 What do Alyssa Milano, Sandra Bullock, Lance Armstrong, Gisele Bundchen, the country of Senegal and — very possibly — you have in common? All — including you — have donated more funds to the Haitian relief effort than oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran. That's right ... if you personally have donated money to help the earthquake-stricken people of Haiti, then you have contributed more money than the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose combined dollar donation is a big fat zero. As Haiti slowly recovers from last week's earthquake, nearly $400 million has been donated by countries, individuals and organizations to the devastated nation, accordign to United Nations documents. But the goodwill has been far from balanced. India, which has one of the world's largest gross domestic products, has donated $1 million, a figure matched or eclipsed by much smaller economies like the Czech Republic ($1.1 million), Botswana ($1.1 million) and Senegal ($1 million). And those donations have been matched or topped by individuals like Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The United States leads the way among developed nations with $114.5 million donated as of Wednesday, according to the U.N. That's more than 28 percent of the $397 million donated to rebuild the impoverished Caribbean nation. The United Kingdom and France are next with more than $30.9 million and $16.8 million donated, respectively. Australia ($13.4 million) and Italy ($8.7 million) round out the top five donating countries. Another $951 million has been pledged from other nations. Click here to see how much the world has given. More at FoxNews
 SOMALI pirates have freed the Greek supertanker VLCC Maran Centaurus, one of the largest ships ever hijacked, after a plane dropped at least $US5 million ($5.43 million) in ransom on the deck. The ransom, also one of the largest ever paid, sparked a deadly feud within the group of pirates delaying the release of the ship and its crew of 28 seamen who were taken in the Indian Ocean on November 29. "She's free. She's preparing to sail out'' from the pirate lair of Harardhere, Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers Assistance Program said today. Pirate sources in Harardhere said the huge ship was still anchored off Harardhere today apparently receiving last-minute technical assistance from a nearby foreign warship. Ecoterra International, an environmentalist NGO that monitors illegal maritime activity in the region, said the last pirates left the very large crude carrier (VLCC) early today. It added that pirates reportedly bragged about generously giving $US500 ($543) to each crew member - 16 Filipinos, nine Greeks, two Ukrainians and a Romanian - "for good co-operation''. On December 2, the 332-metre-long ship was brought to the pirate base of Hobyo but was subsequently moved further south to Harardhere, the capital of Somali piracy. The 1995-built supertanker, the second largest vessel seized by Somali pirates yet, is carrying two million barrels of crude, which is equivalent to the daily output of some of the world's top oil producers. The largest snatched by Somalia's marauding freebooters was the Sirius Star, a Saudi-owned VLCC seized in 2008, for which an estimated $US8 million ($8.68 million) were paid in ransom money. The hijacking of the Sirius Star sent shockwaves through the shipping world as pirates showed they could disturb key interests on one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes. The incident also raised fears that pirates might one day use a hijacked ship as a weapon to carry out an attack and cause unprecedented human and environmental damage. The ship, the first known case of a Greek-flagged vessel being hijacked, was headed from Saudi Arabia to the US. The 300,000-tonne (deadweight) supertanker, hijacked by nine pirates, was easy prey for pirates equipped with fast skiffs and grapnels as it moves slowly and could not outmanoeuvre the nimble sea-robbers and has a low freeboard. The Australian
 by Ryan Mauro We’ve all heard the mantra. The U.S. economic recession is made significantly worse by the extremely high cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom, with a price tag of nearly $700 billion going into 2010. The cost of the war in Iraq has been unnecessarily and tragically high, both in lives and treasure, but if the Iraqi government has its way, the country will massively increase its oil output, bringing down the price of oil and decisively impacting global geopolitics in the West’s favor. The Russian Lukoil company has won a massive contract to develop the West Qurna Phase 2 oil field in southern Iraq, putting to rest allegations that the Bush administration launched the war to seize the fields for its buddies in the oil business, a laughable accusation of Satan-level evil that has had a disappointingly long shelf life. When news of the deal was published, my good friend and fellow Pajamas Media writer Nick Guariglia lamented, saying on his Facebook page, “our blood; Russia’s oil.”
Most readers upon reading this will agree, but there is much reason to be excited about how America and the free world will benefit from this deal. Yes, you read that right. This deal may end up being just what America needs in this time of economic and geopolitical crisis. Iraq wants to increase its oil production, which currently stands at 2.5 million barrels per day, to a whopping 12 million barrels per day in ten years. The minister of oil thinks this can even be accomplished by 2016. That would make Iraq the second largest oil producer in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia. Lukoil is excited about the future of Iraq, saying it will cause a “revolution” in the market by increasing the world’s oil supply by 20 percent. “A top manager at a leading Western firm said the modern history of the oil business will be split into the pre-Iraq and post-Iraq periods. I agree,” said Leonid Fedun, a Lukoil shareholder who was ranked #122 on Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires this year. Some are saying this goal is too ambitious and is “crazy.” That may or may not be true, but Iraq’s oil output is about to dramatically increase and impact the world’s dynamics.
