"If you asked most people on the street which nation produces the most oil most of them would say that the answer is Saudi Arabia of course. But they would be dead wrong. The truth is that Russia is the number one oil producer in the world. Not only that, but Russia is also the number one natural gas exporter in the world.
So what does that mean?
It means that Russia is the top energy superpower on the globe.
Russia pumped more than 10 million barrels of oil per day during November, and now they have done something which will give them even more power over energy.
Russia has just finished a new oil pipeline and port complex that enables them to export more oil than Saudi Arabia. On December 28th, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was on hand to celebrate the opening of Russia's first modern Pacific-based oil export facilities. The Pacific port of Kozmino is a project that Putin is extremely proud of, and it promises to literally change the world.
So what makes this port so significant?
The new Kozmino complex promises to be a gate through which Russia's vast East Siberian oilfields will supply oil for Asia's energy-hungry economies.
Notice that the Middle East and the West are not part of that equation.
According to Reuters, the first oil transport will load at Kozmino on January 15th. Hong Kong is scheduled to receive that first shipment.
But this is just the latest sign that Russia has more than recovered from their past economic woes.
In fact, the Russian Bear is back."
"(The Sun) - A leading health expert said the swine flu scare was a "false pandemic" led by drugs companies that stood to make billions from vaccines, The Sun reported Monday.
Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claimed major firms organized a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic.
He believes it is, "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century," and has called for an inquiry.
An emergency debate on the issue will be held by the Council of Europe later this month.
The Council of Europe covers 47 European countries and seeks to develop common and democratic principles between the nations.
Wodarg said, "It's just a normal kind of flu. It does not cause a tenth of deaths caused by the classic seasonal flu.
"The great campaign of panic we have seen provided a golden opportunity for representatives from labs who knew they would hit the jackpot in the case of a pandemic being declared.
"We want to clarify everything that brought about this massive operation of disinformation. We want to know who made decisions, on the basis of what evidence, and precisely how the influence of the pharmaceutical industry came to bear on the decision-making."
He added, "A group of people in the WHO is associated very closely with the pharmaceutical industry.""
"Standing with the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon as the war with Hamas continues
DID ISRAEL JUST BLINK, OR WIN?: Olmert declares unilateral cease-fire
January 16, 2009...7:21 am
BIBLE PROPHECY AND GAZA WAR
"Is there a connection between Bible prophecy and the war in Gaza right now?"
I'm getting asked that everywhere I travel here in the epicenter. It's an intriguing question, and there are two quick answers - no, and yes.
1.) No, there is no specific passage of Scripture that points to this specific war between Israel and terrorists in Gaza in the "last days," though there are certainly some passages that are evocative of the current conflict. The Lord once said through the Hebrew Prophet Amos, for example, "I will send fire upon the wall of Gaza and it will consume her citadels….I will even unleash My power upon Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines will perish." But this was fulfilled between 760 and 750 B.C.
2.) That said, the current war between Israel and the terrorist leaders and fighters of Hamas in Gaza could be preparing the way for the coming "War of Gog and Magog" described in Ezekiel 38-39. In that prophecy (as well as chapters 36 and 37), Ezekiel says that:
1. The State of Israel will be resurrected in the last days
2. Jews will pour back into the Holy Land after centuries of being scattered in exile all over the world
3. By God's grace, the Jews will rebuild the ancient ruins in the land of Israel
4. By God's grace, the Jews will see the land of Israel blossom and bear fruit like never before"
"On Christmas Day, a Nigerian-born terrorist named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger airplane. Only the bravery of a fellow passenger prevented the catastrophe.
President Obama called the terror attempt a "systemic failure" on the part of American national security agencies. In particular, he blamed the CIA for the foul-up.
There is no doubt that the CIA should have done something more to prevent this attack. But, then again, President Obama has been keeping them busy-with global warming. Seriously.
According to the New York Times on Jan. 5, just a few days after Obama excoriated the CIA publicly, "The nation's top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government's intelligence assets-including spy satellites and other classified sensors-to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change."
This project, the Times reported, "has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends …"
While missing a potentially catastrophic terror attack is problematic, it's good to know that we've got the inside dossier on the mating habits of polar bears.
This isn't a shock coming from the "watermelon" Obama White House-green on the outside, red on the inside. The simple truth is that the Obama administration believes that the solution to global warming is the same as the solution to terrorism: Marxist-style global redistributionism."
"In a luxury hotel at Suweima, on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, the Russians held a "Track II" conference this week designed to send a clear message to the Arab world: "We are back."
Medvedev talks alongside...
Medvedev talks alongside Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, not pictured, after they signed bilateral accords at the Presidential Palace in Cairo on Tuesday.
Photo: AP
The conference, covered widely in the Arab world but hardly at all in Israel, took place just weeks after the re-launch - after an absence of some 18 years - of an Arabic version of the Moscow News. It also comes at a time of diplomatic stagnation in the Middle East that has led to increased calls from many quarters - particularly the Palestinians and the EU - for various actors in the international community to step in and impose a solution on the parties.
Russia, obviously, wants to be one of these actors. Hence the two-day conference, part of the Valdai Discussion Club, put on jointly by the Ria Novosti, the Russian News and Information Agency funded by the government, and the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, the equivalent to the Council on Foreign relations in the US.
The organizers invited a slew of Mideast experts from Russia and the region - including Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the "State of Palestine," Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, with a couple of people from the UK, US and France thrown in for good measure - to discuss whether a comprehensive settlement is possible in the Middle East by 2020.
The hope of the conference, said Sergei Karaganov of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy at its outset, was to "generate fresh ideas." Forget about it. The real agenda, it seems, was to implant in the Arab public a sense that Russia has returned to the region and is a player.
Some 50 Arab media outlets covered the conference, according to its organizers, and Ria Novosti quoted Al Jazeera as saying, "This is perhaps the first large-scale