MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Kyrgistan 5.2 !More info here.

• Turkish warships shell narrow water between Israeli and Cypriot gas fields.(Debka).Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has warned Turkey to stop its warships shelling the strip of water dividing the Cypriot and Israeli gas exploration zones in the eastern Mediterranean.debkafile's military forces report that Wednesday, Dec. 21, Turkish warships began turning their guns on the strip dividing Israel's Leviathan gas field from Block 12 of Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone-EEZ, where a large gas field was recently discovered.Neither Israel nor Cyprus reported the Turkish attacks which are staged in international waters, but both reinforced their naval units around the gas fields. It was the Cypriot president who broke the silence Friday, Dec. 23 with a warning: "If Turkey does not change its gunboat diplomacy and stop playing the part of regional police officer, there will be consequences which, for sure, will not be good - either for the whole region or the Turkish people and first and foremost for Turkish Cypriots," he said.On Dec. 22, Israel canceled the $90 million sale to the Turkish Air Force of Elbit's hi-tech LOROP-Long Range Oblique Photography military surveillance system.Israeli defense sources said the transaction was cancelled lest SAR radar or LOROP technology find their way into the hands of Israel's enemies, such as Iran.According to our military sources, Israel timed the deal's cancellation as a warning to Ankara to back off from its campaign of harassment in and around Israel's gas fields. Jerusalem, Athens and Nicosia are economic and security partners in the exploration and development of eastern Mediterranean gas resources. The same firm, Noble Energy Inc of Houston, Texas, is working both Cypriot and Israeli fields. Shares in the US company are held in Cyprus by the Cypriot national energy company and in Israel by Delek Drilling LP and Avner Oil Exploration LLP.The recent discovery that the gas fields are much bigger than first believed has raised the stakes around them. The three governments involved are looking forward to becoming major gas suppliers to Europe and so reducing the continent's dependence on Russian and Turkish gas pipelines.Noble Energy's latest estimate published Monday, Dec. 19, added 6.3 percent to the Leviathan well's untapped potential, raising it from the previous estimate of 16 to 20 trillion cubic feet.Nicosia too will shortly issue an upwardly revised estimate of its gas field. According to debkafile's energy industry sources, the new figure is cautiously estimated as 10 trillion cubic feet.Both expect Ankara to escalate its nuisance offensive after the new Nicosia bulletin. As a precaution, Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis was dispatched to Washington Tuesday, Dec. 19, to talk the situation over with administration officials and obtain US support for the continuing gas enterprise and the Cypriot stance against Turkish threats.According to our Washington sources, the advice from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to go full steam ahead with gas drilling and ignore Turkish harassment. After their meeting, Kozakou-Marcoullis said the prospects for gas development have already dramatically increased her country's strategic importance.In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, she called Turkey "the neighborhood bully," adding that a Turkey "whose foreign minister once promoted a policy of 'zero problems' with its neighbors is now pursuing a policy of 'only problems.' "Read the full story here.

• Tens of thousands mass in fresh Russia vote protest.(RaiNovosti).Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Moscow Saturday to press demands for new parliamentary elections and wholesale liberalizing reform in Russia, turning the temperature up on Vladimir Putin and his plans to return to the Kremlin.Police put the number of protesters within the space authorized for the rally at 29,000 but a far larger crowd was massed behind a long line of metal detectors set up on the street as would-be participants were screened through them one by one. Rally organizers and RIA Novosti correspondents on the scene estimated the turnout number at several times higher than the police figure.As the demonstration swelled, the Kremlin moved to respond in real time, with a spokeswoman for President Dmitry Medvedev announcing that reforms to ease restrictions on political parties could be enacted quickly.The atmosphere on Moscow’s Sakharov Avenue, named for the Nobel Peace Prize-winning late Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, was calm but determined as citizens with a wide range of political views turned out to express their opposition to December 4 legislative elections in particular and to Russia’s political status-quo in general.“Our votes were stolen!” Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption whistleblower and activist, who has become a driving force in the Russian protest movement, shouted to the crowd from a massive stage installed at one end of the avenue.“We came here to get them back! Give them back right now!” Navalny said to cheers from the crowd.Boris Nemtsov, a long-time Putin critic and former deputy prime minister, also addressed the demonstrators, appealing to them to go to the polls in presidential elections scheduled for next March 4 “but not to cast one single vote for Putin.”“Let’s keep Putin out of the Kremlin!” he said, after which the crowd began chanting: “Russia Without Putin! Russia Without Putin!”Read and see the full story here.

