Here is the Saturday, July 19th, 2008 edition of interesting reads from around the world.

Nepal Set to Elect Its First President
Having abolished the monarchy, Nepal is set to elect its first Chief of State this week. The role of President is largely ceremonial but Nepal will choose a higly symbolic one. He is to come from the ethnic minority Madheshi ethnic group of southern Nepal. The story from Reuters.

Thai-Cambodian Border Dispute Grows
Cambodia and Thailand continued to reinforce their troops along a disputed border area near an 11th century temple Saturday, even as they prepared for talks to avert a military confrontation. A report from the Associated Press.

French Nuclear Leaks
Long seen as the world’s most effeciently run nuclear power industry, the French nuclear power industry has had an embarrassing set of setbacks. Areva confirms second leak in two weeks, this time at a nuclear plant in south-eastern France. More from the UK Guardian.

Mbeki To Heed UN and OAU on Zimbabwe
Under pressure to expand his troubled mediation efforts, South African President Mbeki agreed on Friday to work more closely with the African Union and United Nations to bring an end to the Zimbabwe crisis. More from Johannesburg’s Mail & Guardian.

Russia’s Energy Clout
The Asia Times looks at Russia’s growing clout in the world’s energy markets and how Russia is unabashedly using its energy muscle to achieve its political goals.

Credit and Energy Tight in Vietnam
Thahn Nien News reports that companies in Vietnam are airing their grievances at a conference as tightened monetary policy and a power shortage have left them without money or electricity.

Spain’s Real Estate Crisis
Since the 1960s, in effect, Spain has been the centre of housing and real estate boom that has seen its warm coasts transformed with condos galore serving as second homes for cold-weary northern Europeans. And with increasing prosperity, many Spaniards too bought homes and vacation homes to boot. That boom is at an end. Germany’s Der Spiegel reports:

Spain’s economy is in trouble. Rising property values earlier this decade lured many Spaniards into the market. Now that the bubble has burst, the crisis is quickly spreading through the country’s economy.

Texas Approves Mega Wind Farm
Kudos to Texas. Texas sate regulators have approved a $4.93 billion wind-power transmission project, providing a major lift to the development of wind energy in the state.

The planned web of transmission lines will carry electricity from remote western parts of the state to major population centers like Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running.

More from the New York Times. Wind power is a potent and clear-energy solution that requires full development.

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John McCain held a Town Hall meeting today with GM Tech Center employees in Warren, Michigan. Here is part of the Q&A session.

Separately, Senator McCain called for a $5,000 tax credit to help American consumers buy electric vehicles. He had earlier toured the GM plant where the new GM prototype is being designed. From the Los Angeles Times:

John McCain today called for a tax credit to help American consumers buy electrically powered automobiles as part of an effort to decrease the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Speaking to General Motors workers after company officials gave him a tour of the design room for the prototype Chevy Volt, the Republican presidential candidate noted that a barrier to the widespread use of electric cars is their exorbitant cost.
“I don’t know if you remember, but the first cellphone cost $1,000,” he told a crowd of several hundred workers in a showroom at the GM Technical Center here.

“I would support tax credits for Americans who choose to buy the Volt and other automobiles that put us on the track to energy independence,” McCain said. He later said the credit would be worth $5,000.

He called the project an “integral part of our ability to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.”

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News from the land up top.

British Columbia Exploration Rights Auction Nets $610 Million Canadian
From the Globe and Mail:

British Columbia has raked in a record-breaking $610-million in an oil and gas rights sale, the latest in a series of windfalls driven by a rush of natural gas producers looking to lock up land in the northeastern part of the province.

The tally from the one-day sale smashes the old record of $441-million set in May, and puts B.C.’s total land sale proceeds so far this year at $1.58-billion. That surpasses last year’s record mark of $1.04-billion, and ranks as among the biggest to date in Canada.

Beyond the sale money pouring into government coffers, the dollars to be spent by producers on the ground will provide an important boost to the provincial economy. Northeastern B.C. is already getting a jolt from a ramp-up in exploration in the region that has culminated with recent discoveries such as the Horn River and Montney plays.

“We are pretty pumped in British Columbia about what just took place,” B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said.

