The New Great Game

Hi Slayer, Awesome Subject, Great work from yourself and many others in providing a great source of information in one place for the Experienced, and not so experienced on the subject (like me!).

Can I ask you,

Where do you see this all going, all this playing for resources by all the Worlds Big Guns?

How long will this go on/when will we have a clear picture of winners and losers so to speak?

Do you see a Possible World War at the end of this play?

Cheers, G.

Nearly all Pakistani refineries on verge of shutting down

This is an ugly little tidbit.

Energy crisis may cripple country by 15th

ISLAMABAD: The country may plunge into the worst imaginable energy crisis as virtually all refineries are teetering on the verge of financial default and may close down operations by Jan 15.

All the oil refineries of the country, currently working on a negative gross revenue margin, and with their borrowing limits already exhausted, are likely to shut down within the next two weeks following their expected default to retire the existing L/Cs to import crude oil. The shutdown would mean no oil supplies for thermal power generation plants and the picture turns outright dark.

This harrowing scenario of the looming crisis was given to The News by a senior functionary of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The functionary said that after generating over Rs 85 billion from banks by marketing TFCs (Terms Finance Certificates), the circular debt has again started to haunt all the players involved in the energy sector.

"Some players in the energy sector, including Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) and refineries have termed the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) responsible for the monster of circular debt, which has surfaced again, saying this is the most disorganised company which failed to pay the dues of PSO which have amounted to Rs69.7 billion," the source said, adding: "The refineries have also informed the government that they will not be able to get fresh loans to continue functioning, as their borrowing limits have already been exhausted."

More at source:
www.thenews.com.pk...

Originally posted by silent thunder
Nearly all Pakistani refineries on verge of shutting down

This is an ugly little tidbit.

Energy crisis may cripple country by 15th

ISLAMABAD: The country may plunge into the worst imaginable energy crisis as virtually all refineries are teetering on the verge of financial default and may close down operations by Jan 15.

Here's where the Realpolitik kicks in. The US with the Saudis keeps the nominal Pakistani government afloat, but they're largely figureheads. The ISI, the military, are the real government making foreign policy decisions.

What happens when the lights go out for tens of millions of people? Who will be bought off, what extreme measures will be taken?

The US will probably pull the fat out of the fire guaranteeing the line of credit.

Someone will get some leverage over this crisis. Unless it ends up in chaos.

Originally posted by mmiichael

Here's where the Realpolitik kicks in. The US with the Saudis keeps the nominal Pakistani government afloat, but they're largely figureheads. The ISI, the military, are the real government making foreign policy decisions.

What happens when the lights go out for tens of millions of people? Who will be bought off, what extreme measures will be taken?

The US will probably pull the fat out of the fire guaranteeing the line of credit.

Someone will get some leverage over this crisis. Unless it ends up in chaos.

Interesting...well, these days the US is having more than enough troubles paying its own bills; I wonder how they can possibly squeeze in Pakistan amidst the increasingly farcical musica-comedy budgetary spend-a-thon. but hey, when you've got the world's biggest printing press, there's always room for one more.

Pakistan has good relations with both Japan and China. While these two (especially the former) have economic woes of their own to grapple with as well, I wonder if Pakistan might pass the plate East instead of West? That would make for some "interesting times."

And then there's that whole pesky Yemen to think about, vis-a-vis the Saudis as well...its all too much for me to calculate; the strands are increasingly tangled. The geopolitical tectonic strain is enormous right now. How much more can the whole thing take?

Thread Update

Gas pipeline a symbol of China's power: analysts

BEIJING — China has quietly rewritten the geopolitical landscape in Central Asia in recent years, breaking Russia's monopoly over the export of the region's e nergy resources also coveted by the West, experts say.

The proof came last week when Chinese President Hu Jintao travelled to the region for the inauguration of a natural gas pipeline snaking from Turkmenistan through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan into China's far western Xinjiang region.

