OPEC Prepares To Dump US Dollar As Primary Oil Pricing Currency

Iranian Oil Bourse Set To Trade In Euros

Saddam Hussein decided the Euro was a better currency than the US Dollar for selling Iraq's oil, but then Iraq was invaded. Within three months of the start of the War On Iraq, in March, 2003, Iraq was back selling its oil in American dollars.

If OPEC backs the move by Iran and Venezuela to do away with the US Dollar, it will be grim news indeed for the American economy, and will add to the momentum that is already peeling away the remaining value of the US Dollar as a stable world currency.

From PressTV :

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries plans to discuss a proposal by Iran and Venezuela to price oil in non-dollar currencies.

Finance minister of the group, which supplies 40 percent of the global crude demand, will meet to study the proposal, the organization's President Chakib Khelil said.

Khalil, however, did not say when the ministers are scheduled to discuss the proposal amid the ongoing depreciation of the dollar.

The idea floated by Tehran and Caracas since the dwindling dollar fallen 16.2 percent against a basket of major currencies since two years ago.

Iran, the OPEC's second largest exporter, has already cut all of its ties with the greenback with respect to oil transactions.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani had also said earlier that amid concerns about the weakness of the US dollar in recent months, the oil-rich Persian Gulf littoral state would shift Qatari riyal from the US currency over the next six months.

"The dollar lost a lot of value and energy worldwide is priced in the dollar, so all the producers are affected by the development on the dollar. This is a cycle so we have to live with it," Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah said.

The UAE is also likely to follow the lead, as Kuwait did last May.

From the Associated Press :

Iran has already registered for another oil bourse, in which it has said it hopes to trade oil in Euros instead of dollars, to reduce any American influence over the Islamic Republic's economy. A bourse official, Mahdi Karbasian, told the IRNA official news agency that such an oil market would begin operating within the next year.

While most oil markets are traded in U.S. dollars, Iran first floated the idea of trading oil in Euros in the early 2000s during the tenure of reformist president Mohammad Khatami.
It gained new life after the nationalist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005.

As the fourth largest oil producer in the world, Iran has a measure of influence over international oil markets. The country ranks second for output among OPEC Countries, and controls about 5 percent of the global oil supply.

Tehran also partially controls the Persian Gulf's Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's oil supply must pass. Iran has sought to wield its oil resources as a bargaining tool in its ongoing standoff with the West over its nuclear program.

Expect BushCo. to retaliate.

Venezuela Prepares For War With United States

Lawmaker Claims US Behind Al Qaeda Threat To Venezuelan Oil Facilities

Few analysts really believe that war will break out between the US and Venezuela any time soon. It would be bad news for both countries.

But there are plenty of signs that preparations are being made, if only to keep each other at arm's length. The United States is clearly unhappy about Chavez's plans to nationalise the oil industry, fearing key supplies may be cut off, or that the US may be held to ransom by Chavez over further supplies and previously contracted prices for oil.

A report in the Washington Times tries to build up tensions over Venezuela's military build up and tensions between Chavez and the Bush administration :

Venezuela says it is beefing up its military capabilities -- including plans to develop the region's largest submarine fleet -- in preparation for any "asymmetrical conflict" with the United States.
The buildup, which also includes small arms, jet fighters and potentially air-defense missiles, is being carried out in compliance with all international and regional nonproliferation treaties, Venezuela's ambassador to Washington said in a telephone interview.

But by repeatedly characterizing any conflict with the United States as "asymmetrical," Bernardo Alvarez made clear that his government was contemplating the need to defend itself against the world's lone superpower, a nation with vastly greater military resources.

"We have simply been trying to upgrade our military equipment and maintain our defense while preserving balance in the hemisphere," said Mr. Alvarez, who insisted that Venezuela's Latin American neighbors need not worry about the buildup.

Caracas is reported to have spent $3.4 billion on Russian arms, including assault rifles and fighter jets, and to be negotiating to buy a $290 million Russian air-defense system.
Now, according to remarks attributed to Vice Adm. Armando Laguna, Venezuela is planning to spend another $3 billion for nine submarines, giving it the region's largest submarine fleet by 2012. Mr. Alvarez could not confirm the report.

