Tag Archives: iran

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Oil & Gas Prices: South Sudan gives up Sudan oil fields, Sudan invades. Cuban oil exploration not paying off, Mexico wants piece of the action. Argentina nationalizes Spanish oil company. U.S. oil glut will actually increase prices.

April 22, 2012, South Sudanese military officials say they’ve withdrawn forces from Sudan’s Heglig oil fields.

U.S. puppet South Sudan took the Heglig oil fields on April 10, claiming Sudan was using the fields as a military base (gee, if they were it wouldn’t have been so easy to capture them).

On Friday, April 20, Sudan claimed they liberated the oil fields.  But now, April 22, Sudan has invaded South Sudan.  There are reports that Sudanese forces launched at least three attacks, as far as nine kilometers (six miles) into South Sudan’s territory.

The Spanish company Repsol is exploring for oil and natural gas off Cuba’s north coast. However they say progress has been slow.

It’s estimated that just off the Cuban coast line there is at least 5 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.  So far attempts to get at it haven’t paid out.

Mexico has made it clear that its PEMEX oil company wants to be part of any Cuban oil production.

The irony is that Cuba is supporting Argentina’s nationalization of Respol’s operations in the South American country.

April 20, Cuba announced its support for Argentina’s nationalization of Respol YPF.  YPF was originally a state owned company anyway.  Venezuela, Nicaragua and several other Latin American countries support the move.

While Mexico wants in on Cuban oil, it opposes the Argentine nationalization of Respol YPF.

The reason Argentina nationalized its YPF oil production is that the privatized oil industry spent most of its profit on paying off stockholders, the result was an oil industry that fell behind in production, to the point that Argentina now has to import oil!

During the 1990s, Argentina privatized their oil industry.  The obsession with profits at any cost resulted in Argentina being left without enough of its own oil for its own use, which cause fuel prices to skyrocket: “That led to a lack of reinvestment in utilities, little exploration and dwindling reserves, as oil fields dried up and productivity fell.”-Eduardo Fernandez, oil industry consultant

That’s Corporate America and Corporate Europe for you!

In the United States, oil traders are hoping a reverse flow from the Seaway pipeline will increase the price per barrel of oil!

On May 17, a glut of oil from Cushing, Oklahoma, will begin flowing through the pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico.  U.S. oil traders say the bottle neck of oil in Oklahoma is one reason U.S. oil prices are low (if you call $100 per barrel low).  They hope that by getting the oil to the Gulf of Mexico, and therefore to the world oil market, that the price of U.S. oil will go higher!

A week ago India had become the number one buyer of Iranian oil.  Now, Indian officials say they’ve had to cut back because of the high price of oil: “Of course, the high price of oil has caused immense problems for the Indian economy…But actually we have to pay the average price of $100-115 per barrel…”-Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister of India

India is currently buying 14 million metric tons of oil from Iran (the report didn’t specify if that was per day, week or month). Indian officials said they had hoped oil would be at $90-95 USD per barrel by now.

 

 

Technology

Terror Drones: April 16-22, Iran copies Stealth Drone shares info with Russia & China. Seattle & Ogden using drones. Illinois National Guard RQ-7B. CIA wants to kill everyone!

April 22, 2012, Iranian military officials announced they have successfully reverse engineered the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth UAV, captured from the United States in December last year.

Iranian officials gave several clues to prove they recovered data from the aircraft’s computers.

1: Drone parts had been transferred to California for technical work in October 2010. The drone was later transferred to Kandahar, Afghanistan in November 2010.

2: The drone had experienced some technical flaws in its Kandahar flight in November, but U.S. experts failed resolve the problems. The RQ-170 was then sent back to an airfield near Los Angeles in December 2010, for tests on its censors and parts. The drone had a number of test flights there.

3: The spy drone’s memory revealed that it had flown over Al-Qaeda Leader Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan two weeks before his death.

“Had we not accessed the plane’s soft wares and hard discs, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve these facts.”-Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Forces

Iranian officials also confirmed that Russia and China are requesting that Iran share the info recovered from the RQ-170 Sentinel.  Iranian officials said many countries were asking for details on the U.S. stealth drone, but Russian and China had are being most insistent.

