OPEC Threatens To Kill U.S. Shale

 

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will once again become a nemesis for U.S. shale if the U.S. Congress passes a bill dubbed NOPEC, or No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, Bloomberg reported this week, citing sources present at a meeting between a senior OPEC official and U.S. bankers.

The oil minister of the UAE, Suhail al-Mazrouei, reportedly told lenders at the meeting that if the bill was made into law that made OPEC members liable to U.S. anti-cartel legislation, the group, which is to all intents and purposes indeed a cartel, would break up and every member would boost production to its maximum.

How New Silk Roads Are Shaping Southwest Asia

The tall buildings of Abu Dhabi. Business people in the United Arab Emirates and other parts of the Middle East are thinking about being part of the Belt and Road scheme. Image: iStock

 

Businesses in the Middle East have begun to think ‘Make trade not war’ and being part of China’s Belt and Road scheme

Singapore, aiming high for the status of Asia’s unofficial capital, seems like the ideal venue for a conference to discuss how the Middle East could learn a few lessons from ASEAN’s multi-layered relations with China, especially involving partnership in the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

But first, let’s get things straight. The “Middle East” is, of course, a Eurocentric, Orientalist denomination. From Asia’s – and China’s – cultural and geographical point of view, the “Middle East” is correctly seen as Southwest Asia.

Trump phases Arab forces into Syria vs Iran ahead of US pullout. Egyptian/UAE officers on the scene

Our sources can now reveal the nature of that presence and the process afoot for the gradual US withdrawal. In the last few days, Egyptian and UAE military officers visited the contested north Syrian town of Manbij. They toured the town and its outskirts, checked out the locations of US and Kurdish YPG militia positions, and took notes on how to deploy their own troops as replacements. On the diplomatic side, the White House is in continuous conversation with the UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Muhammed Bin Ziyad (MbZ) and Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi. The deal Trump is offering, is that they take over US positions in Manbij, where the Kurds have sought protection against a Turkish invasion, and American air cover will be assured against Russian, Syrian or Turkish attack.

Top Iranian Commander Identifies US Bases “Within Reach” Of Precision Missiles

 

Threats issued from Iranian officials against U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf are nothing new, however, it will be interesting to see the White House response to an elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) commander specifically designating that American bases in Afghanistan, the UAE, Qatar, as well as U.S. aircraft carriers in the Gulf are within range of Iranian ballistic missiles.

Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the IRGC airspace division, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency, via Reuters:

They are within our reach, and we can hit them if they make a move… Our land-to-sea missiles have a range of 700 kilometers [450 miles]… and the US aircraft carriers are our targets.

Russia’s Pearl Harbor 2.0 Asymmetrical War Plans, Gulftainer, Club-K, and EMP

For further information on the Club-K system, attacks on America from within America, please see the following previous articles:

 

• Gulftainer, US Ports and the Club-K Missile System
• We could have shipping containers full of foreign nukes in our ports and not know it
• THE REAL RUSSIA STORY — Port Canaveral “Project Pelican” and Uranium One deals connected through the Jafars
• Northcom: Russian Cruise Missile Threat to U.S. Grows
• Expert: Iran ships a dry run for later nuclear/EMP attack; humiliate Obama

 

 

Translations from a Russian defense journal and from a secret Iranian military handbook suggest that Russia and Iran have developed a Pearl Harbor 2.0 plan to sink the entire U.S. Navy fleet as part of coordinated asymmetrical attacks against the United States and U.S. military bases around the world.

The plan is to launch Russian Kalibr cruise missiles from submarines, freighter ships, and Trojan Horse Club-K Container Missile System intermodal cargo “containers” that can be smuggled into U.S. ports and moved into the U.S. interior aboard trains and semi-trucks.

