US looks to become major oil exporter – report
RT | July 13, 2017
The US may transform into one of the world’s top oil exporters in only a few short years due to its production increase of shale oil, an energy consulting group says.
The consultancy PIRA energy group has released a new forecast relating to the current boom of US shale oil production. The group has estimated that by 2020, US crude exports will rise to 2.25 million barrels a day. This means the production would grow to four times the amount of what was produced last year. The recent uptick of crude production in the US looks to weaken the strength of OPEC exporting countries, according to CNN Money.
This boom would put the US almost on the same level as giant oil exporters such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Jenna Delaney, an analyst at PIRA, said that “in the years ahead, these developments position the US to potentially be one of the largest exporters of crude oil in the world,” CNN reported.
Various American cities may play a big role in the success of the US export market. One city in Texas was named specifically. Delaney commented that “PIRA believes Corpus Christi is positioned to become an increasingly prominent area for US exports.”
She continued, “Corpus Christi’s proximity to the Eagle Ford formation and projected pipeline expansions connecting it to the Permian offer it access to cheap supplies, infrastructure projects, both private and public, will allow for greater export scale,” according to the Oil and Gas Journal.
There are rival countries keeping an eye on the situation in the US. OPEC, which encompasses 14 countries, was exporting an average of 25 million barrels a day in 2016. These countries stand to lose a lot due to the rise of American oil crude exports.
The US will look to rise in the ranks and start to diminish the influence of the organization in the next few years. Saudi Arabia, a top ranking member, was a top exporter last year. They sent 7.5 million barrels into other countries last year, according to CNN.
The uptick in US production of crude oil is very surprising considering the country had banned the exports way back in 1975 and only lifted the ban in 2015, according to the Economist.
An increase in the production of shale is the main reason for the surge, Delaney said. In 2014, “the industry was hit hard by a collapse in oil prices. Major producers of oil were forced to reduce investment and production declined overall,” CNN reported.
After the collapse, operators started to be more efficient in the industry. The production of US crude began to slowly grow to reach 9 million barrels a day in February 2017, the US Energy Information Administration reported, according to CNN.
As the US is supposed to ascend to the top of the ranks in crude exports, allegations have arisen that Russia is working with environmentalists in America in order to undermine the shale oil industry.
Representative Lamar Smith, (R-Texas), along with Randy Weber (R-Texas), have sent a letter, dated June 29, to US Treasury Secretary Steven Munchin, alleging that Russia is funding environmentalist groups who spoke out against health concerns related to shale drilling, in order to protect the independence of Russian gas imports. However, the letter states that there is “no paper trail” leading to any strategy set forth by Russia, The Daily Signal reported.
Netanyahu slams Ireland’s pro-Palestine stance
Press TV – July 12, 2017
Enraged by Dublin’s financial aid to anti-Israel Palestinian rights groups, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lashed out at visiting Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney over his country’s pro-Palestine policy.
Netanyahu’s office made the criticism in a statement issued on Tuesday after the premier’s meeting with Coveney in Jerusalem al-Quds.
The premier “expressed his dissatisfaction over Ireland’s traditional stance” on Palestine and urged Coveney to condemn what he called Palestinian “incitement,” the statement read.
He also challenged the top Irish diplomat over Dublin’s assistance to the “NGOs that call for the destruction of Israel,” it added.
Coveney, for his part, said in a news briefing that his discussions with Netanyahu touched on a range of issues, including Israeli settlements, the humanitarian and political situation in the blockaded Gaza Strip and the so-called peace process.
“Of course, we have clear differences on some issues, but these differences are honestly held and openly expressed,” he noted.
Ireland runs Irish Aid, an official overseas development program for overseas development.
A number of Palestinian rights groups, such as Al-Haq, Addameer and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, are funded by the program.
During his three-day trip, which began on Monday, Coveney is scheduled to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, United Nations officials and representatives from the NGOs funded by Irish Aid.
Speaking prior to his departure for the occupied territories, Coveney said he was “looking forward to hearing a diverse range of views from” the Palestinians, Israelis and NGOs.
