industryterm:oil

Pentagon Warns Syria’s Assad against Attacking Washington Allies | Asharq AL-awsat
▻https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1287576/pentagon-warns-syria%E2%80%99s-assad-against-attacking-washington-allies

The Pentagon on Thursday warned Head of Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad not to carry out an offensive against Kurdish and Arab forces backed by the Washington that control the country’s north-east.

Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, director of the joint staff, said during a press conference on Thursday: “Any interested party in Syria should understand that attacking US Forces or our coalition partners will be a bad policy.”

Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White later stated that US is in Syria only to fight ISIS.

She added that the “US did not want to get involved in Syria’s civil war.”

Assad told Russian broadcaster RT in an interview that the “only problem left in Syria is the SDF.”

Assad said there were only “two options" to deal with SDF.

“The first one: we started now opening doors for negotiations. Because the majority of them are Syrians."

Otherwise, "we’re going to resort... to liberating those areas by force,” he added.

SDF continue to fight against ISIS in part of oil-rich province of Deir Al Zour.

Shell Starts Production at Kaikias at $30 Break-Even Price – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/shell-starts-production-at-kaikias-at-30-break-even-price

▻https://www.offshoreenergytoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Shell-confirms-Kaikias.jpeg
carte de novembre 2015
source : ▻https://www.offshoreenergytoday.com/shell-confirms-gulf-of-mexico-discovery

Royal Dutch Shell has kicked off production at its deepwater Kaikias development in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico at a break-even price of less than $30 per barrel.

Shell Offshore, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, announced Thursday the early start of production at the first phase of Kaikias, which has an estimated peak production of 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), around one-year ahead of schedule.

Shell says it has reduced costs by around 30% at this deep-water project since taking the investment decision in early 2017, lowering the forward-looking, break-even price to less than $30 per barrel of oil.
[…]
Kaikias is located in the prolific Mars-Ursa basin around 130 miles (210 kilometres) from the Louisiana coast and is owned by Shell (80% working interest), as operator, and MOEX North America LLC (20% working interest), a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsui Oil Exploration Co., Ltd.

The Kaikias development, located in around 4,500 feet (1,372 metres) of water, sends production from its four wells to the Shell-operated (45%) Ursa hub, which is co-owned by BP (23%), Exxon Mobil (16%), and ConocoPhillips (16%). From the Ursa hub, volumes ultimately flow into the Mars oil pipeline.

In the first quarter of 2018, Shell deep water produced around 731,000 boe/d, globally.

Shale Surge Crashes Into Bottlenecks From Pipelines to Ports - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/shale-s-surge-crashes-into-bottlenecks-from-pipelines-to-ports

The U.S. shale surge is crashing headlong into a barrage of bottlenecks.

From West Texas pipelines to Oklahoma storage centers and Gulf Coast export terminals, the delivery system for American crude is straining to keep up with soaring production. That’s limiting the industry’s ability to take full advantage of growing worldwide demand, with U.S. barrels forced to take an a $9-a-barrel price discount to international crude.

Barclays Plc analysts on Tuesday predicted “a new shock" for energy markets as a dearth of pipeline capacity near a key Oklahoma storage hub threatens the flow of oil. Pipeline shortages in Texas’ Permian basin, meanwhile, may not clear until late 2019. The problems undercut hopes American output will stabilize global prices as crude from Venezuela and Iran is increasingly at risk.
[…]
Pipelines aren’t the only problem. The U.S. currently has only one export terminal that can accommodate the 2 million-barrel supertankers preferred by Asian and European customers, and expansions at other ports aren’t expected to be complete before 2020, according to Sandy Fielden, director of oil research at Chicago-based Morningstar Inc.

This Refuge May Be the Most Contested Land in the U.S.
▻https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-america-oil-risk

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/magazine/rights-exempt/2018/06/future-of-ANWR/future-anwr-arctic-wildlife-refuge-5.ngsversion.1527566474550.adapt.1900.1.jpg

Congress voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Here’s what’s at stake for America’s wild frontier.