This will probably result in a decrease in oil prices unless Iraq agrees to OPEC’s demands to keep the price high, something the Iraqis will be reluctant to do if they feel they can get a bigger share of the pie through competitive pricing.
And the Iraqis aren’t so hot on the Saudis and their other neighbors right now anyway. More at Pajamas Media
 David Yerushalmi charts one aspect of "the baneful work of...Western imams and their infidel advisers in business suits." "Shariah finance: The deadly Jihadist weapon with a dollar sign," by David Yerushalmi in the Washington Examiner, December 30: News of the recent financial meltdown of Dubai World -- a quasi-sovereign global concern that owns 77 percent of the international port manager DP World and the single largest real estate developer in Dubai known for its palm-tree shaped luxury residential developments -- raced from the business pages to the headlines of the front pages in a matter of days. Since the first reports on Thanksgiving, the Wall Street Journal and just about every other major media outlet reported extensively on the worldwide implications of this latest financial shock wave. What makes this story more than simply one of a massive real estate investment company gone bad is the double-edged sword so prevalent in the chase for oil-based Middle East wealth: Sovereign wealth funds and Shariah-compliant finance. Beginning in the 1970s with the Carter-era oil embargo and accelerating during the post-9/11 $100+ oil price spikes, Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates' wealthiest city-state of Abu Dhabi have been awash in liquidity. And, these trillion-dollar cash reserves are controlled in every case by the respective royal families, typically in sovereign or quasi-sovereign wealth funds. Another phenomenon that followed the great oil rush of the post-9/11 era was the promotion and aggressive exportation of the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine of SCF. The concept of SCF was articulated by men like Sayyid Qutb of Egypt and Abul Ala Maududi of Pakistan in the mid-20th century, both of whom argued for a Jihad against Westernization, and the creation of Islamic polities that would ultimately join in a hegemonic worldwide caliphate.
The goal was that of establishing Shariah not merely as the supreme law of the land, but as the supreme law of the world. In the post-9/11 era, Western imams and their infidel advisers in business suits speaking the queen's English have understood that given the global Jihad's reliance on the dictates of Shariah to murder apostates and to terrorize the infidels into submission, SCF must be attired in a kind of progressive Western garb to attract the attention of the financial centers in London, Hong Kong and New York. So it was that SCF became known as "ethical investing" and Western and Muslim financiers began lecturing the world that the fraud and abuse of the financial markets, such as the Enron debacle and more recently the subprime securitization meltdown, were all driven by the desire for forbidden gain through interest and gambling. They told us that SCF was based not on forbidden interest and speculative paper assets, but profits through equity participation and sound investing in real assets. Dubai World, a company wholly owned by the Dubai sovereign has funded itself through debt to the tune of $60 billion. The Dubai debt now in default just happens to be SCF bonds, or "sukuk." These bonds pay interest just like their forbidden cousins in the Western markets, but the interest is put into a black box of Shariah-created fictions and "special purpose vehicles" to keep the forbidden interest off the books. What we now see as a real estate bubble collapse in Dubai is no different and no more or less ethical than any other financial failure. But, what makes this collapse so problematic is precisely what makes SCF and sovereign wealth funds so dangerous.... Read it all. With thanks to JihadWatch 
 Iranian troops have withdrawn partially from a disputed oil well in the border region with Iraq, the Iraqi government has said. Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman, said that a group of Iranian troops who had allegedly seized control of the well last week had pulled back in the early hours of Sunday morning. "The Iranian flag has been lowered," Dabbagh told Al Jazeera. "The Iranian troops have pulled back 50 metres, but they have not gone back to where they were before." Maysam Lafta, the provincial chief of security and defence, said: "The Iranian troops left overnight and the workers of the oil company returned to the well on Sunday." Iraq considers the well to be part of its al-Fauqa oil field. Iran's armed forces, however, issued a statement on Saturday saying that, in Tehran's view, there had been no incursion into Iraq as the oil well was within Iranian borders. "Our forces are on our own soil and, based on the known international borders, this well belongs to Iran," the statement said. Foreign ministers from both countries late on Saturday discussed a "misunderstanding" between the countries' border guards. Iraq's state-owned South Oil Company in the southeastern city of Amara said on Friday that an Iranian unit had taken control of the the well. Baghdad demanded that Tehran pull back the soldiers who they said had "occupied" the disputed well, and condemned the incident as "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty". The al-Fauqa field is one of several oil rich areas that Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil companies in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels. Muhammad al-Hajj Hamud, Iraq's deputy foreign minister, said it was the first time the well had been taken over during years of tension. "In the past, the Iranians would try to prevent our technicians from working on the well ... by firing in their direction," he said, adding that Iraq had dug the well in 1974.