• Updated - Video: Moscow Protests Continue Amid Freezing Temperatures.(RaiNovosti).During the second round of mass protests, demonstrators and opposition leaders called for new parliamentary elections and the resignation of top officials.Read and see the full story here.

• U.S. Report: Border Fence Threatens Illegal aliens , potential Democrat voters Bear Population.(JW).The department of homeland security (DHS) will soon get unsolicited advice from a group of U.S. government scientists that claim fencing along the Mexican border threatens the potential Dem voter black bear population. The esteemed researchers recently published a study warning that the border wall erected to protect the country from illegal immigration and drug smuggling is an obstacle that blocks bears in migration. This may threaten the illegal aliens black bear population in parts of Arizona, they say. The findings were published recently in a science research journal so it didn’t get much publicity until a mainstream newspaper picked it up this week.The newspaper article goes into considerable detail about how the probe was conducted, mainly by using pieces of barbed wire to capture genetic samples of “foraging” bears. This helped scientists track various bear populations in Arizona. The population density of the border bears was substantially lower than the bears living farther north, which had a wider habitat that was less vulnerable to development, the researchers found.The bear study is simply the latest of many to make a case against the southern border fence in the name of preserving wildlife. A number of others have made similar arguments, some even claiming that the barrier will lead to the extinction of certain species of wildlife. One example is a University of Texas study that found more than 300 species of amphibian, reptile, and mammals are threatened by the border barrier.Another accuses the U.S. government of ignoring scientific research and historical evidence of the border fence’s negative effects to wildlife and conservation lands. A fence is slated to traverse important ecological areas, including the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the Sabal Palm Audubon Center and Sanctuary, according to this particular university paper.Other studies, less publicized by the mainstream media, have exposed how the constant traffic of illegal immigration (where there is no fence) has destroyed hundreds of acres of national forests and their habitat. Illegal immigrants have devastated national parks by leaving mountains of trash and human waste, with recurring fires and by despoiling natural springs and vandalizing historic sites. The migrants have also created damaging illegal trails and roads that destroy sensitive and federally protected vegetation.The bear researchers will conveniently omit this sort of information when they meet with DHS officials and other state and federal agencies to “generate innovative solutions” that take bears into consideration when border security is discussed. They want the well-being of all Democrats large carnivores to be considered when crafting border security policies.Read the full story here.

• 'Emperor' Obama Issues Signing Statement Overriding Ban on White House Czars In Spending Bill.(TheHill).— President Obama said Friday he will not be bound by at least 20 policy riders in the 2012 omnibus funding the government, including provisions pertaining to Guantanamo Bay and gun control.After he signed the omnibus into law Friday, the White House released a concurrent signing statement saying Obama will object to portions of the legislation on constitutional grounds.Signing statements are highly controversial, and their legality is disputed.“I have advised the Congress that I will not construe these provisions as preventing me from fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to recommend to the Congress’s consideration such measures as I shall judge necessary and expedient,” Obama said in a statement as he signed the bill into law.The signing statement says that on the issue of accused terrorist detainees, Obama will interpret and apply provisions that bar the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, “in a manner that avoids constitutional conflicts.”Obama also objected to Defense provisions in the bill that limit the president’s ability to put troops under foreign command and require 30 days advance notice to Congress for any use of the military which would involve more than $100,000 in construction costs.The president also objected to a section aimed at blocking health, climate, auto policy and urban affairs “czars” from being employed by the White House and a provision that bars health officials from advocating for gun control. The signing statement also objects to a portion of the omnibus that limits funding for the Copyright Office.Hmmm......I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full Story here.