#artcique #nature #cartographie #extractivisme #Alaska

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/interactive-assets/nggraphics/ngm-1806-anwr-map/build-2018-05-24_11-56-34/ngm-assets/img/ngm-1806-anwr-map_ai2html-desktop-medium.jpg

Why the West Needs #Azerbaijan – Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/28/why-the-west-needs-azerbaijan

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/gettyimages-478734658.jpg

There are only three ways for energy and trade to flow overland between Asia and Europe: through Iran, through Russia, and through Azerbaijan. With relations between the West, Moscow, and Tehran in tatters, that leaves onlyone viable route for hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of trade: through the tiny Caspian Sea nation of Azerbaijan.

When you factor in Armenia’s occupation of almost one-fifth of Azerbaijan’s territory, all that is left is a narrow 60-mile-wide chokepoint for trade. We call this trade chokepoint the " #Ganja_Gap ” — named after Azerbaijan’s second largest city, Ganja, which sits in the middle of this narrow passage. And right now, the Russians hold enough influence over Azerbaijan’s rival neighbor Armenia to potentially reignite the bloody #Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of the late 1980s and early 1990s — giving them a dangerous opportunity to threaten the “Gap” itself.
[…]
It is not just oil and gas pipelines that connect Europe with the heart of Asia. Fiber-optic cables linking Western Europe with the Caspian region also pass through the Ganja Gap. The second-longest European motorway, the E60, which connects Brest, France, on the Atlantic coast with Irkeshtam, Kyrgyzstan, on the Chinese border, passes through the city of Ganja, as does the east-west rail link in the South Caucasus, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. These are set to become potentially vital connections.

The ongoing campaign in Afghanistan has also proven how important the Ganja Gap is for resupplying U.S. and NATO troops. At the peak of the war, more than one-third of U.S. nonlethal military supplies such as fuel, food, and clothing passed through the Ganja Gap either overland or in the air.

Top Climate Scientist: Humans Will Go Extinct if We Don’t Fix Climate Change by 2023
▻https://gritpost.com/humans-extinct-climate-change

https://gritpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Screen-Shot-2018-02-19-at-6.06.22-PM.png

In a recent speech at the University of Chicago, James Anderson — a professor of atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University — warned that climate change is drastically pushing Earth back to the Eocene Epoch from 33 million BCE, when there was no ice on either pole. Anderson says current #pollution levels have already catastrophically depleted atmospheric #ozone levels, which absorb 98 percent of #ultraviolet rays, to levels not seen in 12 million years.

Anderson’s assessment of humanity’s timeline for action is likely accurate, given that his diagnosis and discovery of Antarctica’s ozone holes led to the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Anderson’s research was recognized by the United Nations in September of 1997. He subsequently received the United Nations Vienna Convention Award for Protection of the Ozone Layer in 2005, and has been recognized by numerous universities and academic bodies for his research.

#climat #extinction

E-pocalypse Now: How the e-commerce trade agenda promotes corporate power and threatens the global south, GlobalJustice, May 2018
▻http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/resources/e-pocalypse-now-how-e-commerce-trade-agenda-promotes-corporate-pow

there is a strong case to argue that these monopolies of the 21st century should be treated like their 20th century US counterparts in oil, steel and fur. They need to be broken up

Our very souls are being commodified by corporations who are buying and selling the keys to our desires and fears.

Back in 2003 (when it was already the world’s dominant search engine) Google spent just $80,000 on lobbying in the USA.10 By comparison, Alphabet Inc (Google’s parent company) spent over $18 million in 2017.11

The tech industry is lobbying for a world in which they can sell their products across the world without the need to have any ‘boots on the ground’ in any of these countries. This is a model that effectively turns e-commerce into an extractive industry. While traditional industries have been rightly criticised for providing little other than jobs to local people while extracting profits out of the global south, the tech industry’s approach has potential to be even worse for these countries in that there won’t even be many jobs created.
It also helps get these companies out of any inconvenient local regulations or disputes[...]