A joint commission is set to start work on demarcating the two countries' land and sea border along the Shatt al-Arab waterway in the south next month. The well lies about 500 metres from an Iranian border fort and about one kilometre from an Iraqi border fort, US Colonel Peter Newell said. Al Jazeera
 Does anybody besides me remember the remilitarization of the Rhineland?
Or that that unopposed action was followed by the Austrian Anschluss? Or the Obersalzberg conference that brought forth “Peace in Our Time” for Sir Neville Chamberlain?
Or the occupation of the Sudetenland followed closely by the conquest of all Czechoslovakia? And that fateful day, September 1, 1939, when World War Two started in Europe with the invasion of Poland? Obviously not. Perhaps it is fitting that the radio station I am listening to is broadcasting Brahms German Requiem.
If you go back and read the accounts of the times on the German side you find out that Hitler would have retreated at the first sign of opposition. He know that his Wehrmacht was still hollow. Had the French mobilized we might have postponed if not ended World War Two before it started. Has Iran “remilitarized the Rhineland”?
Only time will tell. But you can be sure that if Iraq does not take strong action Iran will seize another oil well. Eventually they will seize the entire field if they do it one well at a time or all at once.
Will the Iraqis mobilize and take the well back?
There are rumors that Iraq has ordered home the families of its security personnel in Damascus.
Debka is reporting that the Obama Administration has gotten Israel to postpone by another six months any military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Can you say “Peace in Our Time”? Except we haven’t even gone to Obertehran and had a conference with the Hitler of our time or his puppet master. Sir Winston Churchill chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany in his The Gathering Storm.
The British were slow to believe what Sir Winston was saying during the rise of Hitler. Are we being slow to believe what Iran’s neighbors are saying about Iran’s rise under the Ayatollahs?I pray we are not chronicling the events prior to the next World War. World Threats
 I’ve always argued that oil was as a factor in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq–not THE only factor, but a factor. U.N. sanctions and then general instability prevented Iraq from reaching its full potential as an oil exporter. If Iraq became a democracy and increased oil output, it would strategically benefit the free world in great ways. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t believe that the U.S. wanted oil companies to pillage Iraq.
At any rate, that didn’t happen. A Russian company, LukOil, won the rights to major oil fields–not exactly the result of an evil American campaign to steal Middle Eastern oil. That doesn’t change the strategic and economic benefits for the U.S., though: LUKoil, which won big at Iraq’s weekend oil auctions, expects a “revolution” in world oil markets when enough crude to add 20 percent to global supply starts to flow from the country’s supergiant fields. LUKoil shareholder Leonid Fedun said Monday that he expected a fivefold rise in Iraqi production to cap oil price growth, while also deterring investors from pursuing more difficult and costly projects. “A top manager at a leading Western firm said the modern history of the oil business will be split into the pre-Iraq and post-Iraq periods. I agree,” Fedun said in an interview. Iraq has deals on the table to raise oil capacity to 12 million barrels per day from its current 2.5 million bpd, a level that would eclipse Russia and leave the country behind only Saudi Arabia. This isn’t just hubris from an excited company wanting investors.
The Iraqis are open about their desire to produce 12 million bpd in ten years. You can’t have too many pro-American sources of oil, and this reduces our reliance upon Saudi oil.
That means Saudi Arabia can be pressured and gives us some more room to breath over instability in the Kingdom and the possibility of attacks on their oil infrastructure.
The increased supply also means oil prices can come down unless Iraq works with other OPEC countries to fix prices. World Threats
 By James Delingpole This is a guest post by contributor Andrew30 (whose full name I’ll give you when he reminds me via email). He put it up in comments but it’s so interesting it really deserves a blog all to itself). Why would a Middle Eastern kingdom be funding a British Climate research business? Oman has just completed a massive investment in LNG, and developed and installed new CO2 removal technology in their process; this lowers the carbon footprint of their gas. So using their gas to drive electricity generation will be less costly once CO2 is taxed.
They have no problem with this whole thing.
Saudi Arabia, who have oil and not so much gas, are in a different position, they have a problem with this whole thing. Just an observation; a 4 degree rise in temperature in the Sultanate of Oman or Saudi
Arabia would change it from really hot to really hot. Maybe it is just good business. http://www.omanlng.com/ Oman LNG L.L.C
Formed: Set up by Royal Decree in February 1994.
