Olie

Le Monde bericht: 'Pipeline Diplomacy. Forget about Iraq: This watchword tacitly in force at the heart of the transatlantic establishment today allows the West to put up a united front opposite the many crises it must confront, of which Iran is the top-ranking star against a background of global energy insecurity. "Today, pipelines have become as sexy as missiles," an American expert recently remarked at the Brussels Forum, a conference organized in the European capital by the German Marshall Fund, an American foundation devoted to strengthening transatlantic ties. "The problem is that you don't gallivant pipelines around the world like aircraft carriers."
For the backdrop to all the areas of tension that worry transatlantic leaders - whether it be Iran, Islamist terrorism, or Russia and its progression - is the energy crisis. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso cites energy as one of the three great transatlantic challenges: the others are trade and promoting democracy. With a price above $70 a barrel, "elevated oil prices are here to stay," and "energy is crucial for our long-term stability," he observes. Europe and the United States alone consume 44% of the world's oil. Energy instability, gas and oil producing countries' desire to better control their resources to the detriment of international companies (illustrated notably by the spectacular initiatives of President Evo Morales in Bolivia and his colleague Hugo Chavez in Venezuela), the rise in demand and prices, the reduction in global oil production, the fact that Iran harbors the largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia, Russia's assertiveness as an energy power: All of these factors shatter the landscape.
While Americans wonder how they can maintain their way of life with gasoline at $3.50 a gallon - triple what it was ten years ago - Europeans are reduced to expressing their "disappointment" with respect to Russia's behavior as it uses its energy resources as "an instrument of political coercion." Some, geographically closer to Russia, don't bother with such diplomatic niceties: Radek Sikorski, Polish Defense Minister, even talks about a resurgence of the "Molotov-Ribbentrop tradition," as he bitterly evokes the agreement concluded between Moscow and Berlin - above Warsaw's head - concerning a pipeline under the Baltic that will circumvent Poland. Seen from that angle, energy may also be a factor of European division.' Lees verder:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3232,36-771761,0.html Of in het Engels: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051506H.shtml