To show you how stupid U.S. officials are, U.S. Senator (and warmonger) Joe Lieberman called the claims “Iranian bluster.”

Facts are that during the 1980s Iran reverse engineered every U.S. and British weapons system they had, including the F-14 Tomcat and its Phoenix missiles!

Of course the Soviets helped. The proof is the fact that by the end of the 1980s the Soviets had exact copies of U.S. air to air missiles, including the Phoenix, as well as the radar system used on the F-14!

Iran has been building their own “new builds” of F-5s (including a twin tail version), F-14s (one British intelligence source had counted the number of F-14s Iran now has and concluded that the amount could only be explained by Iran building their own Tomcats), as well as developing their own medium altitude anti-aircraft missile based on the U.S. Hawk system.

Iran’s own Main Battle Tank (MBT), the Zolfaqar-3, is the result of combining technologies from U.S. M60 tank, British Chieftain tank and the Soviet/Russian T-72.  In other words; the Iranians are more than capable of reverse engineering the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth UAV.

April 21, Illinois National Guard has been operating UAVs within the U.S.  The unit is called Shadow Platoon and operates RQ-7B drones.

April 19, reports out of Pakistan said the United States is considering allowing Pakistani military to jointly operate U.S. assassination drones.

On April 19, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has officially requested for permission to kill anyone in Yemen!

According to an unnamed U.S. source, the CIA wants expanded authority to kill, even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed!  Apparently it is because U.S. assassination drone operators are having a hard time telling who’s the bad guy in Yemen!

U.S. Secretary of Defense, numb nuts Leon Panetta, flat out lied and said all the people killed by drones were planning on attacking the United States:  “Our target there represents those terrorists, or those al-Qaida terrorists that involve a threat to this country, and there are very specific targets. This is not broad based. We are not becoming part of any kind of civil war disputes in that country. We are very precise, and very targeted and will remain pursuant to those operations.”

An international legal expert countered by stating the drone strikes are a violation of international law:  “In other words, the CIA is seeking to escalate an already unlawful campaign of targeted killing at the very time Yemen needs support building the rule of law and ending violence and military conflict. The last time the CIA had this much freedom to kill was in Vietnam. It killed 25,000 people, and the U.S. lost the war!”-Mary Ellen O’Connell, American Society of International Law

April 18, U.S. drones killed five people in Yemen.

April 17, U.S. drones kill 31 people in Somalia.

April 16, three people killed by U.S. terror drone strike in Yemen.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved a license for the Seattle Police Department to operate UAVs.  The approval was signed by President Obama back in February.

Since 2006, the FAA has issued as many as 750 UAV licenses, or permits, to 56 local governments through out the country. It took a lawsuit by the Electronic Frountier Foundation to force the FAA to reveal who is getting the permits.

Out of the 56, 22 are law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.  23 have law enforcement duties, such as universities who’s campus police are using the drones.

Here’s a short list of U.S. police departments licensed to operate UAVs: Arlington, Texas; North Little Rock, Arkansas; Queen Anne’s County, Maryland; FBI; Gadsden PD; Georgia Tech PD; Mesa County, Colorado; Miami-Dade, Florida; Montgomery County, Texas; Ogden, Utah; Polk County, Florida; Otter Tail County, Minnesota; Herington, Kansas.

 

 

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology

World War 3: Iran reveals military upgrades; stealth detecting radar, laser targeting and gatling guns

April 11, 2012, Iranian military officials announced their indigenous tank, Zolfaqar-3, has been upgraded with the latest in laser targeting.

The Zolfaqar tank (not to be confused with many other Iranian weapons using the same name) was developed over the decades by experimenting with U.S. M60 tanks, British Chieftain tanks and Soviet/Russian T-72 tanks.

The production version looks a lot like the U.S. M1 Abrams but armed with a Russian 125mm auto-loading main gun.

It probably uses the same “chobham” armor that the British Challenger tank uses, as it was Iranian engineers who developed it and then requested the British company Vickers to make them a new tank with it.  That tank became the Challenger, but it never made it to Iran because of the 1979 Revolution.