Russia, China keep toehold in Yemen

NEW YORK - Russia has stolen a march over the United States in the multimillion-dollar arms market in cash-strapped Yemen, whose weapons purchases are being funded mostly by neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni armed forces, currently undergoing an ambitious modernization program worth an estimated $4 billion US, are equipped with weapons largely from Russia, China, Ukraine, eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Check.
Your move.
Hillary Clinton warns China to stay the course on Iran nuclear sanctions

The admonishment from Clinton came on the same day the Pentagon announced more than $6 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, a move certain to infuriate Beijing and add a new complication to the U.S.-Chinese relationship.

Clinton, speaking at a leading French military academy in Paris, said that China and five other leading nations have been united to date in trying to dissuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment that they fear is aimed at acquiring nuclear weaponry know-how.

But now that China is balking at joining the others in a new round of United Nations sanctions, Clinton said, "China will be under a lot of pressure to recognize the destabilizing impact that a nuclear-armed Iran would have in the [Persian] Gulf, from which they receive a significant percentage of their own supplies."

She told an audience of military experts and officers at the Ecole Militaire that "we understand that right now it seems counterproductive to you to sanction a country from which you get so much of the natural resources your growing economy needs."

[edit on 29-1-2010 by SLAYER69]

reply to post by SLAYER69


What do you think is up with the US and China relationship?

Seems US is starting to confront China. Kinda strange considering most folks think China has us bent over a barrel and we can't do nothing about it.

reply to post by jam321

The US wants a deal on the Iranian Issue. We scrap the sale if they agree to tighter sanctions. IMO

The recent sale of the Patriot missile systems are mainly defensive. China shouldn't get too bent out of shape unless they had wanted to start a major air campaign soon against the Island.

U.S. sells weapons to Taiwan, angering China

The Obama administration announced the sale Friday of $6 billion worth of Patriot anti-missile systems, helicopters, mine-sweeping ships and communications equipment to Taiwan in a long-expected move that sparked an angry protest from China.

The sale, formally announced by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is expected to prompt China to slow or even break military relations with the United States and cancel a visit by President Hu Jintao to Washington in April. Chinese officials have threatened other actions, including sanctions on the U.S. companies supplying the equipment or on businesses in the districts of congressional lawmakers known to be backers of Taiwan.

AND

China Warns U.S. Over Taiwan Arms Sale

BEIJING -- China angrily summoned the U.S. ambassador on Saturday and warned that a plan to sell $6.4 billion in arms to Taiwan would harm already strained ties. One Chinese expert said the sale would give Beijing a ``fair and proper reason'' to accelerate weapons testing.

The planned sale, posted Friday on a Pentagon Web site, is likely to complicate the cooperation the U.S. seeks from China on issues ranging from Iran's nuclear program to the loosening of Internet controls, including a Google-China standoff over censorship.

Cutoffs of military ties top the list of possible punishments that Chinese state media and academics have publicly discussed in recent weeks as Beijing repeatedly warned the U.S. against the arms sale.

[edit on 30-1-2010 by SLAYER69]

I wonder how the U.S. would react to s400 being installed in Cuba, i doubt they would sit back and take a chill pill. Keep in mind the s300 are a bad ass system, consider the s400 which have no competition in its field based on actual field test over Siberia, incorporating all NATO strike attack air planes and live missile systems.

I guess its okay to spend 150 billion for military field tests but its not okay to allow the common man to question the integrity of a politician.

Originally posted by tristar
I wonder how the U.S. would react to s400 being installed in Cuba

I think we already know the answer to that one.
Oh wait...

This is President Kotow. Not Kennedy.

My bad.

[edit on 30-1-2010 by SLAYER69]

reply to post by tristar


U.S. Starts to Push Back Against China in Growing Rift

WASHINGTON — For the past year, China has adopted an increasingly muscular position toward the United States, berating American officials for the global economic crisis, stage-managing President Obama’s visit to China in November, refusing to back a tougher climate change agreement in Copenhagen and standing fast against American demands for tough new Security Council sanctions against Iran.

Now, the Obama administration has started to push back. In announcing an arms sales package to Taiwan worth $6 billion on Friday, the United States leveled a direct strike at the heart of the most sensitive diplomatic issue between the two countries since America affirmed the “one China” policy in 1972.

The arms package was doubly infuriating to Beijing coming so soon after the Bush administration announced a similar arms package for Taiwan in 2008, and right as tensions were easingsomewhat in Beijing and Taipei’s own relations.