“Of course, I will also use the opportunity to make clear Ireland’s concerns about the impact of the continuing occupation and the fact that, as things stand, the prospects of a comprehensive peace agreement remain dim,” he pointed out.
The meeting took place on the same day that Ireland’s South Dublin County Council voted unanimously to fly the Palestinian flag over the County Hall in Tallaght for a month in solidarity with the “oppressed people of Palestine.”
It has become the fourth Irish local authority to make such a move in recent months.
“I am delighted with [the] vote in solidarity with the people of Palestine. It might seem like a very small gesture but I know from the reaction to similar decisions made by other councils that today’s vote will be applauded across Palestine and elsewhere,” said Councilor Enda Fanning.
About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built illegally since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Palestinian officials say they want the resolution of the conflict with Tel Aviv based on the so-called two-state solution along pre-1967 boundaries.
However, Netanyahu has on several occasions said Israel should maintain its military occupation of the West Bank under any agreement with the Palestinians.
In recent months, the Tel Aviv regime has stepped up its illegal settlement construction activities in the occupied lands and oppressive measures against the Palestinians, leading to an increase in global anti-Israel sentiment.
BDS gains support from US Mennonite churches
MEMO | July 12, 2017
The Mennonite Church of America has voted to sell its holdings in companies that profit from the Israeli occupation, according to the Washington Post.
The church, which has over 75,000 members voted by a majority of 98 per cent to support the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign last week in Orlando.
The resolution voted upon, called on “individuals and congregations to avoid the purchase of products associated with acts of violence or policies of military occupation, including items produced in [Israeli] settlements.”
In a statement, the Mennonite Church explained its decision: “The Palestinian people have suffered injustices, violence, and humiliation, including … life under Israeli military occupation and in refugee camps throughout the Middle East.”
The church has also turned to their own $3 billion fund and asked investment managers to review all investment practices that may benefit the ongoing Israeli occupation.
Numerous churches in the US have also committed to a divestment campaign of Israeli goods, including the Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ, the Quakers, the Unitarian Universalists and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Whilst the 12.8 million-member United Methodist church did not move to support BDS outright, they have barred investment in five Israeli banks citing human rights concerns.
Read also: BDS campaign supported by African churches
Saudi’s Qatif in Mourning after Regime Killed Four Political Detainees
Father of Saudi martyr Yousef Ali Abdullah al-Mishaikhesh, after being informed of his son’s execution.
Al-Manar | July 12, 2017
Saudi Arabia’s Qatif region is in mourning on Wednesday after the ruling regime announced a day earlier it had executed four people over allegations of “conducting terror activities”.
The Saudi Interior Ministry claims that the four, who were executed in Qatif Governorate in Eastern Province, had attacked police stations and petrol officers.
The ministry identified the four men as Zaher Abdulraheem Hussein al-Basri, Yousef Ali Abdullah al-Mishaikhesh, Mahdi Mohammed Hasan al-Sayegh, and Amjad Naji Hasan Al Moaibed.
The Shia-dominated Eastern Province, particularly the Qatif region, has been the scene of peaceful demonstrations since February 2011. Protesters, complaining of marginalization in the Sunni-ruled kingdom, have been demanding reforms, freedom of expression, the release of political prisoners, and an end to economic and religious discrimination against the oil-rich region.
However, the government has responded to the protests with a heavy-handed crackdown, but the rallies have intensified since January 2016 when Saudi Arabia executed respected Shia cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an outspoken critic of the policies of the Riyadh regime.
Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s highest rates of execution. Rights groups last month expressed concern that 14 Saudi Shia individuals face execution for protest-related crimes.
Condemnation as govt bans report into who funds Britain’s extremists
RT | July 12, 2017
UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd has confirmed an already much-delayed report into the foreign funding and support of extremist groups in the UK will be banned from publication for “national security” reasons.
Rudd instead released a parliamentary written answer outlining the details of the report, which was commissioned by former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.
“Having taken advice, I have decided against publishing the classified report produced during the review in full,” she said.
“This is because of the volume of personal information it contains and for national security reasons.”
“We will be inviting privy counselors from the opposition parties to the Home Office to have access to the classified report on privy council terms.”