The Zolfaqar-3 reportedly weighs 36 metric tons (39.6 tons) and has a 780 hp diesel piston engine (the U.S. M1 has a 1,500 shp turbine/jet engine which uses diesel).

Iran has built their own version of the M134 Minigun.  The Iranian gatling gun fires 7.62mm bullets (not sure if its x39mm, or x51mmNATO, or x54mm) at a rate of 4000 to 6000 rounds per minute (it’s designed to take out a lot of troops in one pass).

Iran announced this weapon in 2010, but they are claiming that all their military units, designated to use the minigun, are now equipped with it.

Iran has also developed a radar system designed to detect stealth aircraft. Iranian media reported that the radar can detect aircraft with a “very low radar cross section”.

The new radar is called Samen, and is due to begin operations by March 19.

 

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology

Iran major exporter of Cement & Carpets

“Today our country has become a main exporter of cement. By launching the second phase of Orumieh cement factory, Iran’s cement production capacity increased by one million tonnes!”-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran

With the end of the Iranian year (on March 19, 2012) came news of increased exports of products other than oil, and despite U.S. and European sanctions.

Cement and clinker (a kilned then quenched cement product) has increased 17.44% and reached 10,119,780 metric tons (11,154,960 tons)!

In August 2011, Iran became a world exporter of cement.

In March 2012, Iran revealed it had developed “smart cement” which could withstand the impact of a bunker busting bomb. The smart cement was originally developed to counter the shaking of earthquakes, which Iran is prone to many.

Hand made rugs are one of Iran’s biggest sellers.  In the United States they’re called Persian rugs.

An estimated 1.2 million people in Iran are employed in the hand made rug industry.  They produce five million square meters of carpets, 80% are exported!

In the past year Iran exported $560 million USD worth of Persian rugs.

 

Business/Economics, International

Global Economic War: Iran sitting on huge Gold reserves

“Three new net gold mines with 16 tons of proven reserves have been found in Saqqez city in Kurdistan province!”-Behrouz Borna, Deputy Head of Iran’s Geology Organization for Exploration Affairs

April 11, 2012, Iranian officials announced they found gold in them there hills!

Iran already has several gold mine operations.  The latest finds bring Iran’s estimated gold reserves to 320 metric tons (352.7 tons).

Before the discovery of three more gold mines the U.S. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) ranked Iran as the 22nd biggest holder of gold (and foreign currencies) in the world.

At the end of 2011, beginning of 2012, Iran set record gold reserves in USD value: $17.5 billion!

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: Iran stops oil shipments to Germany, Iran imposes sanctions on 100 European companies

April 11, 2012, Iran follows through on threat to cut off oil to Germany, now Italy is next.

Iran also announced sanctions against 100 European Union companies.  Sasan Khodaei, Deputy President of Iran Trade Promotion Organization, said the companies will no longer be able to sell products to Iran.

One reason for the sanctions is that Iran is now able to make the products for themselves.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Oil & Gas Prices: Iran officially stops oil shipments to Spain & Greece. Germany and Italy next.

April 10, 2012, Iran has officially halted oil exports to Spain and Greece.

The official government announcement comes after Iran canceled oil shipments to two Greek companies on April 5.

Back on March 16 Iran had named the next countries on its oil export ban list.  Those countries are Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.  This is in retaliation for the up coming European Union oil sanctions that go into effect on July 1.

Iran had already halted oil shipments to France and United Kingdom back in February.

According to an April 10 Reuters report, Iran is now considering halting oil exports to Germany as well.

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

Oil & Gas Prices: Egyptian pipeline blown up again, Natural Gas Glut results in 10 years low prices, U.S. investigates European oil companies in Libya, Iran reduces oil exports

According to Azerbaijani media, Iran’s Oil Ministry is confirming that their oil exports are dropping due to Western oil sanctions.

Iranian oil officials say Japan has made the biggest cut in oil purchases, despite recently getting an exemption from the United States.  Japan cut Iranian oil imports by 28% from January to April 2012.

However, Iran’s oil exports have also gone down due to their own oil embargo of the European Union.  The EU’s own oil sanctions go into effect on July 1.

