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wmulnea

How ISIS Is Wrecking Iraq's Biggest Industry - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/-iraqs-biggest-industry-2014-9

shared by wmulnea on 02 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The Islamic State has taken over several oil-producing areas in Iraq and Syria, raising fears that the group could leverage its hydrocarbon wealth to the point of economic self-sufficiency.
  • ISIS is indeed producing between 25,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil a day
  • about as much as Poland, Germany, or New Zealand.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • its oil is of poor quality, and ISIS is likely having trouble transporting it.
  • ISIS is only capable of moving its oil by truck, suggesting that the group hasn't mastered the use of northern Iraq's oil pipeline system.
  • Some experts have estimated that ISIS brings in up to $3 million in revenue each day.
  • Ben Lando of Iraq Oil Report told the Post that ISIS's daily revenue might actually be as low as $250,000 a day.
  • Iraqi fields "are so small and the crude of such poor quality that international companies did not bid to develop them
  • ISIS, which nearly seized a refinery outside of Baghdad in June, is interrupting the one industry that makes Iraq viable not just as an economy, but as a political unit as well.
  • In 2012, the International Energy Agency predicted a nearly 500% increase in Iraqi oil revenue by 2020, and concluded that revenue would double during that period even in a worst-case scenario:
  • its ability to disrupt Iraq's leading industry denies the country of much of its economic potential while degrading vital infrastructure.
wmulnea

Isis threatens future oil supplies, warns IEA - FT.com - 0 views

www.ft.com/...59-11e4-a1a9-00144feabdc0.html

shared by wmulnea on 02 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Mr Birol said instability in the Middle East, and especially in Iraq, had “major implications” for oil markets.
  • Iraq has the world’s third-largest reserves of conventional oil
  • the government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil, which are usually at loggerheads, this month agreeing a temporary deal for crude exports and revenue sharing
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Iraq’s oil production has fallen only 10 per cent this year.
  • the rapid ascent of Isis has raised questions about the country’s security, adding to international companies’ concerns about regulatory, environmental and budget problems.
  • Poor roads and transport infrastructure were adding to security concerns and hence costs, he added.
  • Mr Birol said it was highly unlikely that US crude production could meet the expected increase in global demand, even if shale oil production continued to outpace forecasts as it has done in recent years.
fcastro2

A daring plan to rebuild Syria - no matter who wins the war - Ideas - The Boston Globe - 0 views

www.bostonglobe.com/...story.html

syria plan war politics china russia the west

shared by fcastro2 on 23 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The first year of Syria’s uprising, 2011, largely spared Aleppo, the country’s economic engine, largest city, and home of its most prized heritage sites. Fighting engulfed Aleppo in 2012 and has never let up since, making the city a symbol of the civil war’s grinding destruction
  • Rebels captured the eastern side of the city while the government held the wes
  • , residents say the city is virtually uninhabitable; most who remain have nowhere else to go
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • In terms of sheer devastation, Syria today is worse off than Germany at the end of World War II
  • ven as the fighting continues, a movement is brewing among planners, activists and bureaucrats—some still in Aleppo, others in Damascus, Turkey, and Lebanon—to prepare, right now, for the reconstruction effort that will come whenever peace finally arrives.
  • In a glass tower belonging to the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, a project called the National Agenda for the Future of Syria has brought together teams of engineers, architects, water experts, conservationists, and development experts to grapple with seemingly impossible technical problems
  • It is good to do the planning now, because on day one we will be ready,”
  • The team planning the country’s future is a diverse one. Some are employed by the government of Syria, others by the rebels’ rival provisional government. Still others work for the UN, private construction companies, or nongovernmental organizations involved in conservation, like the World Monuments Fund
  • As the group’s members outline a path toward renewal, they’re considering everything from corruption and constitutional reform to power grids, antiquities, and health care systems.
  • Aleppo is split between a regime side with vestiges of basic services, and a mostly depopulated rebel-controlled zone, into which the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front have made inroads over the last year
  • The population exodus has claimed most of the city’s craftsmen, medical personnel, academics, and industrialists
  • It took decades to clear the moonscapes of rubble and to rebuild, in famous targets like Dresden and Hiroshima but in countless other places as well, from Coventry to Nanking. Some places never recovered their vitality.
  • Of course, Syrian planners cannot help but pay attention to the model closest to home: Beirut, a city almost synonymous with civil war and flawed reconstructio
  • We don’t want to end up like Beirut,” one of the Syrian planners says, referring to the physical problems but also to a postwar process in which militia leaders turned to corrupt reconstruction ventures as a new source of funds and power
  • Syria’s national recovery will depend in large part on whether its industrial powerhouse Aleppo can bounce back
  • The city’s workshops, famed above all for their fine textiles, export millions of dollars’ worth of goods every week even now, and the economy has expanded to include modern industry as well.
  • Today, however, the city’s water and power supply are under the control of the Islamic State
  • Across Syria, more than one-third of the population is displaced.
  • A river of rubble marks the no-man’s land separating the two sides. The only way to cross is to leave the city, follow a wide arc, and reenter from the far side.
  • Parts of the old city won’t be inhabitable for years, he told me by Skype, because the ground has literally shifted as a result of bombing and shelling
  • The first and more obvious is creating realistic options to fix the country after the war—in some cases literal plans for building infrastructure systems and positioning construction equipment, in other cases guidelines for shaping governanc
  • They’re familiar with global “best practices,” but also with how things work in Syria, so they’re not going to propose pie-in-the-sky idea
  • If some version of the current regime remains in charge, it will probably direct massive contracts toward patrons in Russia, China, or Iran. The opposition, by contrast, would lean toward firms from the West, Turkey, and the Gulf.
  • At the current level of destruction, the project planners estimate the reconstruction will cost at least $100 billion
  • Recently a panel of architects and heritage experts from Sweden, Bosnia, Syria, and Lebanon convened in Beirut to discuss lessons for Syria’s reconstruction—one of the many distinct initiatives parallel to the Future of Syria project.
  • “You should never rebuild the way it was,” said Arna Mackic, an architect from Mostar. That Bosnian city was divided during the 1990s civil war into Muslim and Catholic sides, destroying the city center and the famous Stari Most bridge over the Neretva River. “The war changes us. You should show that in rebuilding.”
  • Instead, Mackik says, the sectarian communities keep to their own enclaves. Bereft of any common symbols, the city took a poll to figure out what kind of statue to erect in the city center. All the local figures were too polarizing. In the end they settled on a gold-colored statue of the martial arts star Bruce Lee
  • “It belongs to no one,” Mackic says. “What does Bruce Lee mean to me?
  • is that it could offer the city’s people a form of participatory democracy that has so far eluded the Syrian regime and sadly, the opposition as well.
  • “You are being democratic without the consequences of all the hullabaloo of formal democratization
  • A great deal of money has been invested in Syria’s destruction— by the regime, the local parties to the conflict, and many foreign powers. A great deal of money will be made in the aftermath, in a reconstruction project that stands to dwarf anything seen since after World War II.
  • fcastro2 on 23 Feb 15
     