Trade deals with e-commerce chapters like TPP ban governments from requiring companies to disclose source codes. This means that companies can have programmes that contain serious vulnerabilities and code that could even endanger lives. [...] When you see that these trade deals will involve countries in the global south, there is a risk that banning source code disclosure could make people in poor countries dependent on paying multinationals monopolistic rents to maintain everything from hospital equipment to their cars.

There is a battle going on for the future of the internet – and by extension the vast majority of the future global economy. The vision being proffered by the multinational tech corporations appears superficially appealing. They promise an Internet of Things that will make our lives easier, pre-empting our every desire and making life more convenient. In exchange for giving them our valuable personal information and monopoly power over the key online utilities like social media, they promise us ‘free’ services that help us connect with our friends and family.
But the truth is that we can get most of the benefits without handing over so much power to, effectively, a set of monopolies.

Exciting ideas like ‘postcapitalism’ (in essence the idea that as automation and digitisation progress, there will be less scarcity which will make more things effectively free) are only possible if we can fight tools like excessive intellectual property rules that artificially allow corporations to profit from things that are naturally free or cost very little at scale.

Saudi-led coalition foils Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships, Saudi and UAE media say | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-tanker/saudi-led-coalition-destroys-houthi-boats-targeting-tanker-in-red-sea-al-ar

A Saudi-led military coalition foiled attacks by explosives-laden speedboats deployed by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement against commercial vessels, including an oil tanker, in the Red Sea, Saudi and Emirati state media said on Wednesday.

United Arab Emirates (UAE) state news agency WAM reported that UAE coalition forces had destroyed two boats “which were threatening a commercial oil tanker” in the Red Sea. Two other Houthi boats escaped, it added.

Later Saudi state news channel al-Ekhbariya said that remote-controlled speedboats rigged with explosives had tried to attack three commercial vessels being escorted by two coalition warships, but that coalition forces had foiled the attack and destroyed three speedboats.

Neither the Houthis nor a coalition spokesman could immediately be reached for comment.

Food scarcity imminent in Edo, ERA raises alarm
▻http://www.tribuneonlineng.com/food-scarcity-imminent-in-edo-era-raises-alarm

http://s23069.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/market-food-bodija.jpg

Dr. Uyi-Ojo remarked that cases of land grabbing had become a daily routine across Edo communities, and that if it was not properly checked and brought to a halt, it might lead to scarcity of land for local food production, as many farmers had to pay exorbitant prices annually for hire of parcels of land for farming of staples commodities.

Speaking further, Uyi-Ojo hinted that across the globe, there was growing expansion of large scale oil palm plantations, adding that the expansion was growing because of oil palm usage in wide range of products and manufacturing including lubricants, medicine, cosmetics, soap making and oil for cooking.

#terres #Nigeria #palmier_à_huile #industrie_palmiste #alimentation

Global Forest Coalition The Big Four Drivers of Deforestation: Beef, Soy, Wood and Palm Oil
▻http://globalforestcoalition.org/forest-cover-55-big-four-drivers-of-deforestation

Forest Cover 55 looks at trade in just four key commodities—beef, soy, wood, and palm oil—which together are the main drivers of deforestation in the world. Demand for these commodities is leading to huge swathes of forest being replaced by vast monoculture plantations and pasture, especially in the global South. Beef is the worst deforesting culprit and clearing forests to make way for pasture was responsible for 71% of deforestation in seven Latin American countries. Palm oil is second only to beef and is leading to serious deforestation in Southeast Asia—300 football fields of forest are lost in Indonesia for palm oil every hour! This issue brings us stories from around the world where forests and communities face the impacts of the production and trade in these commodities. It also showcases campaigns as communities across the globe struggle to stop these drivers of forest loss.