Speaking of Japan, Tokyo Electric, the operator of the nuclear disaster reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, has been using oil to generate electricity, a lot more oil.

TEPCo reported that in March 2012 they used four times the amount of oil than in March 2011.  They also used the most natural gas since August 2011, and August was a record for gas use by TEPCo; 2.079 million tons.

Regarding natural gas, the United States is so full of it, that there is no where left to store the stuff.  Underground salt caverns, depleted oil fields and aquifers are being used but even they are rapidly filling.

The result is that drilling and pumping of the LNG will have to stop, natural gas prices are at ten year lows (we consumers like that).  Maybe this will mean an end to fracking and man made earthquakes?

But that might be bad news for places like Williamsport, Pennsylvania.  The town has seen an economic boom; their tax revenues have gone up more than 10% between 2006 and 2010, and 115 new business in and around Lycoming County have been created.

In Egypt, ever since the January 2011 Revolution their gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan keeps getting blown up.  April 9, 2012, it got blown up again, for the 14th time since the Revolution.

In Libya, U.S. officials are investigating oil deals made with Italy’s Eni, and France’s Total.  The companies are being investigated for their connections to Muammar Gaddafi.

Eni officials said certain payments made to Gaddafi might have violated the U.S. Foreign Corruption Practice Act.  The U.S. is helping the new Libyan government investigate many oil companies, and could result in huge fines being levied in favor of the new government.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: UANI goes after Korean car maker, UANI formed in 2008 specifically to go after companies doing business with Iran

“UANI’s unprecedented success in pressuring multinational corporations to cease business in Iran has alerted the business community of the serious financial and reputational risks of doing business with the Iranian regime.”-UANI statement

April 5, 2012, South Korean car maker, Hyundai, succumbed to the attacks from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI).

Hyundai will stop exporting cars to Iran, however such a move will only hurt Hyundai, by reducing overall sales.  Iran has several car makers who will benefit by lack of foreign competition.

Hyundai is refusing to comment on the situation.

This is not about current U.S. sanctions against Iran.  I’ve already written how U.S. Congress, and George Bush Jr created a law in 2000 that exempted U.S. corporations from existing, and future sanctions against Iran, and North Korea.

UANI was created in 2008, for the express purpose of going after corporations that do business with Iran.

UANI also proudly admits they are the ones behind much of the anti-Iran legislation coming out of Washington DC.

UANI is also the main “official” source of anti-Iran info being used by the U.S. media.

UANI also proudly admits they are the ones behind the nuclear weapons scare mongering rhetoric concerning Iran.

Want proof, just go to their website.  You can find it yourself.

Want’s interesting is that UANI is claiming to be doing these things in the name of preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, yet they are actually shutting down Western (European, Asian) competitors to U.S. corporations.  How does that prevent another country from getting nuclear weapons?

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: U.S. sanctions against Iran shut down Peugeot. Pressure from General Motors. Who are the sanctions really meant to target?

French based car maker Peugeot Citroën, has shut down a factory after parts shipped from Iran were stopped.

Peugeot Citroën has manufacturing deals with Iran Khodro, a major car maker in Iran.

220 people were laid off at the Vesoul factory in northeastern France.  This comes after a U.S. lobbyist group called United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), asked U.S. Congress to put pressure on the French car maker.

UANI also put pressure, should we say threatened, General Motors because GM holds 7% of Peugeot Citroën.  Officials from the French car maker said it was GM that pressured them to stop selling knock down kits to Iran.  A knock down kit is basically a unassembled car.

UANI has made completely unsubstantiated claims against Iran: “….it is unacceptable for GM to enter into a partnership with a company that so openly deals with a regime that is responsible for the deaths of U.S. and NATO servicemen and threatens U.S. and global security.”-Mark Wallace, UANI

How can Mark Wallace make such a claim?  Iran has never been connected to any terrorist actions against the United States. Where’s the undeniable proof?  What Mike Wallace is saying is the same old unproven ultra right wing neo conservative bull shit!

By the way, stopping Peugeot Citroën business with Iran will not hurt Iran’s economy.  Iran Khodro is doing extremely well with its own car designs, especially in the Central Asian market. So the real question is; who is really being targeted by the U.S. sanctions?