OPEC ministers signal no output shifts
AP -- OPEC oil ministers signaled ahead of a Saturday meeting that they see no reason to change output targets given current global economic sluggishness, though they expect demand for crude will continue to grow.
"What’s missing right now is equilibrium in the price of oil," Angola’s oil minister, Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, said Friday after arriving in this Andean capital. "I think $90 dollars (a barrel) is a comfortable price."
OPEC, which is responsible for 35 percent of global oil production, has not changed its output quotas since late 2008. And last month, Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi said oil between $70 and $90 per barrel was tolerable for consumers.
He echoed that sentiment upon arrival in Quito on Friday
The 50-year-old cartel has had a good year, with prices hovering in the mid-$80 range and profits up 32 percent over 2009 to $750 billion, according to U.S. Energy Department estimates.
Oil reached a two-year high of nearly $91 on Tuesday - as traders gauged the dimensions of 2011 demand and responded to a particularly harsh onset of winter in Europe.
The International Energy Agency said Friday that stronger-than-anticipated consumption next year in North America and emerging Asian economies led by China could compel OPEC to boost supply "if prices continue their relentless rise." Continued...
Pope helped free 15 British sailors held by Iran—US cable
Politics– The Vatican helped secure the release of 15 British navy personnel detained by Iran in 2007, a US envoy to the Holy See said in a document leaked by WikiLeaks and published Friday. Julieta Noyes, US deputy chief of mission to the Vatican, made the assertion in a classified cable dated June 26, 2009, intended to set the scene ahead of US President Barack Obama’s trip to Rome the following month.
"The Vatican helped secure the release of British sailors detained in Iranian waters in April 2007."
But she provided no further detail and added: "It is unclear how much clout the Vatican really has with Iran, however"
Iran seized the British sailors on March 23, 2007, while they were on patrol near the Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran. Continued..
Terror of two Iranian scientists the last mission for Mossad chief: Russian journalist
IRNA– Editor-in-chief of a Russian weekly Alexander Proukhanov said that assaination of two Iranian scientists was the last mission of Mossad former chief Meir Dagan.
Alexander Proukhanov, Recep Safarov, and Dimitri Yurikov, three well-known Russian journalists conferred with IRNA Managing Director here on Friday evening.
In the meeting, Proukhanov said that in the past years, 15 Russian scientists were assassinated; he added that situation in Russia is very different from Iran, because Iran has many young scientists, who can be substituted immediately, while situation in Russia is on contrary.
He pointed out when a scientist in Iran get killed, other young scientists get a strong motivation and solidarity among people and officials increase.
On the contrary, in Russia when a scientist becomes a target of an assaination, the others get disappointed.
Referring to economic development in Russia during past years, Proukhanov said that there are many influential companies and persons who try to substitute German and US technologies with Russian one.
The editor-in-chief of the weekly, by referring to President Dimitri Medvedev visit to Syria and meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hamas chief Khalid Masha’l said that Moscow would never support the US policies in the region.
Concerning breach of promise of Russian officials to deliver Missiles S-300 to Iran, the journalist said he thinks when west made Moscow certain about not attacking Iran’s nuclear installations, the Russian officials gave up their idea to sell the missiles to Iran.
Presidential advisor and Managing Director of IRNA replied that Iranians will no longer wait for others and now we have reached capacities higher than S-300 missiles upon Iranian indigenous knowledge.
Javanfekr added that of course such situation for Russia, which wants to strengthen ties with Iran, would not be desirable, specially when Russians are looking at regional cooperation.
Another Russian well-known journalist Recep Safarov reminded that nuclear physics knowledge in Iran is completely indigenous and its nature is different from other countries and that is why many of scientists and experts are interested to get acquainted with this indigenous science of Iran.
He stressed that the morale of solidarity among Iranian nation and officials and the indigenous nuclear knowledge are two main factors which empower the nation to resist against all bullying powers in the world.
Official: US ready to hit Iran with new sanctions
Washington Post--The Obama administration and its European allies are prepared to impose additional sanctions on Iran if it does not meet international demands to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful, a senior U.S. official said Friday.
Gary Samore, the White House coordinator for arms control, told a Washington think tank that the U.S. and its partners will keep up pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear ambitions by maintaining and expanding existing sanctions that American officials believe are taking a toll on the Iranian economy.
"We and our allies are determined to maintain and even increase pressure," Samore told a conference on "Countering the Iranian Threat" hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "We need to send the message to Iran that sanctions will only increase if Iran avoids serious negotiations and will not be lifted until our concerns are fully addressed."
His comments came three days after a last round of inconclusive talks between top officials from the U.S., the E.U., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran. The group agreed to meet again next year but Iran’s president has said his country will not bow to pressure and that the talks will fail unless the sanctions are lifted. Continued…