Predictions for Canada’s Natural Gas Production
From The Oil Drum, a look at Canada’s natural gas production. Canadian natural gas is important in a number of ways: It provides 17% of total US NG consumption and today contributes roughly 11% of the energy content in a barrel of tar sands oil.

Crime in Canada at a 30 Year Low
From the CBC:

A drop in property offences such as break-ins and motor-vehicle thefts last year helped push Canada’s crime rate to a 30 year low, according to 2007 data released by Statistics Canada Thursday.

Colombian-Canadian FTA
Canada and Colombia concluded a free trade agreement on June 7, 2008. Here’s the Canadian view:

“The Government of Canada is delivering on its commitment to open up opportunities for Canadian business in the Americas and around the world,” stated Minister Emerson. “The free trade agreement will expand Canada-Colombia trade and investment, and will help solidify ongoing efforts by the Government of Colombia to create a more prosperous, equitable and secure democracy.”

Here is the full press release from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada.

How Canada stole the American Dream
Macleans compares life north and south of the 49th parallel.

To be an American is to be the best. Every American believes this. Their sports champions are not U.S. champions, they’re world champions. Their corporations aren’t the largest in the States, they’re the largest on the planet. Their armies don’t defend just America, they defend freedom.

Like the perpetual little brother, Canadians have always lived in the shadow of our American neighbours. We mock them for their uncultured ways, their brash talk and their insularity, but it’s always been the thin laughter of the insecure. After all, says University of Lethbridge sociologist Reginald Bibby, a leading tracker of social trends, “Americans grow up with the sincere belief that their nation is a nation that is unique and special, literally called by something greater to be blessed and to be a blessing to people around the globe.” Canadians can’t compete with that.

But it turns out that while they’ve been out conquering the world, here in Canada we’ve been quietly working away at building better lives. While they’ve been pursuing happiness, we’ve been achieving it.

Cocky those Canucks? With good reason, it seems. They live longer, get longer vacations, get free health care, have cleaner cities. We do have the Stanley Cup, however.

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Here is the Thursday, July 17th, 2008 edition of interesting reads from around the world.

Bush Claims Executive Privilege in Plame Case
President George W. Bush invoked executive privilege to avoid turning over records of an FBI interview of Vice President Dick Cheney and other documents subpoenaed by Congress in the CIA leak investigation. So much for that bravado that he would spare no effort in determing the source of the leak. More from the Washington Post.

Petrodollars and Geo-Politics
The Los Angeles Times examines how nations with vast oil wealth are gaining clout. It is actually the largest transfer of wealth in human history. Here’s the LA Times synopsis:

Some autocratic governments are challenging U.S. policies and silencing domestic dissent. But their increased spending raises the risk of inflation, which could erode popular support.

UK Unemployment Rate Rises Sharply
Unemployment last month rose at its fastest rate since the depths of the early 1990s recession, as the turmoil in the housing and financial markets continued to take its toll on the UK economy. The number of people claiming unemployment benefit rose for the fifth month in a row, the Office for National Statistics said. The rise - of 15,500 to 840,100 - is the biggest since December 1992. The jobless rate remained at a low 2.6%. The broader labour force survey measure rose 12,000 between March and May to 1.62 million. That was the third rise in a row although the unemployment rate stayed at 5.2%. Complete details from the UK Guardian.

China Economic News
China’s economy grew at a slower pace in the second quarter under the weight of slower exports and a drive by the central bank to tighten credit, but inflationary pressures remained uncomfortably high, the government said Thursday. Annual gross domestic product growth slowed to 10.1 percent in the second quarter from 10.6 percent in the first three months of the year and 11.9 percent in all of 2007, the National Bureau of Statistics said. While consumer inflation slowed to 7.1 percent in June from 7.7 percent in May, pipeline price pressures grew. More from the International Herald Tribune.

The Impact of High Energy Prices on Asia
The Asia Times looks at how Asian economies and Asian consumers are coping with the rise in energy prices.

When it comes to energy conservation, Japan provides a glaring counterpoint to the United States. Consider what has happened in both countries since the first oil shock of the mid-1970s when prices quadrupled.

That price hike initially led to a drive for fuel efficiency in the US, Western Europe and Japan. It also gave a boost to the idea of developing renewable sources of energy. Ever since, Japan has followed a consistent, long-range policy of reduction in petroleum usage, while the US first wavered and then fell back dramatically.