A Pentagon report estimated that Venezuela had spent about $4.3 billion on arms since 2005 alone, more than countries such as Iran, Pakistan and even China. Venezuela also is pursuing an estimated $2 billion worth of military-transport ships and aircraft from Spain.

Venezuela already has conducted billions of dollars in business with Russia, purchasing 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 24 Sukhoi-30 fighters and about 35 helicopters.

Most recently, Caracas has its sights set on buying Russian air-defense missiles known as the Tor-M1 system, which consists of eight missiles in a battery mounted to a launch vehicle. The short-range system is designed for use against low-flying aircraft and incoming missiles.

A Venezuela military official told the Associated Press last month that the missiles were wanted for "air defense" only -- a notion in keeping with Mr. Chavez's repeated warnings about the threat of a U.S. invasion. The Bush administration regularly denies it has any such intentions.
Washington has expressed concerns that the Russian assault rifles could wind up in the hands of leftist rebels in neighboring Colombia or be used to further the Venezuelan leader's socialist agenda in the region.

"I can see why Chavez wants to militarize Venezuela. ... He's a military man, just like Bolivar was a military man," said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org. Simon Bolivar, whom Mr. Chavez idolizes, liberated several Latin American nations from Spain during the 19th century.

But waging war with the United States "would be a foolish thing to do," he said, noting that even a minor skirmish would jeopardize Venezuela's oil sales to its largest customer

From Jurnalo :

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday accused the United States of plotting to harm Venezuela's economy, after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused him of doing the same to his own country. "Condoleezza turned again to disparaging me and said that I am destroying the country's economy - this shows that there is now an economic plan against Venezuela," he said.

Rice last week said Chavez was ruining his country's democratic institutions and economy, in some of her strongest comments yet against the Venezuelan leader.

"There's an assault on democracy in Venezuela, and I believe that there are significant human rights issues in Venezuela," Rice said at a congressional hearing. "I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really, really destroying his own country economically, politically. "

Chavez called Rice's comments the latest "imperialist" attack from a "desperate" country, and added that the US was free to stop buying Venezuelan oil if it felt strongly enough.

"We have enough clients to sell petroleum to, we are not dependent at all on the North American imperialist," Chavez said.

From EarthTimes :

Venezuela's Foreign Ministry adopted a take 'em or leave em attitude toward the United States, suggesting its petroleum industry could survive without the billions of dollars in annual revenue from its largest customer.

We are going to keep selling oil to North America because we are a serious country and we sell it to North American society, said Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro earlier this week in response to remarks by U.S. officials.

Venezuela supplies about 12 percent of the oil imported by the United States, making it Venezuela's largest customer. It is the No. 4 U.S. supplier.

Maduro was reacting to remarks by Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, who said the United States was stepping up its efforts to use biofuels to reduce its dependence on Venezuelan oil.

Maduro's remarks came as Venezuela is furthering its effort to wrest greater control of its energy assets, including oil, through a wide-ranging nationalization program.

Amid concerns Chavez is gearing up for a large-scale takeover of the oil industry, some analysts note he has historically taken small steps toward great state control of the industry and that a radical shift in policy would be neither prudent nor in line with his previous policies.

Chavez Calls For Anti-Imperialist Unity

From USA Today :

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, seeking inroads in a region where the U.S. has long been the dominant influence, called on Caribbean states to join his fight against imperialism.

During a Caribbean tour that began Friday, the leftist leader is promoting Venezuela's sales of fuel under preferential terms to Caribbean nations and highlighting its public works projects in the region.

"Today is the time of the people, of unity," Chavez said Friday evening upon arriving at St. Vincent, where he was greeted by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, met onlookers and kissed several youngsters. Chavez said the Caribbean should be a "sea of resistance" to imperialism.