• Bank Of America Dumps $75 Trillion In Derivatives On U.S. Taxpayers With Federal Approval.(BLN).Bloomberg reports that Bank of America (BAC) has shifted about $22 trillion worth of derivative obligations from Merrill Lynch and the BAC holding company to the FDIC insured retail deposit division. Along with this information came the revelation that the FDIC insured unit was already stuffed with $53 trillion worth of these potentially toxic obligations, making a total of $75 trillion.Derivatives are highly volatile financial instruments that are occasionally used to hedge risk, but mostly used for speculation. They are bets upon the value of stocks, bonds, mortgages, other loans, currencies, commodities, volatility of financial indexes, and even weather changes. Many big banks, including Bank of America, issue derivatives because, if they are not triggered, they are highly profitable to the issuer, and result in big bonus payments to the executives who administer them. If they are triggered, of course, the obligations fall upon the corporate entity, not the executives involved. Ultimately, by allowing existing gambling bets to remain in insured retail banks, and endorsing the shift of additional bets into the insured retail division, the obligation falls upon the U.S. taxpayers and dollar-denominated savers.Even if we net out the notional value of the derivatives involved, down to the net potential obligation, the amount is so large that the United States could not hope to pay it off without a major dollar devaluation, if a major contingency actually occurred and a large part of the derivatives were triggered. But, if such an event ever occurs, Bank of America's derivatives counter-parties will, as usual, be made whole, while the American people suffer. This all has the blessing of the Federal Reserve, which approved the transfer of derivatives from Merrill Lynch to the insured retail unit of BAC before it was done.Read the full story here.

• Iran Launching "Massive" Ten Day War Game Tomorrow In Close Proximity To CVN-74 John Stennis.(ZeroHedge).As the rest of the world enjoys Festivus or whatever celebration one indulges in, Iran is launching a "massive" 10 day war games naval exercise right in the belly of the beast. From Xinhua: "Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari on Thursday announced the upcoming launch of ten-day massive naval exercises in the international waters, the local satellite Press TV reported. Sayyari said at a press conference on Thursday that the naval maneuvers dubbed Velayat 90 will start on Saturday and will cover an area of 2,000 (1,250-mile) km stretching from the east of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden, the report said. This is the first time that Iran's Navy carries out naval drills in such a vast area, he was quoted as saying. He said that the exercises will manifest Iran's military prowess and defense capabilities in the international waters, convey a message of peace and friendship to regional countries and test the newest military equipment among other objectives, said the report. He added that the newest missile systems and torpedoes will be employed in the maneuvers, adding that the most recent tactics used in subsurface battles will also be demonstrated. Iranian destroyers, missile-launching vessels, logistic vessels, drones and coastal missiles will also be tested, said the Iranian commander, according to the report." And while conventional wisdom is that the market is focused on what the upcoming closure of the Straits of Hormuz means for tanker routs and oil prices, there is another more disturbing possibility: with all those Iranian canoes, and soapboxes floating around, one wonders if one is bound to have a close encounter with USS CVN-74 John Stennis, which as the updated naval map from Stratfor shows, will be smack in the middle of the action.Read the full story here.

• Seafood 10,000 Times Over Safe Limit for Carcinogenic Contamination, FDA Says to Eat it Anyway.(BLN).By Mike Barrett.Activist Post. Despite seafood showing extremely high levels of contamination, the FDA still deems the food safe for consumption.The FDA not only falsely softened the risk of seafood consumption due to carcinogenic contaminants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the seafood supply, but also ignored individual FDA staff members who called for higher levels of contamination protection.The oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was one of the largest offshore oil spills in history. One recent study conducted by researchers at the Natural Resources Defense Council found that FDA Gulf seafood “safe levels” actually allowed 100 to 10,000 times more carcinogenic PAHs in seafood than what is safe. This move by the FDA is not only only irresponsible for environmental and human safety, but puts those who are more vulnerable at a higher risk, such as pregnant women and children.
  FDA Says Yo Don’t Need to Remove Your Overly-Contaminated Seafood.Researchers who conducted the study, which was published in the top peer-reviewed environmental health journal Environmental Health Perspectives, found the information from snatched internal emails and unreleased assessments from the FDA under the Freedom of Information Act. The FDA argues that the reason they downplayed the risk is biased on the side of safety.The director of the FDA has been reported stating “overly conservative estimates would lead you [to] remove a great deal of food from our refrigerators and pantries than is needed”.Seeing as consuming highly contaminated seafood is completely opposite of safe, this kind of response of course suggests that the FDA’s decision had little to do with safety, and was likely driven by political factors.This wouldn’t be the first time that the FDA falsified or presented manipulated data. The agency also ignored the fact that mercury, an element that is highly toxic in all forms, was found in a large number of brand-name processed foods. But instead of addressing this major public health concern, the FDA decided to focus their time on crushing beneficial supplements through ridiculous NDI regulations that threaten the entire infrastructure of the nutraceuticals industry.In addition, the Food and Drug Administration has known for years that asthma drugs actually kill more patients than asthma itself, but they simply ignored this information. Similarly, data indicates that through the combination of rays from the sun and ingredients found in sunscreen, the skin can be damaged so much that lesions and tumors can be the end result. But of course the US Food and Drug Administration has allegedly been aware of this critical information for the past ten years, but has done absolutely nothing to warn people about it.Hmmmm......Bon Appetit?Read the full story here.