#forêt #déforestation #élevage #soja #palmier_à_huile #bois

Rania Khalek on Twitter : « This is alarming. The Atlantic Council—which is funded by gulf monarchies, western governments,NATO, oil and weapons companies, etc will now assist #Facebook in suppressing what they decide is disinformation. »
▻https://mobile.twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/997179235000340480

Facebook à bien compris que le problème n’est pas les #fake_news en soi, mais tout (que ce soit délirant ou- SURTOUT- pertinent) ce qui peut semer le doute quant aux fake news de l’ordre établi.

#Trump Wants to Expand #Oil Drilling to 90 Percent of Our Seas. We’...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/7167063

#Trump Wants to Expand #Oil Drilling to 90 Percent of Our Seas. We’re Marching on June 9 to Stop Him. ▻https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-wants-to-expand-oil-drilling-to-90-percent-of-our-seas-were-marchin Trump is a 100% black president: coal and oil

Oil palm landscapes: Playing the long game with palm oil - CIFOR Forests News
▻https://forestsnews.cifor.org/55174/oil-palm-landscapes-playing-the-long-game-with-palm-oil?fnl=en

https://forestsnews.cifor.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DSC03535-595x446.jpg

Palm oil has long been used locally in cooking and personal care products, and more recently as a biodiesel feedstock. In colonial times, the oil and kernels were among the country’s most valuable export goods.

However, because of various supply chain issues, Cameroon is no longer self-sufficient and increasingly relies on imports from Indonesia, Malaysia and neighboring Gabon.

#industrie_palmiste #Cameroun #importation

Explosion damages vessel carrying wheat to #Yemen | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-ship/explosion-damages-vessel-carrying-wheat-to-yemen-idUSKBN1IC2CX

An explosion has damaged a Turkish vessel carrying wheat to Yemen’s Houthi-controlled port of Saleef, with varying accounts attributing the incident on Thursday to an unexplained blast aboard the ship or a possible missile strike.

A naval ship of a Saudi-led military coalition received a call from the captain of the vessel, the Ince Inebolu, who reported an opening had appeared in the middle of the ship on the left side, a spokesman for the alliance said.

“Coalition forces conducted a survey of the incident and visited the ship and found an explosion from the inside to the outside,” the spokesman said in a statement.

The captain said he did not know the cause of the damage, the spokesman said. The coalition later towed the ship to the port of Jizan in Saudi Arabia.

A shipping source said separately it was possible the damage was either caused by overheating of parts of the ship or a missile.

A separate source connected with the shipment said the vessel was carrying 50,000 tons of Russian milling wheat, adding that it was unclear if it was hit by a missile or due to an internal blast, while anchored about 70 miles off Saleef, which is just north of the port of Hodeidah on the Red Sea.

The ship was in a waiting area, the source said, where vessels typically anchor for permission to dock.

The Borneo Case - Info et société | ARTE
▻https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/RC-016167/the-borneo-case

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« Bornéo Case » raconte l’histoire de citoyens qui s’engagent contre la destruction d’une forêt tropicale, au profit d’une #plantation de #palmiers_à_huile. La web-série raconte en cinq épisodes les coulisses de ce documentaire d’investigation, tourné comme un thriller, et lève le voile sur les dangers et les menaces proférés à l’encontre de ses auteurs.

#déforestation #Bornéo #assassinats

A Trump Darling, Gas Exports, Set to Gain as Iran Deal Dies - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-10/shale-gas-exporters-to-gain-as-iran-move-encourages-drilling

Another darling of the Trump administration is poised to gain from the Iran deal breakup as oil surges: Natural gas exports.

With the move to curb Iran’s oil output encouraging more shale drilling, prices for natural gas produced alongside crude in West Texas could crater, falling to zero some days, according to Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. Already, the gas sold at West Texas’ Waha hub is down 51 percent for the year.