According to the Home Secretary’s summary, some key findings include that UK-based individual donors primarily fund extremist organizations in the UK, while some donations also came from overseas.
The report was finished six months ago, and it is thought its publication had been further delayed over government fears diplomatic links with principal Middle East ally Saudi Arabia would be at stake if had been implicated in the foreign financing of UK radical groups.
The summary said foreign aid helped individuals enter institutions that “teach deeply conservative forms of Islam and provide highly socially conservative literature and preachers to the UK’s Islamic institutions.”
Some of those individuals have since become of “extremist concern,” the report added.
The decision to permanently shelve the report has caused an outcry among opposition parties, with Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron arguing that extremism can only be tackled if full information is released, regardless of what consequences there may be for the UK’s diplomatic ties abroad.
“We cannot tackle the root causes of terrorism in the UK without full disclosure of the states and institutions that fund extremism in our country.”
“Instead of supporting the perpetrators of these vile ideologies, the government should be naming and shaming them – including so-called allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar if need be,” he said, according to Business Insider.
“It seems like the government, yet again, is putting our so-called friendship with Saudi Arabia above our values. This shoddy decision is the latest in a long line where we have put profit over principle.”
Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas also blasted the “unacceptable decision” not to publish the report, warning that it fuels speculation the government wants to cover up Saudi Arabia’s terrorist funding.
“The statement gives absolutely no clue as to which countries foreign funding for extremism originates from – leaving the government open to further allegations of refusing to expose the role of Saudi Arabian money in terrorism in the UK,” Lucas said.
For Google, the Pixels Just Hit the Fan
Sputnik – July 12, 2017
Distinguished research psychologist Robert Epstein explains why Google was recently fined $2.7 billion for one of its search-engine manipulations. This is just the beginning, he says, of bad news for a company that tracks and manipulates people on a massive scale.
Dr. Robert Epstein — The pixels have hit the fan. The EU just fined Google $2.7 billion for favoring its online comparative shopping service in its search results.
Google officials knew this fine was coming and that much worse is possible, so in August 2015, they reorganized the company so that it is now part of a holding company called Alphabet. This was not done, as Larry Page, one of the company’s co-founders, rapped at the time, to make the company “cleaner and more accountable” (what on earth does that mean?). It was likely done to try to protect the value of the stock held by the company’s major stockholders. The EU’s antitrust action against Google had been filed in April, 2015, and that got Google officials thinking. When the US Department of Justice broke up AT&T in the 1980s, the stock value dropped by 70 percent.
Google officials are nervous because they know exactly how many questionable practices they engage in every day, along with how many have been uncovered so far and how many are still unknown to authorities. My associates and I have discovered some of these practices, and we study them every day. They are brilliant, mind-blowing, and largely invisible new ways of both tracking and manipulating human behavior on an unprecedented scale, all serving a singular purpose: to make Google richer. Before I give you a few examples of the practices we are examining these days, let me put the big EU fine into a broader context.
First of all, Google can handle it. The company will likely have revenues of over $100 billion this year, so they can pay the fine painlessly, and they also have unlimited legal resources. In court, they will claim, as they always do, that they haven’t done anything wrong, that it’s just the algorithm, and that the algorithm — in its objective purity, driven by its deep digital desire to serve human needs — just happens to rank Google products above inferior ones.
This is complete nonsense. As I explain in detail in my US News essay, “The New Censorship,” Google employees have complete control over where items occur in search results. The search algorithm is just a set of computer instructions written by Google software engineers, and they manually adjust the algorithm daily to remove items from the search results it generates about — 100,000 items per year under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” law alone — or to demote companies that piss Google off.
Second, this hefty fine is just the tip of a very large digital iceberg. Bear in mind that it is based on merely one instance of search bias: putting Google’s own comparative shopping service ahead of others. A US Federal Trade Commission investigation in 2012 found that Google’s search results are generally skewed to favor its own products and services. When was the last time you Googled a movie without seeing YouTube — owned by Google — in the top search result? Both India and Russia have levied fines against the company for rigging search results, with a much larger fine still looming in India. Bear in mind also that the EU’s search-related action against Google is just one of three antitrust cases they have initiated so far; the other two concern Google’s dominance in mobile computing and advertising. Europe’s concerns about Google are so deep that in late 2014 the European Parliament voted (in a non-binding proceeding) to break Google up into pieces, reminiscent of the DOJ’s dismantling of AT&T.