Earlier Friday, Chavez was in the mountainous, forested island of Dominica, where he addressed a crowd at a new fuel storage tank built by Venezuela, one of five the oil-rich nation has pledged to construct there. "An empire of Latin America and the Caribbean will be greater than the empire of Star Wars and cannot be stopped," Chavez said.

Lawmaker Claims US Behind Al Qaeda Threat To Venezuelan Oil

From ElUniversal.com :

Lawmaker Saúl Ortega, chair of the National Assembly Committee on Foreign Affairs, Thursday attributed to the United States the threats Al Qaeda launched on Wednesday to strike oil facilities worldwide, including premises in Venezuela.

According to Ortega, such reports are a US "terrorist maneuver" aimed at intimidating the nations that are at odds with Washington and having an excuse for likely interventions.

He added that the alleged threat was not launched directly by the terrorist group, but through a translation reportedly made by US intelligence agencies under the Central Intelligence Agency.

"I do believe this is part of a US terrorist maneuver. This is very suspicious, as the information was not disclosed by Al Qaeda itself, but it is based on translation a body of the CIA allegedly made from a news report or an online magazine they attributed to Al Qaeda," Ortega declared.

He added that the real suspects are rather "the terrorists that the CIA and the US administration have to attack and perform this type of sabotage worldwide. They are the threat."

Further, Ortega claimed that the US is likely making attempts at making the world believe that US security is at stake because of a possible disruption in oil supplies following Al Qaeda's threat against Venezuela. Consequently, Washington could order a pre-emptive military intervention of Venezuela.

CIA GOES AFTER CUBA, VENEZUELA

Link :

U.S. intelligence head John Negroponte announced Aug. 18 the creation of a new Central Intelligence Agency mission to oversee intelligence operations in Venezuela and Cuba at the strategic level. J. Patrick Maher, a 32-year CIA veteran with supervisory experience in Colombia and the Caribbean, was named as acting mission manager.

According to Negroponte, "Policymakers have increasingly focused on the challenges that Cuba and Venezuela pose to American foreign policy." He noted Washington's concern about the close ties between the two countries and failure on Venezuela's part to cooperate with Washington's "anti-terrorist campaign."

The change comes in the wake of Raul Castro's temporary accession to the presidency of Cuba on July 31 and coincides with preparations in Venezuela for presidential elections set for Dec. 3.

As a measure of the seriousness with which the U.S. government regards Cuba and Venezuela, the new post is one of only six agencies operating at the strategic level within the intelligence bureaucracy. One of them covers Iran and North Korea -- the only other countries with a mission manager -- and four others deal with counter-proliferation, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and weapons of mass destruction.

Stepped-up U.S. intelligence attention to Cuba comes five weeks after the Bush administration released an update of its plans for returning Cuba to capitalism. Fidel Castro's departure from power was supposed to have signaled the time for implementation to begin, facilitated by $80 million set-aside for Cuban government opponents. That clock, of course, has started.

Intelligence operations in Venezuela are intensifying just as new indications of massive U.S. spending to get rid of President Hugo Chavez are in the limelight. According to an Associated Press report on Aug. 26, the U.S. Agency for International Development since 2002 has distributed $26 million via 220 grants to Venezuelan recipients under a "Venezuela Confidence Building Initiative." The data emerged from a survey of 132 contracts detailed on 1,600 pages made accessible under the Freedom of Information Act.

If other Latin American experience holds true, U.S. undercover work will try to influence the media in Venezuela, a fertile field inasmuch as opposition newspapers and television stations there are far from silent.

On Aug. 25, for example, a few newspapers throughout Latin America, among them La Nacion of Buenos Aires, carried an article by Simon Romero of Caracas claiming that Venezuela has collaborated with Iran in a uranium enrichment program.

Journalists working with that paper and others told the Association of Media Professionals in Argentina that the CIA had fostered that line. They alleged that U.S. "diplomats" had offered them bribes to present the U.S. side in stories covering Venezuela's admission into the Mercosur trade group and Brazilian President Lula da Silva's bid for re-election in October.