• ‘France should drop out of Minsk group if genocide bill is ratified’.(TodaysZaman).The Turkish president has suggested France should withdraw from the Minsk Group in case a bill approved on Thursday by the French Assembly aiming to penalize denial of “Armenian genocide” becomes law, as he said he regarded that president's refusal to return his calls as a sign of his “prejudice against Turkey.”Speaking to reporters on Friday, a day after the approval of the highly controversial bill in the French assembly despite strong Turkish opposition, President Abdullah Gül said France should withdraw from the Minsk Group if the bill is approved by the Senate and becomes law since that would mean that France has lost its impartial position in the settling of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia. France currently co-chairs the Minsk Group, an international initiative that has been active since the 1990s with not many significant results so far. Gül also criticized President Nicolas Sarkozy for “being prejudiced against Turkey.” Recalling that he has not responded to Gül's phone calls for days, Gül complained that “heads of state talk to each other even during war time.” He said Sarkozy's stance reveals his prejudices against Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkey's top officials continued to slam France following the French National Assembly's approval of the denial bill, as Ankara urged Turkish diplomats overseas to speak to Armenians around the world and tell them of the foreign “instigation” that tore Turks and Armenians apart.Following his initial announcement of Turkey's measures against the French on Thursday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asserted that the French decision was “a clear sign of the hostility” against Muslims in France and Europe on Friday.“The vote in France, where there are nearly 5 million Muslims, clearly showed that the extent of racism, discrimination and anti-Muslims sentiments has reached dangerous levels,” Erdoğan said at a conference on “Change in Muslim Societies and Role of Women” in İstanbul.Accusing Sarkozy of “trying to win [April’s presidential] elections over hostility towards Turks and Muslims,” Erdoğan was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying, while he noted that Thursday’s vote was all the more meaningful in that the bill was approved with only 55 lawmakers in attendance.The prime minister also read excerpts from a 1526 letter sent by Ottoman Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent to French King Francis I in response to the French king’s request for help after being captured by Spanish King Charles V during the Battle of Pavia. The Ottoman sultan said in the letter he would help the French king, but the letter is written in a tone that looks down upon the French King, as Sultan Süleyman describes himself with multiple adjectives, hinting that Francis I is only “a king.” Erdoğan said he had earlier presented a copy of Süleyman’s letter to Sarkozy. “I think he did not read it,” he said.Hmmm....Erdogan "Muslims don't commit genocide"......Meaning only who does?Read the full story here.

• "The war on Christianity" - Christmas trees 'make non-Christians feel excluded'.(Telegraph)Christmas trees should be removed from public places to avoid making non-Christians feel “excluded”, scientists have suggested.Researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada, found non-Christians feel less self-assured and have fewer positive feelings if a Christmas tree was in the room.The scientists conducted the study using 77 Christians and 57 non-believers, including Buddhists and Sikhs.The participants did not know the survey was about Christmas, and were asked to fill in questions about themselves both when a 12-inch Christmas tree was in the room and when it was not."Non-celebrators" reported fewer positive feelings and less self-assurance in the Christmas room. Christians were mostly cheered by the tree.Christians, however, did report feeling more guilt when a tree was in the room, which, claim the researchers, suggests the holidays can be stressful. Michael Schmitt, a social psychologist behind the research, decided to carry out the study after controversy over whether Christmas should be celebrated in public in case it offends non-Christians.He said: "Simply having this 12-inch Christmas tree in the room with them made them feel less included in the university as a whole, which to me is a pretty powerful effect from one 12-inch Christmas tree in one psychology lab."I don't think it's really going to undermine anyone's experience of Christmas to tone it down."We're not suggesting 'no Christmas' or 'no Christmas displays at all,' but in contexts where we really do value respecting and including diversity in terms of religion, the safest option is not to have these kinds of displays."I understand why it might feel threatening to people. "But I think if people do care about making a whole range of different kinds of people feel included and respected, then we can make some small changes that would go a long way toward creating a more multicultural or inclusive society."The researchers published their results in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.Read the full BS story here.