That’s bad for producers selling the fuel in the U.S., but good for companies that export it in tankers. As the market for liquefied natural gas grows in Asia, being able to source gas at its cheapest should give U.S. exports a leg up.
[…]
“I doubt this was a driving factor by the administration” to impose sanctions because “we just don’t have that much capacity built up for LNG exports,” said Anastacia Dialynas, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. But indirectly, she said, “if it results in a structurally higher oil price, it definitely makes U.S. cargoes more attractive.”

Malta ’ignoring Libya oil smuggling’

Maltese authorities are ignoring calls by their Italian counterparts to tackle Libyan oil smuggling inside Maltese contiguous waters, reported The Guardian. #Ship-to-ship_transfers of the stolen oil is taking place some 19km from Malta. The stolen goods is said to be fuelling further instability inside Libya. Italian authorities have spotted 12 acts of ship-to-ship smuggling in Maltese waters over the past six months.

▻https://euobserver.com/tickers/141780
#Malte #Libye #pétrole #contrebande

Cuomo Promises a Dunkirk-Style Citizens’ Fleet to Block Drilling - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-04/cuomo-promises-a-dunkirk-style-citizens-fleet-to-block-drilling

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iggHxllury3Q/v1/1200x800.jpg

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo vowed to enlist a “citizens fleet” of leisure boats and fishing vessels to block any attempt to construct oil-drilling facilities off the state’s shores, as part of a broad attack on President Donald Trump’s environmental and energy policies.

“I’m going to commission a citizen fleet to stop it just as Winston Churchill did at Dunkirk,” Cuomo said, invoking the former British prime minister’s call for a seaborne operation of fishing boats and leisure vessels to rescue evacuating soldiers from the French shore line. He called Trump’s decision to permit offshore drilling “an unacceptable risk.”

“The only way you stop a bully is by standing up and putting your finger in his or her chest,” Cuomo, 60, said during a campaign-style speech in Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park.

The governor, who’s seeking a third term and faces a Democratic primary challenge from self-described progressive and actress Cynthia Nixon, has also been mentioned as a potential 2020 White House candidate. He used the speech to deliver a broader attack against Trump and the Republican Party’s economic, environmental and social policies.

“They’ve attacked a woman’s right to choose; they’ve attacked immigration policy; they’re against diversity; they’re against the LGBT community; they’re against individual rights,” Cuomo said. “They’re against everything we hold dear.”

Cuomo touted a state-subsidized solar-panel manufacturing plant in Buffalo, which he said would be the largest in the U.S., as an example of economic-development measures to support renewable energy. He mocked Trump’s promises to return to the country’s dependence on coal and fossil fuels.

“We’re going to go back to fossil fuels, we’re going back to coal, we’re going to set up big manufacturing plants again,” Cuomo said. “You don’t politically assuage people’s anxiety by saying ‘don’t worry, I’m bringing back the old days, when you worked in the steel plant and you worked in the aluminum plant.’ The old days are gone; that’s why they’re the old days.”

The Trump administration policy, which would open 90 percent of U.S. offshore oil reserves to private development, has attracted bipartisan opposition from most of the governors of the 22 coastal states it would affect.

Abu Dhabi Ports Signs 30-Year Deal with MSC to Build Terminal – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/abu-dhabi-ports-signs-30-year-deal-with-msc-to-build-terminal

http://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/shutterstock_760560643.jpg

Abu Dhabi Ports has signed a 30-year concession agreement with Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) to build a new container terminal at its Khalifa Port.

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has spent billions developing the port, which opened in 2012, as part of ongoing efforts to diversify its oil-rich economy.

Khalifa Port is on a man-made island roughly half-way between the centres of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and about 60 kilometres (37 miles) south from Dubai’s huge Jebel Ali port.