Under the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the US modestly improved the fuel efficiency of its vehicles, as stipulated by a federal law. Carter also announced a $100 million federal research and development program focused on solar power and symbolically had a solar water heater installed on the White House roof.

During the subsequent presidency of Ronald Reagan, when oil prices fell sharply, energy efficiency and conservation policies went with them, as did the idea of developing renewable sources of energy. This was dramatized when Reagan ordered the removal of that solar panel from the White House.

In the private sector, utilities promptly slashed by half their investments in energy efficiency. President George H W Bush, an oil man, followed Reagan’s lead. And his son, George W (along with Vice President Dick Cheney, former chief executive of energy services giant Halliburton) has done absolutely nothing to wean Americans away from their much talked about “addiction to oil”.

Even now, instead of urging Americans to cut oil usage (and putting a little legislative heft behind those urgings), politicians of both parties are blaming soaring gas and diesel prices on “speculators”, conveniently ignoring how thin a line divides “speculators” from “investors”.

In Japan, on the other hand, the government and private companies have stayed on course since the first oil shock. Despite the doubling of Japan’s gross domestic product during the 1970s and 1980s, its annual overall levels of energy consumption have remained unchanged. Today, Japan uses only half as much energy for every dollar’s worth of economic activity as the European Union or the United States. In addition, national and local authorities have continually enforced strict energy-conservation standards for new buildings.

It is, again, Japan that has made significant progress when it comes to renewable sources of energy. By 2006, for instance, it was responsible for producing almost half of total global solar power, well ahead of the US, even though it was an American, Russell Ohl, who invented the silicon solar cell, the building block of solar photovoltaic panels, which convert sunshine into electricity.

Belgium: The World’s Most Successful Failed State
Leave it to Der Spiegel to come up with the clever headline. In this report, the German news magazine ponders:

Chaos has returned to Belgium’s capital: The government has collapsed, the prime minister has offered his resignation. German newspapers on Wednesday wonder if the linguistically divided country will ever get its act together.

I adore Belgium and I have one very good Belgian friend from Oostende. No doubt, Belgian beer and chocolates are the world’s best. Most European countries have a linguistic divide, the problem in Belgium is that the divide is also a significant cultural and economic one. I have been briefly to Wallonie but I am always more drawn to Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp and, above all, Brugge. It will be interesting to see how the Belgians resolve this divide.

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Here is the Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 edition of interesting reads from around the world.

ICC Warrant for Omar al-Bashir
Egypt, China and Algeria voiced concerns over the warrant for the arrest for the Sudanese President on charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. “China expresses grave concern and misgivings about the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s indictment of the Sudanese leader,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing. The Washington Post covers the Chinese response while Xinhua Net covers Algeria’s. Lastly, an op-ed from the Wall Street Journal.

Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim Arrested
Police arrested Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on Wednesday, less than an hour before a deadline for him to appear at police headquarters to answer allegations that he sodomized a male aide. Details from Al Jazeera.

Chávez-Correa-Ortega Summit in Manta, Ecuador
The Presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua are meeting in Manta, Ecuador (home to a US military base slated to close in 2010) this week. Their gathering is to celebrate the beginning of construction of the Refinería del Pacífico, the largest oil refinery on the west coast of South America. Chávez has made clear that he wants to increase Venezuela oil sales to Asia and diminish sales to the United States. More (in Spanish) from Noticias 24.

Egypt After Mubarak
The Los Angeles Times has a feature on Omar Suleiman, the head of Egypt’s foreign intelligence service. The article ponders whether Suleiman may be the next in line for Egypt’s Presidency. Not that Mubarak is going anywhere. Elections, such as they are in Egypt, are not due until 2011 on the one hand and on the other, we may yet see a Mubarak dynasty rise in the land of the Pharoahs. Gamal Mubarak is also being groomed for the Presidency.

Japan-Korea Squabble over Islets
Korea’s Ambassador to Japan Kwon Chul-hyun temporarily returned to Seoul yesterday in protest over Tokyo’s claim that the Dokdo islets in the East Sea belong to Japan. The Korea Herald covers the story from Seoul while the Japan Times takes up the story from Tokyo. The story has great importance in Korea than in Japan. However, there are plans for demonstrations later this week in Seoul and South Koreas has cancelled a cultural exchanged slated for August.