• Egypt - Islamists win 65 percent of votes in Egypt’s second round of parliamentary election.(AlArabiya).Egypt’s main Islamist parties won 65 percent of votes for party lists in the second round of a historic election for a new parliament after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, the electoral committee said Saturday.The election commission chief, Abdel-Moez Ibrahim, has announced the results from the second round, in which nine provinces with nearly seven million voters cast their ballots. The Freedom and Justice Party won 36.5 percent of the vote for party lists, with 4,058,498 out of 11,173,818 votes, according to figures provided by the electoral committee for the second round which was held on December 14.The al-Nour Party, the political arm of the ultraconservative Salafi movement, won 28.78 percent, with 3,216,430 votes.The results mirror those from the first round of voting, held in late November, when the two blocs together won nearly 70 percent.Meanwhile, the Islamists’ liberal rivals fared badly again in the second round, with al-Wafd − the country’s oldest party − winning 9.6 percent of the party list vote and the Egyptian Bloc, the main liberal coalition, just seven percent.The third round of the election will start on January 3, followed by another three-round poll for the senate.The FJP has said it would have the right to form the next government, but the ruling military and the prime minister it appointed have said parliament could not appoint ministers.The military, which has faced down days of deadly protests in November and this month, says it will transfer power to civilians after a presidential election is held by the end of June next year.Read the full story here.

• Cold war heats up between Hezbollah and Washington.(AlArabiya).A war of words is heating up between Hezbollah and Washington, with allegations and counter-allegations flying between the two foes as the crisis in Syria takes its toll on the Shiite militant group. The cold war between Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah and the United States ─ which blacklists the Lebanese group as a terrorist organization ─ runs back decades.But with political upheaval in the Arab world at a peak, tensions between the two are skyrocketing.“This year was not the first time Hezbollah has exposed intelligence networks, whether working for the United States or others, and the United States criminal case against Hezbollah goes back months,” said Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center. But there’s no doubt that, given what’s happening in Syria along with the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq ... we.re in a phase of high tension in which everyone’s raising the pressure on their opponent.”The feud began to deepen earlier this year, when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the Central Intelligence Agency of planting spies within his party’s ranks.Nasrallah’s announcement in June, which the party hailed as a “victory” over the United States, marked the first acknowledgment of infiltration by the movement founded in 1982.The United States filed a criminal lawsuit against a string of Lebanese financial institutions with alleged ties to Hezbollah on the grounds they were complicit in a massive scheme to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars.U.S. federal authorities say the companies were part of a scheme to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from narcotics dealing and other criminal activities in order to fund Hezbollah’s activities.But Hezbollah has staunchly denied the charges, with the group’s second in command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, accusing Washington this week of waging a smear campaign against a Shiite Muslim group which, he said, would never follow a path “prohibited by religion.” Hezbollah upped the stakes by accusing the “terrorist” United States of being behind twin bombings in the Syrian capital on Friday which left 44 dead and 166 wounded, according to officials.“These bombings which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of people, mainly women and children, are the specialty of the United States, the mother of terrorism,” read a statement released by the movement Friday.It said the timing of the bombings, which ripped through two security service offices in the Syrian capital, clearly signaled they were a “cowardly, bloody act of revenge” over the U.S. “defeat” in Iraq.Analysts say the crisis in Syria, which provides Lebanon with its only open border, has dealt a blow to Hezbollah which must now face the possibility of a future without a key regional ally.And as power structures shift in the Middle East, experts say Western pressure on the Lebanese militant movement will continue to mount as the group risks losing the support provided by the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “The latest U.S. accusations against Hezbollah are ... part of a wider campaign against the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, author of the forthcoming “The Iran Connection: Understanding the Alliance with Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.”“We’re only going to see more of these accusations,” Saad-Ghoryaeb told AFP.“The United States is aware that ... Hezbollah has already lost some support in the region because of Syria, so now's the time to tarnish its reputation, to move from labeling the group as terrorist to actually criminalizing it.”Read the full story here.

