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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (63394)	5/4/2005 9:59:30 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

Iran vows to continue nuclear program (Perhaps not too safe!) ISN SECURITY WATCH (04/05/05) - Iran has pledged to continue with its nuclear program and has accused the US and Israel of threatening world peace with their nuclear arsenals. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference on Tuesday that it was wrong to limit “'access to peaceful nuclear technology to an exclusive club of technologically advanced states under the pretext of nonproliferation”. “Iran is determined to pursue all legal areas of nuclear technology, including enrichment, exclusively for peaceful purposes,” Kharrazi told reporters, urging that unilateral nuclear disarmament measures be pursued vigorously. Kharrazi criticized the US for not scrapping its own arsenal as the treaty envisages, while trying to bully other nations to stop their peaceful nuclear programs. The US believes the Iranian nuclear power program is a pretext for developing nuclear weapons, citing Iran’s rich oil resources. Iran has contended that it wants to meet its domestic energy requirements with cheap nuclear energy while selling its fossil fuel at attractive rates on the world market. Kharrazi’s comments heightened tensions over the nuclear issue as officials in Iran indicated they were ready to resume some of their nuclear programs. “We will definitely restart some activities,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the conference. He did not specify which operations would be resumed or when, but stressed that uranium enrichment “will remain the last option”. European officials reacted cautiously, suggesting that the comments had more to do with Iranian domestic politics than with a desire to break off negotiations with Europe. While the US is aggressively advocating action against Iran, some European countries - notably France, Germany, and Britain - are in favor of negotiations. The head of the Chinese delegation, Zhang Yan, joined in the criticism, though without specifically naming the US, referring to “destabilizing factors” in the global security situation, including “sticking to the Cold War mentality, pursuing unilateralism, [and] advocating preemptive strategy”. A dissident Iranian group exposed Iran’s main nuclear site in 2002, sparking speculation about the true intentions of Tehran’s nuclear program and leading to a two-year investigation by inspectors from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). On Monday, the US said Iran should not be allowed to benefit from the protection of the IAEA any longer, although no incriminating evidence was found to indicate that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons.

To: elmatador who wrote (63394)	5/6/2005 7:09:12 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<<US commander: Military unable to win new wars>> Hmmmnnnn. Perhaps this revelation, or the underlying truth of the matter, is not priced into the markets, for equity, bond (not even GM / Ford junk), real estate, currencies, precious metals, or energy. In any case, I attach following "watch & brief" on the state of Yukos, and the Just Is of Russia. Remember my pondering way back on what might happen to Yukos, as if inspired, but actually just all-knowing :0) starting ... Message 20880161 <<June 2nd, 2004>> ... all way before Reuters said anything Message 20900057 <<December 30th, 2004>> ... and certainly way before those very clever people at Stratfor. Now, a bit more nonsense from Stratfor, attempting to twist what they cannot see into something they would like to see, pure entertainment: stratfor.com Russia: Targeting Yukos to Satisfy China May 05, 2005 19 27 GMT Summary The Russian and Chinese presidents signed a deal on Oct. 14, 2004, that would send 10 million tons of Russian crude -- about 200,000 barrels per day -- to China. The Russians have discovered that they lack the capacity to ship that much crude, putting the contract -- and Sino-Russian relations -- in jeopardy. Moscow will respond by once again going after the firm with surplus loading capacity: Yukos. Analysis Russian Railways, a state-owned railroad monopoly, is warning that it will be unable to ship all of the 10 million tons of crude in 2005 that Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Chinese President Hu Jintao in October 2004. Moscow's solution will be to grab the infrastructure it needs to make the contract happen from what is left of the once-mighty Yukos Oil Co. The problem is not so much that Sino-Russian railway connections cannot handle the shipments. After all, Russian oil major Yukos -- via its Yuganskneftegaz subsidiary -- regularly shipped such amounts in the days before the Kremlin crushed it in order to destroy the political ambitions of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khordokovsky. In actuality, the shortage lies not in rail shipping capacity, but in railcar loading capacity. Russian state oil firm Rosneft holds the responsibility for sending the 10 million tons to China. The kicker is that Rosneft is only in charge of the contract because it now owns the bulk of Yuganskneftegaz after a series of legally questionable tax investigations and court rulings (which, in defense of the state, took place after equally questionable tax write-offs and privatization auctions). Rosneft now controls most of Yuganskneftegaz's Siberian oil fields -- but the bulk of the equipment that Yukos used to run Yuganskneftegaz technically belonged to a different Yukos subsidiary, and so did not get handed over with the fields. Railcar-loading facilities -- along with other essential equipment such as drilling rigs -- fall into that category. For Rosneft, the course of action is fairly obvious: sue Yukos. Or to put it more accurately, sue it again. Rosneft has already brought an $11 billion suit against Yukos for what it calls "illegal and unscrupulous" tax policies that left Yuganskneftegaz with tax debts Rosneft feels it should not have to pay. Since that lawsuit -- like the original auction that landed Yuganskneftegaz in Rosneft's hands in the first place -- dovetails nicely with the government's plans of demolishing Khordokovsky's corporate empire, Stratfor fully expects Yukos to suffer another legal defeat. In parallel, we now expect to see a new lawsuit filed for assets such as the railcar-loading facilities, asserting that such assets were "stripped" away from Yuganskneftegaz by Yukos. The only question is timing. Yukos's corporate and legal power has significantly declined, but that does not mean resistance will erode quickly. After all, the first round of the Yukos saga -- from initial charges to confiscation -- took over 18 months. Without a strong push from the Kremlin on the legal system, Russia will probably miss its supply contract. Oil supplies form a key supporting plank in the often-shaky house of Sino-Russian relations. Moscow sees energy exports as an important means of both building a "strategic partnership" with Beijing, and establishing a multipolar global order that could challenge the United States. As such, the Kremlin finds itself in something of a bind. If it whispers in the ear of the legal system as it did during the original Yukos drama, it exposes itself to more charges that the rule of law is meaningless, endangering Russia's already-threadbare reputation as a good place to do business. If the Kremlin does not interfere, then China -- already promised 15 million tons of crude in 2006 -- will not view Russia as a reliable partner. Something will have to give, and whichever route the Kremlin follows will have consequences for the broad patterns of Russia's relations with the outside world.