Location: Head office: Muscat; Plant: Qalhat near Sur (approx 340 km from Muscat)
Products: Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
Shareholders: Government of Oman 51 %, Royal Dutch/Shell Group 30%, Total Elf Fina 5.54%, KOLNG 5%, Partex 2% Mitsubishi 2.77%, Mitsui 2.77%, ltochu 0.92%. The Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the UK was set up in 1971 with funding from Shell and BP as is described in the book: “The history of the University of East Anglia, Norwich; Page 285)” By Michael Sanderson. The CRU was still being funded in 2008 by Shell, BP, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and UK Nirex LTD (the nuclear waste people in the UK) This is important to know, for two reasons.
Firstly, the key institution providing support for Global Warming theories and the basis for the IPCC findings receives funding from “Big Oil” and the nuclear power industry.
Secondly, the research from the institution which is perceived to be independent publicly funded research, is actually beholden to soft money, CRU is in fact a business. The funders of the CRU are on the bottom of this page from their website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080627194858/http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/ So, there a business set up in the early 1970’s, so what? I thought that this might explain a bit about how we got to where we are. I am not a conspiracy theorist but to me it looks like this may have been a very, very long term plan. Of course it could all just be coincidental, but it does seem to fit the observable information. A few weeks ago I explained the apparent CRU fraud to a friend of mine, a believer in AGW; he said ‘Why would they do it?’ I indicated the Jones had received 22 million, etc, but he countered, ‘For a fraud this large, going on for this long, there would have to be billions of dollars to be made, not millions’. That made sense. So I looked into it a bit. First this is no short term thing, it covers two or three decades, involves many countries and government on both sides of the isle, the US alone has had 4 different presidents and the UK a similar number of prime ministers, Canada the same. So is it not political in the partisan sense of the word. If, and this is a big if, you make the assumption that the objectives were: 1. Provide a smooth replacement of the use of oil in power generation and transportation, so as to avoid a panic over Peak Oil.
2. Get people to buy into Nuclear Power so that base load electrical power generation would not consume the available fossil fuel supply.
3. Get the people to really want to pay for it all. Note: The IEA put a date on peak oil production THIS WEEK, so if the CO2 scare does not pan out they are already starting to put the ‘Peak Oil’ story into play. It is also the 2020 date, why am I not surprised. http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065719 Then the following is not unbelievable. The newer scrubber technology for coal fired plants was moving along well back then, and in fact today their scrubbers can remove pretty much everything except CO2. However there is really not much money in coal, it is abundant, easy to handle, local in most instance to the base load demand for electricity, and a coal fired power plant is not much more complicated, or expensive, then a good steam engine. Since there was not enough money in coal it would not be financially rewarding to simply try to promote coal as a replacement for oil. So they looked at the situation and realized that the difference between the different technologies to replace base load power generation was the amount of CO2 per kilowatt/hour. At that point CO2 became the target. That happened sometime between 1985 and 1988. Now, the environmental movement is comprised mostly of followers, you can look up ‘dihydrogen monoxide’ (water), on many occasions at environmental conferences comedians and light news organizations have managed to get lots of environmentalists to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. So apparently they do not do a lot of independent analysis before making a conclusion, they are mostly followers. So if you need a large number of followers, there is a ready supply, but you need people, a few leaders, to tell the followers what to think. The followers do not need to, or perhaps even want to, know the reason or the facts; they just need something or someone to follow. Now you gain control of a climate research business, and begin the task of demonizing CO2, you realize that it will take years but that is OK, there are billions of dollars waiting at the end. Slowly over time you manage to get control of the worlds climate data and begin adjusting it, you use what you have been told by the marketing people to present the information needed in as clear and scary manager as is possible. Remember the two biggest motivators are fear and greed, and in this case, because of the number of followers greed will not work. There are simply too many followers to pay them all off. More at the Telegraph
 A senior Iraqi official said Iranian soldiers crossed into Iraqi territory on Friday and took up position at a southern oilfield whose ownership is disputed by Iran, but Tehran denied the report. Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji said the incursion was the latest in a series this week at the Fakka oilfield, around 300 kilometers (185 miles) southeast of Baghdad, in Maysan province. "At 3:30 this afternoon, 11 Iranian (soldiers) infiltrated the Iran-Iraq border and took control of the oil well. They raised the Iranian flag, and they are still there until this moment," he told Reuters. Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency later quoted the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) as rejecting the report. "The company denies Iranian soldiers taking control of any oil well inside Iraqi territory," Mehr quoted the NIOC as saying. Oil prices rose after the first reports of an incursion. Khafaji said Baghdad had taken no military action and stressed it would seek a measured, diplomatic response to the situation. "We are awaiting orders from our leader." "This well is located on Iraqi land, 300 meters (yards) inside Iraq. It is disputed between Iran and Iraq. There was an agreement between the two countries' oil ministers to fix this problem diplomatically," he said. An Iraqi security source in Maysan province, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iranian troops had made their way on Thursday into the Fakka oilfield area, located just on the Iraqi side of the two countries' long desert border, then withdrawn after several hours. The benchmark US light crude oil future moved to a high of $74.69 per barrel at 1414 GMT, up from $73.31 at 1108 GMT before the first reports, and was $73.45 at 1700 GMT. The incident came a few days after the Iraqi Oil Ministry awarded leading global energy firms contracts to operate seven oil fields, in the second tender since the 2003 US invasion. Iraq, whose underperforming oil sector is scarred by years of sanctions and war, predicts a host of development deals in the works will eventually lift output to 12 million barrels per day, putting it nearly on par with global leader Saudi Arabia. It would be a wave of long-awaited investment in Iraq. But as US troops prepare to withdraw by 2012, firms must grapple with violence, political feuds and legal wrangles dogging large-scale investment deals. The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been struggling to respond to a spate of attacks, the last of which killed up to 112 last week in Baghdad, aimed at destabilizing the country ahead of March 7 national elections. Ties between Iraq and neighboring Iran, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, have improved since a Shiite-led government took over in Baghdad following the ousting of Sunni Arab leader Saddam Hussein in 2003. Yet tensions have flared in inhospitable desert regions like eastern Maysan, just one of many flashpoints of continuing disagreement over shared borders between the majority Shiite Muslim neighbors. The bilateral relationship is all the more delicate given Washington and Tehran's standoff over Iran's nuclear program and the presence of 115,000 US soldiers on Iraqi soil. A source in the Iranian embassy in Baghdad said he had no information about any incursion. "If such a thing had happened, they would have told us," he said, referring to the Iranian government in Tehran. Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told al-Arabiya, "Iraq will not give up its oil wealth, no matter the reason." Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said ministers would meet this evening and make a statement after discussing the issue. Together with Bazargan and Abu Gharab, Fakka is part of the so-called Maysan Fields, which have an estimated 2.463 billion barrels of reserves. According Iraq's Oil Ministry, oil output in the Fakka area began in the 1970s but was suspended during the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq offered the Maysan oilfield complex to global energy firms in its first postwar development contract auction in June. But a Chinese consortium, the sole group to bid on the fields, declined the Oil Ministry's proposal for fees. YNet
 At Family Security Matters, we know that these are uncertain times. In only a few years, we've lived through 9/11 and two subsequent wars. We watch the news and hear about nuclear weapons in the hands of our enemies and see the destruction wrought by terrorists in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. We look at the faces of our children, wonder what the future holds for them, and hope that their future is more peaceful than our present. We try to understand why people would want to kill us and what we must do to stop them, but we are too busy to become experts and it seems like the news media are more interested in entertaining us, or persuading us, than informing us. Once upon a time, we were just like you, eager to understand the world and interested in helping to shape it, but without any real idea of how we could learn and what we could do. Family Security Matters was created to give Americans like us the tools to become involved citizens and powerful defenders of our homes, our families, and our communities. We believe in the power of everyday Americans to make this world safer and more secure.
We know that knowledge is most powerful when it is shared and so we are dedicated to bringing this knowledge directly to you. We want to equip Americans, women and men, with the information resources to become discriminating citizens who will demand the best out of their elected representatives.
And then we want to show you how you can influence national policy and community security directly, without waiting for government action. We want to be your best resource for accurate and practical knowledge that will make your families and communities safer, stronger, and more secure. This problem is too important to wait for someone else to solve it. So let us give you the information you need in order to become active participants in America's struggle for security and peace. Terrorist are on a mission . . . Terrorist attacks upon the United States are not indiscriminate and done merely to kill, without any larger purpose. The very definition of terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation to compel the people and government of a country to make certain policy decisions.
The objectives of groups such as Al Qaeda are quite clear. They seek to punish the United States and the West for perceived attacks upon Muslims worldwide, to secure control over the Middle East and its oil by forcing the withdrawal of Western military forces and cultural influences, and ultimately to establish Islam as the dominant force worldwide by undermining the Western institutions that restrict the ascendancy of radical Islam.
These objectives have been clearly articulated in the published writings and recorded statements of the movement's leaders.
In 1996, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa, or religious statement, declaring war against the United States. Later statements indicate that he has calculated the number of Muslim deaths due to American policies at 4 million and is willing to kill an equivalent number of Americans, including women and children, in order to achieve his vision. FSM
 With today’s horrific bombing in Iraq, the BBC has posted a piece asking if al Qaeda is bouncing back in Iraq. The reason it’s a question is because no, it’s not. After every large bombing now, there are articles claiming that Iraq is descending into hell. Fortunately it appears that there are many factors which prevent this. - Iraq is more economically stable than perhaps any time in the last twenty years. Its currency is stable and appreciating while oil flows increase government coffers.