In 2015 the Russian journal “Natsionalnaya Oborona” (translation: National Defense) outlined a plan to “hit them in their ports” with Kalibr cruise missiles that could sink entire US Navy fleets docked in ports across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

Chinese armed drones now flying across Mideast battlefields

FILE – In this Oct. 10, 2015, file photo, Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi, center, inspects a first Chinese drone to be used by the Iraqi Air Force before sending it to bomb Islamic State group positions at an airbase in Kut, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. Across the Middle East, countries locked out of purchasing U.S.-made drones due to rules over excessive civilian casualties are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, who are world’s main distributor of armed drones. The sales are helping expand Chinese influence across a region crucial to American security interests and bolstering Beijing’s ambitions of being a world leader in high-tech arms sales. (AP Photo, File)

 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — High above Yemen’s rebel-held city of Hodeida, a drone controlled by Emirati forces hovered as an SUV carrying a top Shiite Houthi rebel official turned onto a small street and stopped, waiting for another vehicle in its convoy to catch up.

Seconds later, the SUV exploded in flames, killing Saleh al-Samad, a top political figure.

The drone that fired that missile in April was not one of the many American aircraft that have been buzzing across the skies of Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. It was Chinese.

Is President Trump Building an Arab Army to Go to War with Iran?

(Photo Credit: U.S. State Department)

 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Arab foreign ministers to discuss creating MESA.

…

According to the State Department, Pompeo met Friday with the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council+2 group of nations. The department’s readout, provided by Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Heath Nauert stated:

Enter the Dragon: China’s Belt and Road Rising in the Middle East

Cairenes are not modest about their beloved city. It is Umm al-Dunya, they say, the mother of the world. They also call it simply Masr, the Arabic term for Egypt, suggesting, of course, that there is really nothing worth noting in the vast country beyond their grand city on the Nile.

Fifty miles east of Cairo, a Chinese construction firm is giving the aged, crowded, increasingly decaying “mother of the world” a face-lift of sorts. China State Construction and Engineering Company (CSCEC) has broken ground on a new business and administrative district to the tune of $3 billion, mostly financed by Chinese banks. When completed by late 2019, according to projections, much of Egypt’s government will move to this new “capital.”

Russia’s Pivoting To The Horn Of Africa Via Eritrea & The UAE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Eritrea’s Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, August 31, 2018, Sochi, Russia

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lauded his country’s relationship with Eritrea and informed the world about Moscow’s plans to build a logistics center there.

He was speaking alongside his Eritrean counterpart at a press conference in Sochi after their bilateral meeting, which he also noted included discussions about building regional transport corridors, pipelines, and opening up a Russian language department in one of Asmara’s universities. Lavrov also said that the UNSC sanctions against Eritrea that were imposed in 2009 after reports that the country was aiding Somalia’s Al-Shaabab should be lifted, and he praised Eritrea for all that it’s done in the name of regional peace over the past few months in view of its rapidly moving rapprochement with Ethiopia that completely transformed the geopolitical situation in the Horn of Africa.

How Iran Plans To Bypass The World’s Main Oil Chokepoint

 

Iran Tries to Bypass the Hormuz Strait

Global markets have recently gone into overdrive in anticipation of the US-Iran standoff’s outcome. President Trump is building up pressure on Tehran, his latest move was to announce his chairing of a UN Security Council meeting on Iran (the US is holding the council presidency this month), most likely to lambast once more the Iranian regime, whilst the Iranian authorities are reverting to their traditional threat, the closing off of the Hormuz Strait. Yet behind the bellicose façade, under the international radar Iran has been proceeding gradually with the construction of oil export infrastructure that bypasses the potentially fatal chokepoint and gives the Ayatollah regime a viable alternative to Kharg and Lavan islands, which currently account for the overwhelming majority, more than 95 percent, of Iran’s oil exports.

Saudi-Led Coalition Begins Attack on Yemeni Port Held by Houthis

Getty Images

 

Pro-government forces in Yemen began an assault Wednesday on the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah, which is held by Houthi rebels.

Strikes from a Saudi-led coalition began after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels ignored a deadline to withdraw by midnight local time Tuesday, BBC News reports.