The exposé by Victor Ego Ducrotto, appearing on the Rebelion web site on Aug. 25, claimed that CIA personnel worked "elbow to elbow" with the representatives of the right-wing Inter American Press Society, based in Miami.

CHAVEZ CALLS BUSH "DEVIL" AT UN

THE RISE OF THE "AXIS OF THE SOUTH"

From the Independent :

The tabloids in New York had a message for Hugo Chavez of Venezuela: the "Crackpot of Caracas" should "zip it" and go home.

They didn't care for him calling President George Bush the "Devil" at the United Nations on Tuesday, or "an alcoholic and a sick man" as he did at a church in Harlem on Thursday.

If President Chavez hoped last week to add to Mr Bush's political troubles at home he surely failed. So crude were his insults even Democrats were falling over one another to condemn them.

"Even though many people in the United States are critical of our President, we resent the fact that he would come to the United States and criticise President Bush," said a New York Democrat, Charles Rangel.

With the help of Iran's equally unflinching leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a few others, Mr Chavez successfully hijacked this year's UN General Assembly and turned it into a raucous carnival of anti-Americanism. It perhaps will not hurt Mr Bush's domestic standing, but for American diplomacy abroad it was, at the very least, unsettling.

"It has been one of the most shrill displays of anti-Americanism in recent years," noted one Security Council envoy, referring to the Chavez and Ahmadinejad double-act. Nile Gardiner, of the Heritage Foundation, said: "This is a huge public diplomacy challenge, but also a strategic threat." He called the Chavez Devil invocation "the strongest attack from any foreign leader on US soil in decades".

Mr Ahmadinejad, who is engaged in a perilous stand-off with Europe and the US over his country's nuclear ambitions, used his time in New York to articulate his Holocaust doubts again while repeatedly assailing the "hegemonic powers" for imposing "their exclusionist policies on international decision-making mechanisms, including the Security Council".

The talk in New York is of a new "Axis of the South" that made itself felt even before the Assembly. at the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana last weekend, where Messrs Chavez and Ahmadinejad ensured anti-Americanism became the dominant theme. Cuba's Vice President, Carlos Lage Davile, used the Havana stage to lambast "the worldwide dictatorship by the United States".

The members of this so-called axis are united by their increasingly bold attacks on America even if elsewhere their philosophies divide. At the UN, they seemed also to include President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, who, in this new context of America-bashing, finds it much easier to resist efforts by the UN, strongly supported by the US, to deploy a blue-helmet peacekeeping force in Darfur. Count in also Evo Morales of Bolivia.

Even America's ally, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, created his own ripples, revealing that the US threatened to bomb his country "into the Stone Age" if he did not join the war against terror.

Colour was added to the week by the reappearance of props in the Assembly chamber in the tradition of Khrushchev and the banging of his shoe. Mr Morales waved a coca leaf at delegates as he lamented the US policy of trying to destroy coca crops in his country. And Mr Chavez brandished the recent Noam Chomsky tome Hegemony and Survival, recommending that everyone read it. Yesterday, it had leapt to the number one bestseller on Amazon.

Mr Chavez embarrassed himself later at his press conference, expressing regret that he hadn't met Mr Chomsky before his death. The latter, who of course is still alive and well, surfaced yesterday saying he would enjoy talking to Mr Chavez. He also said many of the points being made by Mr Chavez were actually "quite constructive".

Indeed, while US officials have attempted to brand Mr Chavez and Mr Ahmadinejad as clowns, much of what they are saying - particularly the Iranian leader's characterisation of the Security Council as a relic of the Second World War composed of nations who feel entitled to world dictatorship - reverberate closely with the feelings of a large number of countries not quite so bold in speaking their minds.

These beneath-the-surface sympathies may spell more trouble for the US as the UN membership prepares to vote next month on filling the five non-permanent Security Council seats that will become free at the end of the year.

Washington is pushing hard for Guatemala to represent the Latin American block, but there are clear signs that victory may go to Venezuela.

Its presence on the council will make it much harder for the US to gain the votes it will need on a series of important issues.