• Midnight Masses canceled in Iraq because of growing security concerns.(CN).London -- Chaldean Catholic officials have canceled traditional Christmas Eve midnight Masses because of security risks.Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk in northern Iraq told the agency Aid to the Church in Need that Christians will spend Christmas in "great fear" because of the risk of new attacks.All services and Masses have been scheduled for daylight hours, he said in an interview with Rome-based AsiaNews."Midnight Christmas Mass has been canceled in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk as a consequence of the never-ending assassinations of Christians," he said, citing the Oct. 31, 2010, attack on the Syrian Catholic cathedral that left 57 people dead in the Iraqi capital.Archbishop Sako also expressed concern over the growing conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims vying for political power. He said the conflict has led to growing instability, especially in the days since the pullout of U.S. military troops in mid-December.The archbishop's concerns follow a series of incidents in the northern province of Kurdistan, which had been considered safe haven for Christians.In Erbil, Kurdistan's capital, Christian Sermat Patros, 29 was kidnapped Dec. 12. Between Dec. 2 and Dec. 5, at least 30 Christian-owned businesses were torched in Zakho near the Turkish border. A Christian couple also was found shot dead in their car Dec. 13 in Mosul.Hmmmmm......Obama: If We Work Hard, Afghanistan Could Be a 'Success'...Like Iraq!Read the full story here.

• Russia successfully test fires Bulava missiles.(RaiNovosti).Russia successfully test launched two Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles on Friday, Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Igor Konashenkov said.The missiles were launched from the Borey-class Yury Dolgoruky nuclear-powered submarine in the White Sea and hit designated targets at the Kura test range on Kamchatka, some 6,000 kilometers to the east.This was the troubled Bulava’s 18th test launch. Only 11 launches have been officially declared successful.But some analysts suggest that in reality the number of failures is considerably larger. Russian military expert Pavel Felgengauer said that of the Bulava's first 12 test launches, only one was entirely successful.Despite several previous failures, officially blamed on manufacturing faults, the Russian military has insisted that there is no alternative to the Bulava.The Bulava (SS-NX-30) SLBM carries up to 10 MIRV warheads and has a range of over 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles). The three-stage ballistic missile is designed for deployment on Borey-class nuclear submarines.Read the full story here.

• Looming Saudi Energy Crisis?(CrossroadArabia).By John Burgess.Chatham House, the UK’s top think-tank, has a new report saying that Saudi domestic demand for energy (primarily in the form of electricity) threatens Saudi Arabia’s place in the world oil market. The report (59-page PDF) says that demand is outstripping the Kingdom’s ability to produce enough oil and natural gas AND to continue its programs of social welfare at the same time. The report says that there are some steps the Saudis can take, such as introducing conservation measures, that could postpone a crisis, but that the crisis will hit.Below is an abstract of the article…

Burning Oil to Keep Cool: The Hidden Energy Crisis in Saudi Arabia
Glada Lahn and Paul Stevens, December 2011

» Domestic energy demand growth in Saudi Arabia is cause for international concern. If it continues at the current rate, it could jeopardize the country’s ability to stabilize world oil markets. » Given Saudi Arabia’s level of dependence on oil revenues, excessive consumption will cause economic and social pressures long before oil exports end – within a decade if nothing changes. » Current policies are not enough. Planned additions of renewable power supply would help maintain the fiscal balance for an additional two to three years; given the lead times nuclear power would have little or no impact. » Huge economic, social and environmental gains from energy conservation are possible in Saudi Arabia but the long period of low prices and the bureaucratic structure of the state present several challenges to implementing effective pricing policy and regulatory measures. » Fear of confronting these challenges has deterred meaningful government action in the past. However, some immediate, targeted investments could produce effective results even in the absence of price reforms. » Raising prices is politically difficult but international experience can help in preparing society through a range of efficiency, educational and infrastructure adaptation measures to smooth the transition. This must be done within a package of measures that increase private-sector employment for Saudi nationals.

I think the authors overestimate the time it would require Saudi Arabia to construct and put on line nuclear reactors. The Kingdom does not have a massive regime of regulation, of environmental impact statements and the like, or of worry about finding funding and insurance for a nuclear power plant. In fact, I think the Saudis could, starting from scratch, construct a reactor and have it producing electricity within three years… if it chose to do so. Saudi Arabia also doesn’t have to undertake extensive R&D efforts: it can buy a nuclear power plant almost off-the-shelf. Further, I think GCC efforts to establish a regional power grid will buy time, if not an outright solution, until nuclear power generation becomes standard. Saudi solar power investments will help, but they will not replace other power sources until solar technology becomes much more efficient.Read the full story here.