China’s immediate, and outraged, reaction — cancellation of some military exchanges and announcement of punitive sanctions against American companies — demonstrates, China experts said, that Beijing is feeling a little burned, particularly because the Taiwan arms announcement came on the same day that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly berated China for not taking a stronger position on holding Iran accountable for its nuclear program.

This video is very interesting. POW!

Pak-Iran Relations in Current Regional Scenario

Pakistan and Iran are very important countries of South West Asia. Both the countries are geographically linked with each others. They are bound together in cultural and religious proximities. Pakistan believes that without the cooperation of Iran, it is impossible to keep peace and stability in the region. Pakistan has always strong will to promote its Islamic ideology. Iran’s similarities in religion with Pakistan are the key elements of Pakistan’s foreign policy.

www.kashmirwatch.com...

Article from Pak-Iran interests - now very important to understand...

Few more I think that belongs to this thread:

Iran starts drilling oil well in Caspian Sea

TEHRAN, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran started drilling its first exploratory well in the Caspian Sea to search for oil in its waters, the state IRIB TV reported Sunday. "The Iran-Alborz semi-floating drilling rig has started exploration drillings in the Caspian Sea," Iran's North Drilling Company Managing Director Hedayatollah Khademi said, adding "it will drill the country's first exploratory well at a depth of 1, 550 meters under the seabed."

news.xinhuanet.com...

NATO’s Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran

Following on the heels of identifying himself as the “Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars” and moreover the head of state of no less than “the world’s sole military superpower” [1] while being presented with what is still curiously called the Nobel Peace Prize, U.S. President Barack Obama in his first State of the Union address on January 27 asserted “the international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated” and threatened: “As Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They…will face growing consequences. That is a promise.”

www.globalresearch.ca...

Breaking news from SCO member state - did Iran just get security pack from Bejing and Moscow?

Azerbaijan to Start Construction of Gas Pipeline to Iran in 2010

The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) is scheduled to start construction of a new natural gas pipeline to Iran in 2010.

It is expected that construction of the new pipeline will begin in 2010," Deputy Chief at Azerigas PU Nazim Samadzade said on Friday.

UPI quoted Samadzade as saying that the SOCAR will build the 200-kilometer (124-mile) Sangachal-Azadkend-Astara pipeline.

www.energytribune.com...

Because this came up same minute in RIA Novosti:

Russia 'fixing' technical issues delaying S-300 deliveries to Iran

Russia is resolving the technical problems which have delayed the delivery of advanced S-300 air defense systems to Iran, a Russian defense industry official said on Monday.

"A few technical faults have been detected in the radio-frequency band [command and control system]. We are currently fixing them," first deputy director of the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation Alexander Fomin said.

en.rian.ru...

- And Bibi is now very dissapointed man?

Thread plug.


Interesting development. It was posted earlier in this thread about this being discussed and now it has come to pass.

Nato route opens through Russia

So i guess the fact that Bulgaria has pulled out of the oil pipe line has not raised any concern's. I guess people fail to study history on an epic scale.

reply to post by tristar


Very good. It seems that people are more worried about the economy and oil spills.

I find it amusing that this thread doesn't get the attention it deserves. But oh well. Those of us who watch these things unfold simply are aware of whats really going on.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Slayer, i would not worrie about the fact that this thread does not interact with the majority. Given that the majority are well influenced by individuals who are here for many reasons not obvious to the majority.

So the fact that Bulgraria decided to out from a pipeline give that although a fist for this site, decrypted messages from Turkey to Bulgaria indicating a passive attack mode on Greece has not set out its footprints.


Question:

Why would a long standing allie with the U.S. decided to go head on with its allies allie ?

Sound way too convenient ?

Great newish thread.
I'll post some of the info I've found on it below

U.S. Discovers Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

Originally posted by ModernAcademia


It's Official!
The U.S. will never leave Afghanistan!

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.

Isn't it amazing that during an massive 10 year war that is only about terroism and extremism that American geologists are able to fly over there with Pentagon officials to scour the area like scavengers?

Ah.... The jows of war!

Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge

Ah the noble people at the World Bank!

Can anyone shed some light on this mining law?
I couldn't find anything

Thanks

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)