These and other legal actions are all about new techniques Google has developed for tracking and manipulating people. The search engine may have started out as a simple index of web pages, but it was soon refined and repurposed. Its main purpose became to track user behavior, yielding a vast amount of information about people that Google still leverages to send out the targeted advertisements that account for most of the company’s income. The public still thinks of the Google search engine, Google Maps, Google Wallet, YouTube, Chrome, Android and a hundred other Google platforms as cool services the company provides free of charge. In fact, they are all just gussied-up surveillance platforms, and authorities around the world are finally figuring that out.
As the EU’s recent antitrust decision shows, authorities are also beginning to figure out how extensively Google is using its platforms to suppress competition and manipulate user behavior. The EU’s investigation found, for example, that when Google officials realized in 2007 that their comparative shopping service was failing, they elevated their own service in their search results while demoting competing services. This increased traffic to its service “45-fold in the United Kingdom, 35-fold in Germany, 19-fold in France, 29-fold in the Netherlands, 17-fold in Spain and 14-fold in Italy” while reducing traffic to its competitors by “85% in the United Kingdom, up to 92% in Germany and 80% in France.”
Does position in search results really affect user behavior that much? You bet. My own research has shown, for example, that favoring one political candidate in search results can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by up to 80 percent in some demographic groups. Search results that favor one perspective over another on abortion, fracking, homosexuality, you name it also dramatically shift the opinions of people who haven’t yet made up their minds. The research also shows, unfortunately, that this type of manipulation is virtually invisible to people and, worse still, that the few people who can spot favoritism in search results shift even farther in the direction of the bias, perhaps because they see the bias as a kind of social proof.
What if authorities were examining not just the dominance of Google’s comparison shopping service in the company’s search results but the dominance of, say, anything, in those results: certain brands of mobile phones or computers; political candidates who serve or interfere with the company’s needs; attitudes toward Oracle, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other companies that compete with or are in conflict with Google; news stories that are “fake” or anti-Trump or pro-Google; and on and on. Do you see how big this problem really is? And no one — at least not yet — is tracking any of this. The trillions of pieces of information Google is showing people every day are all ephemeral. They hit your eyeballs and then disappear, leaving no trace, and much or most of them favor one perspective or another. Do we really want a single company, which handles 90 percent of search in most countries, to have the power to manipulate our opinions about anything? How, over the years, has Google been exercising this power?
My newest research is showing that it is not just the order of search results we need to worry about. Here are three examples of manipulations we are currently studying which, once again, no authorities are tracking — at least not yet:
- Search suggestions: Before you even see those search results, Google typically flashes search suggestions at you. When Google introduced this feature in 2004, they showed you a long list of suggestions — usually 10 — that indicated what other people were searching for; Bing and Yahoo still do this. Google, however, now typically shows you just four suggestions that are often unrelated to what others are searching for. Instead, they show you terms they believe you are likely to click, which gives them a great deal of control over your search. One way they now manipulate searches is by strategically including or withholding negative search terms. Negative terms (like “suicide” or “crimes”) attract far more clicks than neutral or positive ones do-10-to-15 times as many in some demographic groups. By withholding negative suggestions for a perspective or person the company supports while allowing negatives to appear for a person or perspective the company dislikes, they drive millions of people to view material that shifts opinions in ways that serve the company’s needs. Four, it turns out, is the magical number of suggestions that maximize their control. It maximizes the power of the negative search term to draw clicks while also minimizing the likelihood that people will type their own search term.
- I’m feeling lucky: When you mouse over a Google search suggestion, you see a small “I’m feeling lucky” link. With this feature, Google gets people to skip seeing search results altogether; it gives the company complete control over the actual web page you see. By limiting the number of suggestions you see and then attracting you to the “lucky” link, they exert a high degree of control over what opinion you will form on issues you’re uncertain about. All of this occurs without users having any awareness of how they are being manipulated.