    While it is still unclear as to who will win the Syrian conflict, there are people who are already looking towards the future and a better Syria. Plans are being made but, of course, these plans will entirely depend on who wins the war. 
eyadalhasan

Middle East investment in U.S. property rises as returns drag at home - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/s-returns-drag-at-home-2015-12

middle east US Twitter

shared by eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16
     
    The boarded-up building sat vacant on a tattered block in San Francisco until a small New York developer and a Kuwaiti real estate partner snapped it up in April 2014, attracted by the proximity to Twitter Inc and other tech companies.
eyadalhasan

This solar company will power Middle East oil - 0 views

money.cnn.com/...index.html

solar energy Middle east oil

shared by eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16
     
    No, it's not using solar panels to power mansions in Palo Alto. It's using clean energy to pump oil ... in the Middle East, no less, the epicenter of the world's oil resources. GlassPoint Solar is building sophisticated mirrors in a desert in Oman to transform solar energy into steam, used in a popular kind of oil extraction.
mkulach

Egypt legend Aboutrika investigated for being member of 'Muslim Brotherhood' - 0 views

www.albawaba.com/...im-brotherhood%E2%80%99-811064

Muslim Brotherhood Aboutrika soccer Egypt

shared by mkulach on 02 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • mkulach on 02 Mar 16
     
    Legend footballer Mohamed Aboutrika was on charges of funding the Muslim Brotherhood by a committee dedicated to investigating the assets of Brotherhood members. On 8 May 2015, Aboutrika's assets were frozen after the government committee announced the confiscation of properties belonging to tourism company Asshab Tours, in which the former Al-Ahly and national team player has shares. The soccer player was known to have supported Morsi and is now being suspected for more involvement.
mportie

The Overhyping of Iran's Cyberarmy - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...ping-of-iran-s-cyber-army.html

US Iran cyber international report security

shared by mportie on 02 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • mportie on 02 Mar 16
     
    Although Iran does have a track record of international cyber attacks a report authored by a cyber security company is being scrutinized for its lack of proper documentation and evidence for current activity. It is important to foreign relations and intelligence official of the State that information available to them is of the utmost accuracy.
eyadalhasan

Oil's Decline Takes Toll on Saudi Conglomerate - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...-saudi-conglomerate-1458773954

OIL Saudi economic

shared by eyadalhasan on 29 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • eyadalhasan on 29 Mar 16
     
    A construction conglomerate at the center of Saudi Arabia's petrodollar-fueled economic boom is teetering under billions of dollars of debt, bankers and financial advisers familiar with the matter said, showing the strain of cheap oil on the kingdom and its companies.
mkulach

Palestinian PM urges ban on Israeli settlement products - 0 views

www.business-standard.com/...t-products-116040400600_1.html

Israel Palestine EU trade

shared by mkulach on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • mkulach on 05 Apr 16
     
    Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Monday urged the European Union to ban Israeli settlement products from entering Europe. At a meeting with Christian Berger, director for Middle East at the European External Action Service, Hamdallah said the Israeli settlements are illegitimate under international law. UNHRC adopted a resolution to "blacklist" companies that operate in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
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