Construction of the new terminal will include deepening berths to make Khalifa Port capable of handling the world’s biggest bulk cargo vessels, state-owned Abu Dhabi Ports said in a statement on Monday.

Swiss-based MSC will invest 4 billion dirhams ($1.1 billion) over the life of the concession in operational equipment which will include increasing the number of ship-to-shore cranes from 12 to 25, it said.

“We are confident that with this investment we will continue to ensure a high level of service for our customers and have the capacity to grow the scale of our operations in the UAE,” MSC’s President and Chief Executive Officer Diego Aponte said.

Abu Dhabi Ports expects the overall capacity of Khalifa Port to increase to 8.5 million TEUs from 2.5 million TEUs in five years. ($1 = 3.6728 dirham)

The Perils of a Putsch in Venezuela – Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/04/the-perils-of-a-putsch-in-venezuela

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/venezuela.jpg

Encouraging a coup in Caracas will give Russia and China a foothold in the United States’ backyard.
BY BRIAN FONSECA

In recent months, high-ranking U.S. officials have been signaling to Venezuelan military leaders that they have Washington’s blessing to take the reins in Caracas. In a February speech ahead of his trip to Latin America, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “In the history of Venezuela and South American countries, it is often times that the military is the agent of change when things are so bad and the leadership can no longer serve the people.”

Others have been blunter. Just a few days after Tillerson’s remarks, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) took to Twitter to say that the world “would support the Armed Forces in #Venezuela if they decide to protect the people & restore democracy by removing a dictator.” And earlier this week, in a speech at Florida International University, Juan Cruz, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special assistant and senior director for western hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, urged “the military to respect the oath they took to perform their functions.”
 
Giving the green light for a military coup is not only bad for America’s image; it is also a threat to U.S. strategic interests.Giving the green light for a military coup is not only bad for America’s image; it is also a threat to U.S. strategic interests. That’s because encouraging a putsch in Venezuela could backfire and end up increasing Russian and Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere.
The U.S. officials praising the prospect of a military takeover seem to disregard the fact that U.S.-Venezuelan military relations are virtually nonexistent today. U.S. defense contacts with Venezuela declined sharply in the years following the rise of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 1999. Meanwhile, the Russians, Chinese, and Cubans have replaced the United States as the primary sources of financial, technical, and material support to the Venezuelan military. The mere threat of a coup in Venezuela could be enough to rally the military around hard-liners and compel U.S. rivals to consider their preferred alternatives to the Maduro regime as collapse becomes imminent. Rivals with economic, political, and geostrategic interests in Venezuela, such as Russia and China, are far better positioned than the United States to influence the Venezuelan military during any transition.

Moscow and Beijing will be especially interested in cultivating ties with the top brass in Caracas if they sense that offering economic and political support to a new Venezuelan leadership could change the mineral-rich country’s trajectory from an economic basket case to an economically and politically stable authoritarian regime. In such a situation, Russia, China, and Cuba — in some formal or informal configuration — could abandon the flailing and ineffective leadership of President Nicolás Maduro and back a military regime in uncomfortably close geographic proximity to the United States.

The current situation in Venezuela is untenable. Oil production is declining, public unrest is spreading, inflation is up nearly 13,000 percentage points in the last two months, and military and civilian elites are becoming increasingly dissatisfied. Moreover, other countries in Latin America that stood by Chavez in the past are now denouncing Maduro. Pressure for regime change is growing.

Avoiding a Cold War in the High North - Bloomberg
par l’amiral (en retraite) James G. Stavridis, ancien SACEUR…

▻https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-04/russia-is-gearing-up-for-a-cold-war-in-the-arctic

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i9Mp2_zFpgK4/v1/1200x780.jpg

In the classic Cold War novel (and fine 1965 film) "The Bedford Incident," a U.S. destroyer on a NATO mission tangles with a Soviet submarine in the frigid waters near the Arctic Circle. Mayhem ensues in a tautly described set of interactions that lead the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Today, as we watch U.S. and Russia continue to confront each other around the world — from Syria to Ukraine to the cyber sphere — the High North is no exception. “Our goal is to make it a truly global and competitive transport route,” Putin said of the Arctic in a March address to the Russian Federal Assembly. China may also be getting into the game: President Xi Jinping recently met with Putin to discuss a collaborating on a kind of “frozen Silk Road.”