- The featured snippet: Google is rapidly moving away from the search engine model of tracking and manipulation toward much more powerful means. (To view a satire I wrote about Google donating its search engine to the American public, click here.) The “featured snippet” — the answer box we see more and more frequently above the search results — is one such tool we are studying. Google officials have long known that people don’t really want to see a list of 10,000 search results when they ask a question; they just want the answer. That’s what the snippet is now giving people — the answer, wrong or right, and it’s often wrong. In one of our newest experiments, the voting preferences of undecided voters shifted by 36.2 percent when they saw biased search rankings without an answer box, but when a biased answer box appeared above the search results, the shift was an astounding 56.5 percent. In other words, when you give people the answer, you have an even larger impact on their opinions, purchases, and voting preferences. Google is rapidly shifting to this new model of influence not just on its search engine, but with its new audio Home device (“Okay Google, what’s the best Italian restaurant around here?”), as well as with its new Android-based Google Assistant.
It took years for the EU to collect and analyze the terabytes of data it needed to make a case against Google in the shopping services action. Meanwhile, Google is moving light years ahead. This might always be a problem when it comes to the machinations of high-tech companies. Laws and regulations will necessarily lag way behind, unless-unless, that is, we change the game.
As The Washington Post and other media outlets reported in March 2017, about six months before the November 2016 election in the US, my associates and I deployed a Nielsen-type system for tracking search results in real time. Using custom software and a nationwide network of anonymous field agents, we were able to look over the shoulders of people as they conducted a wide range of election-related searches using Google, Bing, and Yahoo, ultimately preserving the first page of results from 13,207 searches and the 98,044 web pages to which the search results linked. We found that these searches, especially the ones conducted on Google, generally favored Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in all ten search positions on the first page of search results. Perhaps more important, we learned that our monitoring system could be used to track any of the ephemeral stimuli that Google and other tech companies are showing us every day: news feeds, advertisements, you name it.
I am now working will colleagues from Stanford, Princeton, King’s College London and a dozen other institutions to create an organization that will monitor the online behavior of Big Tech companies worldwide on a real-time basis. If we do this right, it will take only seconds, not years, to spot illegal or unethical behavior, and we might even be able to anticipate manipulations before they occur, providing evidence on an ongoing basis to journalists, regulators, legislators, law enforcement officials, and antitrust investigators. Such a system will force Big Tech companies, both now and in the future, to be more accountable to the public, and it will also help preserve the free and fair election.
In the meantime, my advice to consumers is: be wary of the information you obtain online and, more important, be cautious about the information you reveal. Learn how to increase your online privacy; it’s not that hard.
And my advice to Google officials is: cut down on the greed and arrogance. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they do turn.
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A Ph.D. of Harvard University, Robert Epstein is senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, the author of 15 books, and the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine. Follow him on Twitter @DrREpstein.
‘Politicized’ Move: Kremlin Regrets US Limit on Use of Kaspersky Lab Products
Sputnik – July 12, 2017
MOSCOW – The Kremlin regrets the United States government’s limit on the use of Russia-based global cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab products, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday as he vowed to protect its interests.
The decision was reportedly made earlier this week over company’s alleged ties with Russian intelligence services.
“We regret such decisions, but on the other hand the company has the necessary legal arsenal to defend its interests,” Peskov told reporters. “But Russia as a state will also continue to do everything possible to protect the interests of our companies.”
Commenting on the General Service Administration’s reported removal of Kaspersky Lab products from the list of approved vendors for government agencies to purchase technology, he said “we certainly know that this is a politicized decision.”
“This is a commercial company, it provides commercial services and not only competitive commercial services, but competitive commercial services around the world.”
On July 11, the Bloomberg news agency published an article which said that emails obtained by the agency’s Bloomberg Businessweek revealed that the Kaspersky Lab allegedly developed products for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and supported its agents during raids. Kaspersky Lab has denied these media allegations and reiterated its status as a private company without political ties to any country. The firm also noted its CEO Eugene Kaspersky’s repeated offer to testify before the US Congress and turn over its source code for official verification.
Russian Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolai Nikiforov said earlier that response measures cannot be ruled out if the United States banned the use of Kaspersky Lab products.