Fishermen Strike in Tokyo
The National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations and 16 other fishing industry bodies launched a strike involving some 200,000 fishing boats Tuesday to protest against the fuel price increases. Japanese fishermen’s one-day strike cut Wednesday’s fish supplies on the Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market in Tokyo’s Tsukiji by 20 percent from the previous day to 401 tons, prompting wholesalers to warn further strikes would induce a serious supply disruption, market officials said. “Prices of some fish underwent increases of some 10 percent” due to supply decreases, a market source said after morning auctions. Such fish included flatfish and sea bream from Japan’s home waters. They are often used by up-scale sushi shops.

Indian No Confidence Vote Scheduled for July 21
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s UPA government will introduce a measure of confidence on July 21, 2008 over the US-India Nuclear deal according to The Hindu. This article from The Hindu lays out the government’s case why the pact should be approved. Opposition to the deal is coming largely from leftist parties, including the Indian Communist Party, that feel that the deal impinges on India’s sovereignty.

Drug Gangs Blamed in Guatemalan Lawyer’s Killing
President Elias Antonio Saca of El Salvador blamed drug gangs for the killing of a Guatemalan state prosecutor who was investigating the murder of three Salvadoran deputies to the Central American Parliament. Juan Carlos Martinez was shot Monday while driving near his home southeast of Guatemala City. The three Salvadoran deputies were killed in February 2007. Eduardo D’Aubuisson, William Pichinte and Jose Ramon Gonzalez were deputies in the Guatemala-based regional Central American parliament from El Salvador’s conservative ruling ARENA party. The remains of a fourth man were found with them. Villagers discovered their bodies in a blazing car up a dirt track an hour’s drive east of Guatemala City. The suspected murderers are members of Guatemala’s police force but they are being protected by Guatemala’s military establishment. None have been charged.

Russia’s Medvedev Criticizes the West
President Dmitri A. Medvedev chided the West for paternalism in a foreign policy speech in which he criticized the United States and Western Europe for creating a missile defense shield and for recognizing Kosovo’s independence. More from the New York Times.

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How can we reduce our dependence on foreign oil? T. Boone Pickens explains his plan for alternative, domestic energy in a 60-second TV commercial. Please listen to him. He has been an oil man and the energy crisis we face is the most daunting issue that humanity faces. He is running the above commercial on US media.

In the videos below, T. Boone Pickens gives an extended account of his plan to break America’s dependency on foreign oil. With a combination of domestic natural gas and renewable alternative, Pickens offers an action plan to save America’s energy future.

For more on T. Boone Pickens’ views of our energy policy and solutions, please visit Picken’s Plan.

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Al Jazeera’s Inside Story asks if the Union for the Mediterranean will work and if Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, is the right man to spearhead the ambitious project. The following videos are interviews with a panel of experts that includes Ignasi Guardans Cambó, Saad Djebbar and Isabel Schäfer. Ignasi Guardans Cambó is a Catalan politician and Member of the European Parliament with the CiU (CDC), Member of the Bureau of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and is vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade. Maître Saad Djebbar is Deputy Director of the CNAS. He is a well-known lawyer and political analyst and an associate fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House. He appears regularly in the Arab and British media as a commentator on North African affairs. Isabel Schäfer is an Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.

President Sarkozy has spearheaded this effort and the inaugural session was held in Paris. All 27 European Union members and 16 non-EU countries including representatives from the Palestinian Authority from the Mediterranean attended the meeting. Only Libya did not attend.

Broadly speaking, the new Union of Mediterranean is aimed at fostering North-South cooperation across the Mediterranean on subjects such as immigration, the environment and terrorism. So far, the meeting seems to be a coming out party for Syria. Syria’s Assad and Israel’s Olmert sat in the same room, marking the first time a Syrian President had ever been in the same room with an Israeli Prime Minister. The event was carefully choreographed so that the two would not cross path though. Sryrian President Bashar al-Assad said it could take between six months to two years to reach a peace agreement with Israel if the two sides, who have held indirect negotiations, agreed to face-to-face talks. In addition, Syrian diplomatic recognition of Lebanon was assured. Syria and Germany signed a repatriation agreement.