Clearly, the Arctic is dangerously close to becoming a zone of conflict. How can we achieve what our Canadian allies wistfully call “high north but low tension"?

Bon, on ne voit pas en quoi les deux déclarations d’intérêt géopolitique des « méchants » élèvent le niveau de tension, mais bon, c’est un ancien patron de l’OTAN…

La suite, n’est guère plus rassurante, car, hormis le point 2, appel au renforcement des moyens plus que classique chez un responsable militaire, les trois autres points laissent assez peu de place à un optimisme raisonnable vu l’approche états-unienne actuelle des relations internationales…

First, the U.S. should invest in the international institutions that provide forums for dialog between Russia and the rest of the Arctic nations. At the top of the list is the Arctic Council, a loosely organized but bureaucratically functional international organization with all the Arctic nations (and many observer states as well, notably China). The council brings together both the foreign ministers and military chiefs from the member nations, and uniquely could hold a summit and convene the heads of state from every state with either geographic or economic interest.

Second, the Pentagon must increase its ability to monitor and operate militarily in Arctic. Congress must allocate financing for at least half a dozen significant icebreakers, and joint private-public partnering could help develop a strategic plan for constructing appropriate infrastructure — from airfields to ports to offshore platforms.

Third, Washington should seek zones of cooperation with Russia (and eventually China if it becomes a regional player). These could include using “science diplomacy” to jointly sponsor missions to measure environmental issues from warming sea temperatures to melting ice; conducting exercises to test our ability to respond to ecological disasters (including oil spills); practice search-and-rescue operations over wide areas (Canada has invested heavily in this); and so on.

Finally, Americans simply need to pay more attention to the vast stretches of ocean and ice at the top of the world. The stakes — geopolitical competition, hydrocarbons, a fragile environment with global effects, the emergence over time of important shipping lanes — are enormous. We can avoid a real world Bedford Incident, but it will require attention, resources and imagination applied to the High North.

#Arctique

Mining in Space Could Lead to Conflicts on Earth - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/-mining-in-space-could-lead-to-conflicts-on-earth

http://static.nautil.us/14623_2e3517ba49c2a7c999b9c8381185ae4e.jpg

Platinum-group metals in space may serve the same role as oil has on Earth, threatening to extend geopolitical struggles into astropolitical ones, something Trump is keen on preparing for. Yesterday he said he’s seriously weighing the idea of a “Space Force” military branch.Illustration by Maciej Frolow / Getty Images Space mining is no longer science fiction. By the 2020s, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries—for-profit space-mining companies cooperating with NASA—will be sending out swarms of tiny satellites to assess the composition of hurtling hunks of cosmic debris, identify the most lucrative ones, and harvest them. They’ve already developed prototype spacecraft to do the job. Some people—like Massachusetts Institute of Technology planetary scientist Sara Seager, former NASA (...)

Neal Stephenson : Innovation Starvation | WIRED
▻https://www.wired.com/2011/10/stephenson-innovation-starvation

https://media.wired.com/photos/59327b9858b0d64bb35d21ba/191:100/pass/MHopkins_tree02_w.jpg

par Neil Stephenson

Still, I worry that our inability to match the achievements of the 1960s space program might be symptomatic of a general failure of our society to get big things done. My parents and grandparents witnessed the creation of the airplane, the automobile, nuclear energy, and the computer to name only a few. Scientists and engineers who came of age during the first half of the 20th century could look forward to building things that would solve age-old problems, transform the landscape, build the economy, and provide jobs for the burgeoning middle class that was the basis for our stable democracy.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 crystallized my feeling that we have lost our ability to get important things done. The OPEC oil shock was in 1973 — almost 40 years ago. It was obvious then that it was crazy for the United States to let itself be held economic hostage to the kinds of countries where oil was being produced. It led to Jimmy Carter’s proposal for the development of an enormous synthetic fuels industry on American soil. Whatever one might think of the merits of the Carter presidency or of this particular proposal, it was, at least, a serious effort to come to grips with the problem.