- Iraq’s security forces are still growing, now numbering over 600,000. Compare this to when it was under 100k in 2004.
- Iraq’s largest detractors, the Sunni Arabs, have largely accepted the new government and will be voting in the upcoming elections.
 SAUDI Arabia has seized on a series of stolen British university emails to become the first country to cast doubt on the consensus about man-made climate change ahead of next week's Copenhagen summit. The world's largest oil exporter claims the emails stolen from researchers at the University of East Anglia undermine the scientific case that human activity is overheating the planet. Britain's Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change, Ed Miliband, yesterday said it was "absolute and utter nonsense" to suggest the controversial emails weakened the evidence about climate change. The emails were illegally hacked from a computer system at the University of East Anglia and then stored on a Russian web server. On November 19, a computer in Saudi Arabia was used to post a link to the stolen emails on a website popular with climate change sceptics and deniers. The emails, private exchanges of messages and data from climate researchers at the university, were pounced on by sceptics who said they revealed an unprofessional and combative approach towards critics of the mainstream view of climate change. Professor Jones says the emails were "taken completely out of context" and that the university's findings on global warming are backed by at least two research centres in the US. "One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks," he said. Saudi Arabia has long been reluctant to agree to any action to reduce carbon emissions and has only recently gone along with the 192 other governments attending the Copenhagen talks in accepting scientific evidence of man-made climate change. But its chief Copenhagen negotiator, Mohammad al-Sabban, suggested in an interview with the BBC yesterday that there was now no longer any point in seeking an agreement to reduce emissions. "It appears from the details . . . that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change," he said. "Climate is changing . . . but for natural and not human-induced reasons. So whatever the international community does to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have no effect on the climate's natural variability." His government might be prepared to take "no cost" measures to control emissions but more drastic and painful action would be out of the question until there was "new evidence" about what was causing climate change, he said. Mr Miliband poured scorn on such doubts when he spoke to a press briefing attended by The Weekend Australian in London shortly before the broadcast of Mr al-Sabban's comments. "There will be people who want to jump on these emails and somehow say these disprove climate change is happening," Mr Miliband said. "That is absolute and utter nonsense, frankly. I think it is very easy to take emails out of context. "There is an inquiry going on in East Anglia into the precise nature of these emails and what they said but I think it is really important that we are responsible in this." The Australian
 The UAE central bank intervened yesterday, setting up an emergency liquidity facility for lenders in the second-largest Arab economy. Its move was designed to head off a run on local banks when they re-open today after a four-day holiday. The rulers of Abu Dhabi are expected to make a statement before the markets open on whether they will bail out Dubai and which businesses and projects will be rescued. Such a statement would be a key test of financial stability in the region. Senior analysts in the region expect that projects regarded as folly will not be backed but operations and investments with a strong business model will be. Restructuring of the debts on those had already been started by investment bankers at Rothschild and accountants at Deloitte. KPMG is expected to be confirmed this week as lead adviser to the biggest creditors to Dubai World, including British banks. Western banks welcomed the UAE central bank action but analysts called it “a holding tactic”. The central bank said that it “stands behind local and foreign banks operating in the country”. Peter Sands, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, which has lent about $US8bn to Dubai, said: “The central bank has acted decisively and pragmatically. Their support for the banking system will underpin consumer and market confidence in the economy.” Raj Madha, a banking analyst at EFG Hermes, an investment bank based in Egypt, said that further measures were required. He said that the facility “may be enough to stop any liquidity drain gaining momentum tomorrow, but they need to clarify the long-term health of the banking sector by a guarantee of loans or by offering to buy up exposure.” Last night, the rulers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, its much richer sister emirate, were locked in fraught talks about the terms of a potential rescue. The UAE central bank is advised by Oliver Wyman, the management consultancy, and has held talks with the office of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the multibillionaire whose investment fund owns Manchester City Football Club. Today will mark the first key test of whether Dubai will default on its estimated $US88bn debt pile, when interest payments of about $US138 million become due on a $US2bn bond issue by Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority, a unit of Dubai World. Abu Dhabi, which sits on one-tenth of the world’s oil reserves, has the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at $US700bn. It can afford to bail out Dubai but is thought to be driving a tough deal, possibly demanding control of key assets, such as Emirates Airline. Projects begun but not completed include the $US20bn Dubai Land, 3bn sq ft of theme parks, shopping centres, hotels and residential properties due to be completed in 2018; the $US15bn Dubai Festival City, a 1300-acre complex of schools, hotels, offices and leisure facilities to be completed in 2020; and The Lagoons, a $US17.7bn development of seven islands, to be completed next year. In a related development, Dubai censors scrambled to stop The Sunday Times reaching news stands yesterday. SAB Media, the Dubai licensee, was told the paper was blocked from distribution. No reason was given but the recall was probably prompted by an illustration of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum swept away in a wave of debt. In Dubai, it is illegal to produce a derogatory image of the ruler or to deface his picture. The Australian
 Thousands of Palestinian workers in Dubai may lose their jobs due to the financial crisis there, economists project.
