While British Petroleum fights to pin blame on others for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, they somehow have convinced one of its Japanese business partners to pay for part of it.
MOEX, a unit of Japanese trading firm Mitsui and Company, will pay just over $1 billion to cover damages and clean up. MOEX is a 10% shareholder of BP.
British Petroleum is struggling to come up with an estimated $40 billion to pay for damages and clean up.
Scotland has oil, lots of it. And the Scottish people say they’re tired of the English controlling it. After all they were told they would benefit, but they haven’t. Scottish rebels point to Norway as an example: “Scotland and Norway discovered oil at the same time. Some years ago, Scotland was turned into an industrial desert and Norway has transformed its society and its economy, they have billions in the bank, whereas we have seen ours wasted on missiles and weapons of mass destruction and illegal wars.”-Kenny MacAskill, Scottish Justice Minister
The recent Scottish elections saw the Scottish National Party dominate. The SNP ran on a promise to make Scotland independent: “We have been elected with two mandates: one is to pursue our claim for an independent Scotland in the right for a referendum. Equally, we have been elected as a government to make Scotland a better place and we seek to do that by driving our economy forward and making our country a fairer, greener, safer, wealthier and healthier.”-Kenny MacAskill
President Barak Obama wants to write off $1 billion in debts that Egypt owes the U.S. Then he wants to give Egypt another $1 billion in credit!
Here’s two reasons taxpayers of the United States should be pissed off: According to the U.S. Department of State: “U.S. military aid to Egypt totals over $1.3 billion annually.” And: “…the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided over $28 billion in economic and development assistance to Egypt since 1975.”
In other words Egypt is getting a deal that no creditor will give the average U.S. citizen! Forgive our debts AND give us money? Obama is playing with our tax money! Why can’t he use our tax money to give us a break?
Canadian Imperial Oil (a subsidiary Exxon Mobil Corp) has massive equipment, called modules, stuck in Lewiston, Idaho. They need to get it to their Kearl oil sands project in northern Alberta, Canada.
The problem is their size. Idaho Transportation Department has yet to approve transportation of the equipment through Idaho, one of the problems is that the modules won’t fit under any overpasses in Idaho. Oil company officials say they will have to cut them in half.
In Montana, there are lawsuits to stop the transportation through its territory. Montana officials say the size of the Imperial Oil equipment will require burial of overhead power lines, upgrading existing roads and building new turnouts (who’s gonna pay for that?). Montana environmentalists say the company needs to do an environmental impact assessment.
Imperial Oil is complaining that their construction schedule is being compromised. Maybe they should have worked this out before hand?
Imperial Oil does not have a good business track record, or a good safety track record. Recently they’ve apologized for the release of a mile-long plume of sulfur dioxide, in Ontario, Canada.
Voice of America reporting that farms along the Mississippi flood zones are destroyed. Some farmers were able to harvest some of their crops before the flooding.
Many farmers did not have crops to harvest, but were about to plant, and now that’s not going to happen: “…this is unprecedented because of the amount of water that is backed up and out over areas that normally do not flood.”–Randy Ouzts, Horizon Ag
One of the biggest U.S. exports are crops. The harvest is shipped to New Orleans, on barges that sail the Mississippi river. Ouzts says getting the harvested crops out could be a problem: “The issue we are having at the moment is wheat delivery, and also fertilizer and fuel deliveries, and the problem is loading. The facilities were not built to accommodate this much water.”
Israeli media reporting that Facebook group Third Palestinian Intifada, is calling for a massive pro-Palestine demonstration after Friday prayers, May 20.
Reports say Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank are planning to demonstrate as well.
Four of the U.K.’s biggest unions say they will hit the streets with at least 800,000 angry workers and taxpayers, on June 30.
They will protest the massive social cuts their government has enacted. Union officials say the government austerity cuts has actually driven more Britons into the ranks of the unions.
“It remains the case that a way must be found for us to leave nuclear power behind as soon as possible.”-Norbert Rottgen, Environment Minister
Because of the ongoing nuke disaster reactor at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, Germany ordered ‘worst case scenario’ testing of all its nuclear plants. They all FAILED!
The report was published by Der Spiegel. It was discovered that all of Germany’s nuke plants lack the “required safety features” to withstand a level three disaster. Not only that, but four of the plants failed simulations involving small aircraft crashing into them.
The highest safety standard rating for nuclear plants in Germany, is a level three rating. The report says most of the plants can’t even meet level two safety standards.
Ford announced that it’ll build a transmission factory in China. It will build six speed automatic transmissions. The plant will cost $350 million.
Also, they’re building an engine plant in China, at a cost of $500 million. Ford hopes to have the factories operating in 2013. China is now the world’s largest car market.
Depending on which media source you read, Boeing won its World Trade Organization case against Airbus. Depending on which media source you read, Airbus won its World Trade Organization case against Boeing. Yes, that’s the idea.
Both Airbus and Boeing are declaring victories in their WTO case against each other.
U.S. officials say the ruling helps Boeing: “This definitive victory will benefit American workers who have had to compete with a heavily subsidized Airbus.”-Tim Reif, general counsel for the U.S. Trade Representative
Airbus officials say the WTO ruling upheld European loan subsidies: “…government loans are a legal instrument and that none of the government loans made to Airbus over the past 40 years were prohibited…”
Boeing reps said this is a “definitive victory” for the United States, but Airbus said “This is a big win for Europe.”
Who’s right? The WTO looked at the allegations line by line, and voted line by line, basically splitting the difference. So both sides think they won, when in reality they broke even.