Tehran Friday Sermon – Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami Warns: We Will Turn Tel Aviv and Haifa to Rubble

 

In a Tehran Friday sermon, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Iranian Assembly of Experts, said that Iran was “strengthening its missile power on a daily basis” and that “If Israel makes a mistake, we will turn Tel Aviv and Haifa to rubble.” In the May 11 sermon, Khatami addressed U.S. President Trump, saying that the people are “more unified and stronger than ever” in their cry of “Death to America!” He said that the pro-Trump camp in the region, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and the GCC, would become “America’s cannon-fodder” and that “just as America plundered your resources, it will plunder your souls.” The sermon was broadcast by Iran’s Channel 1.

Iran Targets the Gulf

The Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi. Iran offered “support to al-Qaeda in exchange for targeting the Gulf,” according to CIA documents captured last year from Osama bin Laden’s compound.

 

• Our allies are finally becoming force multipliers — joining with America to use its talent and technology finally to defeat the jihadist threat. We should assist and encourage the UAE and Saudi Arabia, not abandon them.

More than 7,000 miles from Washington and far from America’s headlines, a war in Yemen is rewriting America’s strategy against Iran and terrorism.

The three-sided civil war pits two radical Islamist forces — Al-Qaeda’s largest surviving army and Iran’s biggest proxy force — against each other and six of America’s Arab allies. U.S. Special forces carry out covert raids and CIA drones rain down missiles on terror leaders.

We could have shipping containers full of foreign nukes in our ports and not know it

For more on the subject of foreign shipping container nukes within the U.S., please see the following previous posts:

THE REAL RUSSIA STORY — Port Canaveral “Project Pelican” and Uranium One deals connected through the Jafars

Were the Russians Hiding a Nuke in D.C.?

Northcom: Russian Cruise Missile Threat to U.S. Grows

Expert: Iran ships a dry run for later nuclear/EMP attack; humiliate Obama

 

Two occasional papers were recently published by the Center for Security Policy.  The first, entitled “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?,” was published in late 2016.  The second, “The Perfect Storm,” was published in 2017.  Both papers describe a 35-year lease to a cargo container terminal on the eastern seaboard of the United States.  The peculiar discoveries in the papers made by investigative journalists Mary Fanning and Alan Jones have not received the national media attention they warrant.

In 2014, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based company Gulftainer was awarded a three-and-a-half decade lease to operate the cargo container terminal at Port Canaveral, Florida.  The peculiarity of this acquisition rests on the fact that Gulftainer is co-owned by the emir of Sharjah, UAE, and Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar, who is the brother of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear mastermind.  During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Dr. Jafar was an official of the Iraqi regime who could have been engaged as a military target.

Why is this alarming?  In part, it is because Dr. Jafar has also been credited with the design of a miniaturized nuclear weapon, commonly known as the “Beach Ball.”  North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has appeared standing by a similarly purported nuclear weapon in recent photographs.  This type of nuclear weapon can easily fit inside the nosecone of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and can cause the kind of catastrophic damage the United States has never seen.

The danger to America is not just that Gulftainer is co-owned the family of Saddam Hussein’s top nuclear mastermind, Dr. Jafar, and the emir of Sharjah, but also that Gulftainer is also in a joint venture with Kontsern-Morinformsistem-Agat, the Russian company that makes the Club-K missile launch system.  The Club-K system looks identical to standard ocean containers that are shipped by the billions all over the world.  The alarming difference between the ordinary cargo containers is evident by what’s found on the inside of the Club-K containers.  Four cruise missiles are housed in each Club-K system and can be launched directly from the container – even remotely.

A Tiny Island Nation You’ve Never Heard of Has Become a Global Battleground

 

(ANTIMEDIA) — Last week, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced a grant of $160 million for “development projects” in the Maldives, a country located in the Indian ocean that is currently battling an economic and political crisis.

“As part of the support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Saudi Fund for Development and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development has pledged $160 million in support of the Maldives and its brotherly people for the development projects including the airport development and fisheries sector of the Maldives,” a statement on the Maldives presidency website said on February 18.