Over the past few months, thousands of the estimated 100,000 Palestinian laborers working in Dubai have lost their jobs.
The Gulf state's economy is grinding to a halt, due to the huge international debts the country took on to drive its breakneck expansion coupled with the global economic crisis.
Last week, the Dubai government announced its flagship conglomerate needed a six-month halt to interest payments on $59 billion worth of debt.
Arab financial analysts said the crisis in the Gulf states, compounded by debts and falling oil prices, will affect the economy in the Palestinian Territories, where many families depend on money from relatives working in Dubai, primarily in construction.
Other Palestinians work as engineers, instructors and in technology-related professions in Dubai. Some have started construction businesses there, such as Arab-Tech, which was among the country's first victims of the financial crisis.
This recession resulted in the cancelation of building contracts and projects and sent the industry into a freeze, prompting many Palestinians to leave Dubai for neighboring Qatar - which last month injected $6 billion in fresh capital into its banking system to "restore confidence" in its own economy - and in Saudi Arabia. Some have returned to the West Bank.
One Dubai-based Palestinian businessman said Palestinians working in Dubai were generally "highly skilled personnel with long years of experience in their respective fields."
"Many West Bank families are losing their sources of income, as these people are no longer sending much money," he told Haaretz.
The sheikdom of Dubai, ruled by the Makhtoum family, has staked its future on plans to become the tourist, transport and finance hub of the Middle East, encouraging outsiders to buy apartments in the plethora of new tower blocks sprouting like poplars across the sand.
But the international financial conglomerate Citigroup warned has warned that several Dubai developers have been caught in a severe squeeze, and their projects are increasingly unlikely to be finished.
 If the West was hoping to use sanctions targeting Iran’s reliance upon imported petroleum products, they better move quickly. China and Iran have signed a $6.5 billion deal where Sinopec will build refineries in Iran. If the regime truly understands how such sanctions threaten their rule, I expect them to do everything they can to delay such sanctions, and expedite the construction of more refineries. This is a major vulnerability for the Iranians, virtually guaranteeing the collapse of the regime over the long-term unless something was done.
Maximum pressure needs to be exerted upon any company even thinking about making such deals with the Islamic Republic of Iran. World Threats
 US stocks fell in a thinly traded and shortened session overnight, as fears over the potential impact of debt problems at Dubai World sent investors fleeing a broad range of stocks including Caterpillar, Bank of America and Alcoa. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 154.48 points, or 1.48%, at 10309.92, retreating from the 13-month closing high it reached Wednesday and marking its biggest one-day drop since Oct. 30. For the week, the Dow ended down 0.08%, snapping a three-week winning streak and marking its worst week since that ending Oct. 30. But the measure is still up 6.15% for the month. Bank of America was the Dow's weakest component Friday, closing down 48 cents, or 3%, at 15.47, reflecting declines across the financial sector amid uncertainty over how much exposure U.S. banks could have to Dubai World. Caterpillar fell 1.59, or 2.7%, to 57.45. Alcoa tumbled 34 cents, or 2.6%, to 12.66, hurt by sharp declines across metals futures due to the worries over Dubai World. Crude-oil futures also fell, hurting energy companies including Exxon Mobil, which slid 1.60, or 2.1%, to 74.87. Still, a number of money managers considered Friday's decline an overreaction, noting that the U.S. doesn't appear to have a great deal of exposure to Dubai World. In addition, they noted that although the Dubai World news in itself was unexpected, the troubles in Dubai don't come as a surprise. "The fact that the Dubai real estate market right now is struggling is really no secret worldwide," said Jay Leupp, senior portfolio manager of the Grubb & Ellis AGA Realty funds. "You have a lot of empty office space over there and that's a well-known fact." Leupp said he sees Friday's declines as presenting good buying opportunities. "This is a good day to be looking for bargains," he said. "You would never want to ignore [the Dubai World news], but we don't view it as a material event to our funds or the U.S. equity market," he said. Nevertheless, the Nasdaq Composite closed down 37.61, or 1.73%, at 2138.44, while the Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 19.14, or 1.72%, to 1091.49. The financial sector led Friday's broad decline in stocks. Among the hardest-hit in the financial sector were American depositary shares of European banks. Lloyds dropped 49 cents, or 7.9%, to 5.71, while Royal Bank of Scotland fell 55 cents, or 4.6%, to 11.48, and HSBC Holdings slid 3.61, or 5.8%, to 58.46. More at the Australian
 The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration secured China's cooperation in dealing with Iran by holding out the specter of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. According to the Post, two senior officials on the National Security Council - Jeffrey Bader and the ubiquitous Dennis Ross - told China that if it did not help the U.S. on the issue of Iranian nukes, Israel might well bomb Iran. This, in turn, would lead to a crisis in the Persian Gulf that would diminish China's access to oil, Bader and Ross warned. Following this warning, China said it would support what the Post describes as "a toughly worded U.S.-backed statement criticizing the Islamic republic for flouting U.N. resolutions by constructing a secret uranium-enrichment plant." What should we make of this? First, the perception that Israel is willing to strike Iran constitutes the best weapon the Obama administration has when it comes to rallying key elements of the international community to take steps aimed at dealing with the Iranian threat. So this option needs to be on the table. Second, even so, the best the Obama administration seems able to produce is a "toughly worded statement" criticizing something Iran has already done. What's the next step, an angry letter to the New York Times? Third, China's overriding interest in the Middle East is access to oil, and the same is true for all, or nearly all, key players. While this fact may, thanks to Israel, be useful when it comes to generating "tough" statements, it suggests that ultimately Iran may hold the trump card when it comes to more meaningful action. Powerline
 Dubai World’s surprise request for a freeze on debt payments provided the focus for world financial markets yesterday, hitting bank stocks and the price of oil, but lifting the dollar on a day when US and most Gulf markets were closed.