The audience at Future Tense was more confident than I that science fiction [SF] had relevance — even utility — in addressing the problem.

I heard two theories as to why:

The Inspiration Theory. SF inspires people to choose science and engineering as careers. This much is undoubtedly true, and somewhat obvious.
The Hieroglyph Theory. Good SF supplies a plausible, fully thought-out picture of an alternate reality in which some sort of compelling innovation has taken place. A good SF universe has a coherence and internal logic that makes sense to scientists and engineers. Examples include Isaac Asimov’s robots, Robert Heinlein’s rocket ships, and William Gibson’s cyberspace. As Jim Karkanias of Microsoft Research puts it, such icons serve as hieroglyphs — simple, recognizable symbols on whose significance everyone agrees.

Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop small improvements to existing systems — climbing the hill, as it were, toward a local maximum, trimming fat, eking out the occasional tiny innovation — like city planners painting bicycle lanes on the streets as a gesture toward solving our energy problems. Any strategy that involves crossing a valley — accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance — will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

#Science_fiction #Innovation #Neil_Stephenson

État d’urgence à #Balikpapan - Déversement de mazout dans la baie | lepetitjournal.com (4/04/18)
▻https://lepetitjournal.com/jakarta/etat-durgence-balikpapan-deversement-de-mazout-dans-la-baie-227326

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*Suite à un déversement de pétrole dans la baie de Balikpapan ce samedi, l’administration de la ville située à Kalimantan a déclaré l’état d’urgence.

Deux personnes ont trouvé la mort dans un incendie alors qu’elles étaient entrain d’effectuer des travaux pour nettoyer la nappe de pétrole. Une autre est grièvement blessée et une portée disparue.

« Le feu était assez grand, environ deux kilomètres de haut, on pouvait le voir de Balikpapan et l’odeur était partout » explique Octavianto responsable de l’agence de recherche et sauvetage de l’est de #Bornéo.

La municipalité exhorte la population qui mène des activités autour de la baie à faire de la sécurité une priorité. Il est recommandé aux fumeurs de s’abstenir de fumer. « La baie est comme une station service » explique un responsable de la ville.

Des masques ont été distribués à la population car l’odeur est écrasante.

Le déversement s’est propagé jusqu’au détroit de Makassar dans le sud de la Sulawesi. Les zones résidentielles sur la côte ont été touchées.

L’autorité portuaire de Semayang coordonne avec la compagnie privée PT Chevron Indonésie et la compagnie nationale #Pertamina le nettoyage de la baie.

What does #privacy mean on a public blockchain?
▻https://hackernoon.com/what-does-privacy-mean-on-a-public-blockchain-1243776df22f?source=rss---

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Strict new laws have come into effect for organisations dealing with personal data. What does that mean for businesses that store information on transparent, open and permanent ledgers?News of Cambridge Analytica’s misappropriation of data from some 87 million Facebook users has brought the issue of data protection squarely back into the spotlight. For years, consumers have effectively traded personal data for online services: data is considered the ‘oil’ of the internet, and the users of social networks, e-commerce platforms and almost every other free service have upheld this tacit bargain.In the last few weeks, we have seen where this leads — where, in fact, it was always and inevitably going to lead. It has become abundantly clear what the price of our personal data might be: freedom and (...)

#encryption #data-protection #gdpr #blockchain-technology