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Peaking Your Interest is an irregular feature of By The Fault dedicated to exploring the world’s energy crisis. Today we take a look at wind energy plus an interview with Matt Simmons on CNBC on Friday.

Danish Wind Energy
Denmark is at the forefront of developing wind energy. The Danish wind industry had a 4.7 billion euros in exports in 2007 up from just under a half billion euros ten years ago and up over 30% over 2006 levels. The industry employs 20,000 in Denmark and 90% of its wind turbines are exported.

“The wind industry is already Denmark’s largest exporter of energy technology. If global growth and market development for wind power continue in double digits as expected the wind industry is poised to become our largest industry within a few years,” says Jakob Lau Holst, Acting Director of the Danish Wind Industry Association.

“All industry forecasts show that the market for renewable energy and wind power will expand at an impressive rate. Danish manufacturers and suppliers are in an advantageous position to benefit from this growth,” says Jakob Lau Holst, but adds: “However, it is crucial that the industry also in the coming years is allowed to install, test and demonstrate state of the art wind turbines in Denmark. Even though the Danish market is dwarfed by the combined global markets, it is hugely significant as a global industry show room.”

For more on the Danish Wind Energy Industry, please visit Wind Power. The website is in English, Danish, Swedish, German, French and Spanish.

A report from NBC News:

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Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog. My posts, my views.

Via the BBC,

“Demand for land to grow food, fuel crops and wood is set to outstrip supply, leading to the probable destruction of forests, a report warns.”

The report in question was drafted by the coalition Rights and Resources Initiative focused on global forest policy. They advocate sustainable management of forestry as well as respects for the people living in and from the forests in their rights not to be forcibly displaced by logging companies who deprive them of their livelihood. As stated in the BBC,

““Arguably, we are on the verge of a last great global land grab,” said RRI’s Andy White, co-author of the major report, Seeing People through the Trees.

“It will mean more deforestation, more conflict, more carbon emissions, more climate change and less prosperity for everyone.”

Rising demand for food, biofuels and wood for paper, building and industry means that 515 million hectares of extra land will be needed for growing crops and trees by 2030, RRI calculates.

But only 200 million hectares will be available without dipping into tropical forests.”

Well, for logging companies and well as the biofuel and ranging sector, there is no problem: let’s just tap into these tropical forests. But this would make climate change worse since deforestation already accounts for 20% of carbon emissions. But the need for both fuel and food has triggered land speculation and whatever the global financial markets want, they usually get. It is a very unequal battle between Big Money and the rights of indigenous people to land.

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Rune Likvern of Norway has written an excellent piece on European versus American patterns of hydrocarbon consumption over on the energy and peak oil study blog The Oil Drum. It is a fascinating read.
An excerpt:

One thing that caught my attention some time back was the perceived lack of interest for energy questions, usage and supplies within the European Union (EU) compared to the USA. As this post will show the likelihood that the EU’s fossil fuel consumption has peaked, back in 1979, is now very real. It will also compare the degree of net fossil fuel self-sufficiency between the EU and the USA as of 2007.

The EU has to a much larger extent (presently approximately twice that of USA) allowed its energy mixture and fossil fuel consumption to be based upon imports. The EU energy independence is not a realistic choice or goal (unless living standards are swiftly and dramatically lowered), and there are reasons to believe that the EU members will continue to find it increasingly hard to harmonize their energy policies towards energy exporters which will add to the strains within the union.

This is something Putin (Russia is presently EU’s biggest supplier of fossil fuels) seems to have been aware of while the EU occupied itself with defining goals for greenhouse gas emissions it sleepwalked into increased reliance on Russian fossil fuel imports. Former head of IEA recently urged the EU to reduce their dependence on Russian fossil fuel supplies. It looks like realpolitik again will trump wishes, which is evident to everyone who cares to have a closer look at the hard data.

On the bright side it now looks very likely that the EU will reach its agreed goals for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, but for totally different reasons than set out in its lengthy, costly and wasted political programs.

His analysis is brillant and his conclusions interesting. Please visit The Oil Drum to read Rune’s post.

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