Brisbon was killed at the doorsteps of his home, to which he had just arrived with dinner for his children. It also says that Brisbon did have a legally acquired gun in his vehicle, which “he actually made the conscious decision to leave behind … so it stands to reason that he had no intent on hurting the officer.”

“Also found in the car was a small amount of marijuana, which he was also legally licensed to possess under Arizona state law,” The Free Thought Project said a family member told them.

This incident comes at a time when police forces across the United States are under increased scrutiny over killing unarmed black men.

Phoenix police said Brisbon was carrying oxycodone pills, while a semi-automatic handgun and a jar of what is believed to be marijuana were found in the man’s vehicle.

Recently, two grand juries delivered decisions not to indict officers who killed unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and in New York City, triggering protests across the country. A third case was reported in Cleveland, where police shot a 12-year old black boy who was playing with a toy gun in a park.

In Brisbon’s case, his family and friends have stated that he was simply delivering dinner to his children Tuesday night.

And while police fully support the actions by its officer, Ann Hart, chairwoman of the African American Police Advisory Board for South Phoenix, said the shooting only reinforces “the impression it’s open season for killing black men”

She told a local television station that, “We need to look into that. We need to take a deeper dive into why police officers are feeling compelled to shoot and kill as opposed to apprehend and detain, arrest and jail.”

Another rally is scheduled for this Friday night.

The Rev. Jarrett Maupin, an organizer of Thursday night’s march, also told local television station KPNX that Brisbon was probably justified in fearing for his life and trying to flee when the Phoenix officer approached him and his friend Tuesday night.

“The Phoenix Police Department does not treat white people this way,” Maupin said, according to the local television network. “What that officer did was harass and accost them.”

According to The Arizona Republic newspaper of Pheonix, Brisbon’s family attorney Marci A. Kratter has spoken with eyewitnesses that would dispute the official police account and that “we intend to pursue this to the full extent of the law.”

Protests took place in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis and other places Thursday to demand justice in the case of Eric Garner, the unarmed black man from New York that was choked to death by a white police officer in July 17.

Wednesday, a grand jury decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo for the killing of Garner, despite a video that clearly shows excessive use of force by four police officers against the 43-year-old father of six. The man repeatedly cried out that he could not breathe, only to be ignored.

As oil prices dive, Saudi Arabia looks to Israel for new market

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Minister of Petroleum says Saudi Arabia ‘does not hold grudge against any nation,’ including ‘Jewish state’

saudi-arabia-oil

by i24 News

Saudi Arabia is looking to expand its oil sales and would be willing to sell oil to any country that wants to buy it, including Israel, the country’s Minister of Petroleum Ali Al-Naimi told reporters at an OPEC summit in Vienna on Sunday.

“We do not hold a grudge against any nation and our leaders promote peace, religious tolerance and co-existence,” Al-Naimi was quoted as saying by the Kuwaita news agency KUNA. “His Majesty King Abdullah has always been a model for good relations between Saudi Arabia and other states – and the Jewish state is no exception.”

Saudi Arabia is also prepared to further reduce oil prices worldwide, but only if Germany agrees to remove an existing embargo on the sale of combat tanks to the country.

The statement came as oil tumbled to new multi-year lows in Asia on Monday, extending a sharp sell-off last week in response to OPEC’s decision to maintain output despite a supply glut and plunging prices.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for January delivery dipped $1.65 in afternoon Asian trading to $64.50, its lowest intraday level since July 2009.

Brent crude for January sank $1.76 to $68.39, to stay below the psychologically important $70 level. It had touched $67.90 earlier Monday, its lowest since February 2010.

“Negative actions in the oil market are continuing today. Investors see crude as remaining vulnerable after last week’s OPEC announcement,” Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, told AFP.

“We have not yet seen any piece of news or development that could trigger a bottoming-out phase in oil prices,” he added.

(with AFP)

Gorbachev: U.S 'triumphalism' fueling new Cold War

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Former Soviet leader: ‘We need to return to the starting line when we began building a new world’

Mikhail Gorbachev at the European Parliament in 2008. (Photo: <a href=

@European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari/flickr/cc)” width=”955″ height=”500″ /> Mikhail Gorbachev at the European Parliament in 2008. (Photo: @European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari/flickr/cc)

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has said the United States is the cause of emerging signs of a new Cold War as a result of the country’s sense of “triumphalism.”

The 83-year-old made the comments Monday in an interview with the Russian state-owned news agency TASS.

“Now the signs of cold war have again emerged,” he said. “Fences are being built around us.”

“I don’t want to praise our government too much,” the UK’s Telegraph quotes Gorbachev as saying in the interview. “It has also made quite a few errors, but today the danger comes from the American position. They are tortured by triumphalism.”

“This whole process may and needs to be stopped. It was stopped in the 1980s. And we opted for deescalation and reunification. Back then it was harsher than today. And now we can also do this,” Gorbachev said.

“We need to return to the starting line when we began building a new world in Europe and everywhere,” he said, referring to his historic 1989 meeting in Malta with President George H. W. Bush.

“There will be people who have the courage to stop this [new Cold War] and start building a new world order that would answer the challenges that the world community is facing,” he said.

Gorbachev’s comments come as the latest ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia appears to have failed. Ongoing violence has killed over 4,000 people since the conflict erupted in April.

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