With the US on holiday for Thanksgiving, the region observing Eid al Adha, and trading on the London Stock Exchange temporarily closed for technical reasons, the environment was ripe for rumour and sensation as markets eschewed risk for gold and US dollars.
The day began with credit ratings agencies downgrading several government-related companies, such as DIFC Investments and Emaar, citing questions over Government support. Gold, a traditional refuge for investors in a storm, hit a record high of nearly US$1,200 before falling back.
Dubai then issued a statement to the market clarifying that DP World, the profitable ports division of Dubai World, would be spared from a restructuring that was announced along with the debt freeze request. The announcement regarding DP World was welcomed by markets and within the company itself. “This makes perfect sense. We have very tradeable assets and a very attractive business,” a DP World executive said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Still, markets added a premium to the cost of borrowing for Gulf companies, and the price of insuring government debt against default also rose.
European stock markets had their biggest falls in three weeks, while the MSCI index of emerging stock markets declined by one per cent. More at the National
 TEHRAN - Iran has gained $5 billion through its policy of shifting away from the U.S. currency in favour of the euro, state television reported on Monday, citing Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani. Since 2007, Iran has received 85 percent of its oil income in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, Iran's English-language Press TV reported on its web site. "Iran has considerably reduced the total of U.S. dollars in its currency basket," Bahmani said. Press TV did not give additional detail on how Iran has benefited from reducing the role of the U.S. unit in its transactions. Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, says a weak U.S. currency is eroding its purchasing power. The Islamic state is under U.S. and U.N. sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called the U.S. currency a "worthless piece of paper". At a 2007 heads of state summit of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Iran suggested oil should be priced in a basket of currencies rather than dollars, but it failed to win over other member states except Venezuela. The Iranian central bank has said it has been diversifying its reserves away from the dollar. Asharq Alawsat
 by Vasko Kohlmayer “The Gulf single currency is not happening tomorrow or the day after,” says Kuwait’s Finance Minister Mustafa al-Shamali. “Sufficient time” is needed to prepare for such a move the minister told the Kuwaiti parliament last week. Al-Shamali’s statement is startling in how matter-of-factly it reveals the intent of the Gulf states to abandon the dollar. Last month, veteran British journalist Robert Fisk filed a story titled “The Demise of the Dollar” in which he claimed that the Gulf countries were secretly working to set up a new currency to be used for oil trade. The report shook the markets and provoked a furor across the globe with many accusing Fisk of posting sensational stories based on obscure sources. It turns out that Fisk was right. If anything his article understated how far along the Gulf countries had come in their quest to replace the dollar. So much so that they had set the beginning of the next year as the start of the new monetary regime. And even though they will not be able to meet the ambitious deadline, its very existence underscores the earnestness of those countries to decouple themselves from the dollar framework. Such a move would have devastating repercussions for the United States, because it would deal a major blow to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. Once the dollar loses that special standing foreign central banks and investors will no longer be willing to continue purchasing Treasury bonds at low interest. Deprived of the ability to borrow cheaply from abroad, the American government would be forced to monetize portions of its debt in order to obtain cash for its expenditures. This would lead, among other things, to runaway inflation. Perhaps the most telling thing about the ongoing effort of the Gulf states to drop the greenback is that none of them is an outright enemy of America. The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia maintain – for the most part – friendly relations with the United States.
Their effort is thus not driven by some insidious desire to harm the US, but by the reckless monetary and fiscal policies of our own government. More at FrontPage Magazine
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