Posted on 05/22/2008 8:33:34 AM PDT by Ooh-Ah
Iran and Venezuela will launch a joint bank to fund development projects, as ties between two of the fiercest critics of US ”imperialism” continue to strengthen.
It is the latest in a string of almost 200 co-operative ventures worth more than $20bn signed since 2001 in an attempt to circumvent international isolation.
The bi-national bank, to be based in Tehran, will have an initial capital base of $1.2bn, with each country contributing half of the start-up funds. The foreign ministry in Tehran, which is overseeing the bank, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Other agreements between OPEC’s biggest price hawks, which together account for around a fifth of the oil cartel’s output, include oil and gas exploration deals, as well as building factories for products as diverse as tractors, bicycles and corn flour.
Many projects have so far failed to materialise, however. ”While they have signed a lot of economic agreements which have had very little follow through, this bank is very important as they seem to be actually taking concrete steps to implement it,” says Dan Erikson, an analyst at the Washington-based think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue.
Venezuela has also driven proposals to establish the Bank of the South, to which South American nations are expected to contribute collectively some $7bn, but the project appears to have stalled over difficulties in determining the bank’s precise functions. Relations between Iran and Venezuela, which analysts say are guided more by geopolitics than economics, have blossomed since presidents Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad and Hugo Chávez took office.
Both leaders have repeatedly made visits to each other’s capitals - during one visit to Tehran last year, Mr Chávez gave his counterpart an Airbus A340-200 as a sign of friendship.
”The fact that Chávez is clearly serious about deepening ties with Iran indicates that he is not particularly concerned about how he is seen in Washington right now,” said Mr Erikson, referring to a debate currently taking place over whether Venezuela should join Iran on the US’s blacklist of countries classified as ”state sponsors of terror”.
The Venezuelan government is accused of supporting Farc, the Colombian rebel group.
Washington also criticised Venezuela earlier this year for allowing passengers on board its weekly flight from Tehran without proper screening, causing fears that terrorists and arms have been transported on the aircrafts. Venezuela has denied the accusations.
More recently, US congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has pushed for a federal investigation to establish whether Venezuela’s wholly-owned US subsidiary Citgo is benefiting from co-operation agreements with Iran, violating US embargoes.
Ouch....Reminds me of Cuba and Russia and the missile crisis. I remember being on the edge of my chair in school...I was very young...and it was at a time where we had regular air raid drills in school.
What is the over-under on who steals the most money the quickest and promptly blames the other partner?
Our troops better start brushing up on their espanol. We’ll be fighting Venezuela and the S.American nations soon. Welcome to the preamble to WWIII
Iran & Venezuela use oil tankers to manipulate global markets9 May 2008
Do you wonder why the price of oil has skyrocketed of late? Purportedly the governments of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are engaged in a major covert effort to keep the world’s oil tanker fleets from carrying petroleum to the thirsty global markets that need it. This is according to reliable sources who monitor the tanker industry, and sources within the American law enforcement community. The Iranian government has leased and engaged the bulk of the available supertankers, and smaller vessels and is storing oil in ten of them in the Persian Gulf, and keeping others idle whilst under lease or charter. The government of Venezuela is allegedly assisting Iran in this manipulative practice, which has resulted in the tripling of the daily charge for tanker use since April, because of a fifty per cent drop in vessel availability during the next thirty days, this is according to authoritative industry sources. Is this the functional equivalent of a declaration of economic war against the United States? What will the response be, and when will it occur?
Here is what we know so far:
A large number of tankers lie at anchor in the Persian Gulf, and elsewhere, all leased by Iran and Venezuela, and all therefore unavailable to carry oil for other prospective charter clients.
Iran has also commenced to lease tankers in the spot, or single-trip, market, where it had previously used only its own vessels. This of course, is a delberate act to tie up additional tankers. Its transparent claim, that it is storing grades of oil which have low global demand, cannot be taken seriously, as all levels of quality are urgently needed for the increased consumption rate.
Venezuela has a clasified agreement with Iran that requires it to engage available tankers, in support of the Iranian objective, which is to delay, and ultimately, deny oil shippers transport to needy consumer markets, thus driving up oil prices to stratospheric levels, and benefitting both countries financially. Notwithstanding its own oil revenues, Venezuela’s economy is in a shambles, and its government has distributed both large amounts of dollars and free or discounted oil, all to fund radical political movements in Latin America. It is in desperate need of more money, and this dark maneuver could accomplish this, though at a high cost to the rest of the world.
The Iranian scheme will not only disrupt global markets, it could cause serious economic distress in both North America and Europe. Since we know that the US government is aware of the scheme, it should also be assumed that they have planned an adequate response, whether it be major regulatory sanctions, universal economic sanctions, limited military action, or even general war.
At this point, country risk evaluators must assume the worst, and create contingency plans to respond to any of these possiblities, no matter how remote the chance that they may occur.
http://www.world-check.com/articles/2008/05/09/iran-venezuela-use-oil-tankers-manipulate-gliobal-/
bttt
We need to attack both of them.
I wonder what they plan on using it for? Another terror attack somewhere.
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