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He insulted the currency and shared the video on social media. The Dubai Police have arrested a young man over a video that he posted on social media in which he can be seen insulting the UAE's national currency. In the viral video, the suspect can be seen pretend-sneezing and using a currency note to clean himself. He has been referred to the authority concerned for further action, the police said. The police said that the cybercrime law specifies a maximum fine of Dh1 million and a prison term for insulting the country or its symbols. The police also posted...

LOS ANGELES - An explosion at a hash oil manufacturer in downtown Los Angeles injured 11 firefighters who had gone inside and on the roof to try to knock down a fire and then had to run for their lives when a ball of flames shot out the building and scorched a fire truck across the street. Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott said “one significant explosion” shook the neighborhood about 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Firefighters inside had to run through a wall of flames estimated as 30 feet high and wide, and those on the roof scrambled down a...

Economic conflict between the United States and China and Russia on full display today but first.... Protesters in Maryland's capital of Annapolis today urging a full reopening of the state..... Protesters are Pennsylvania's Capitol Building in Harrisburg today pushing for a reopening of the state.... German authorities afraid as mass protests are set in major cities like Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart Saturday in opposition to the government's coronavirus policy... The United States imposing tighter chip controls on the Chinese tech firm Huawei...... Its also been announced that Taiwan Semiconductor will be opening a factory in the United States.... A German...

Well here we are in the Year of our Lord Anthony Fauci.....OK......well a set of songs ending with Noel Paul Stookey "wherever two or more are gathered...there is love" and we need "love" right now that reaches out to help others be free..... In Iowa yesterday a Republican photo op with VP Pence and GOP Governor Kim Reynolds, the GOP Senators Grassley and Ernst. They were with religious leaders and Iowa will allow regulated worship services that comply with social distancing and sanitary rules. The government regulating churches. That is so like China... And it was so like the USSR...the...

The United States stopping a United Nations Security Council vote on the coronavirus situation citing the inclusion of "false narratives" from China.... The United States tightening visa guidelines for Chinese journalists.... The unemployment rate in the United States was 14.7 percent for April...... Tesla trying to resume work at its factory in Fremont, California.... Ohio State University is paying out some 41 million dollars to settle lawsuits with 162 survivors of sexual abuse by a former school doctor.... (Warning: Disturbing Content) The woman who's accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 is ready to take a lie detector...

The last time state economists released revenue forecasts, New Mexico had a massive oil boom with no end in sight. Oh, how times have changed. Those same economists released dire revenue projections on Wednesday, suggesting New Mexico could take in between $1.7 billion and $2.4 billion less than originally expected during the next fiscal year as the novel coronavirus pandemic and plummeting oil prices take a major toll on tax revenue and royalty payments. “The outbreak of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, along with the global responses to contain the spread of the virus, places significant strain on New...

Source article is from Carlsbad Current-Argus newspaper, a USA Today paper so title and link only authorized on Free Republic.Permian Basin natural gas pipeline could be blocked by lawsuit filed by Sierra Club

By: Hassan.Mahmoudi Iran and Venezuela, both engulfed with similar crises, have economic and trade relationship since the time of Iran’s former president, Mahmood Ahmadi-Nezhad. On Thursday, May 1, Elliot Abrams, the head of Venezuela’s affairs in the US government said that during this week Iran has had many more flights to this country: "Our assumption is that those planes that come from Iran are bringing things for the oil industry, and they return full of gold as a form of payment," El Politico quoted Elliot Abrams, the U.S. Special manager for Venezuela as saying. On April 30, 2020, the Bloomberg...

Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash has been shipped from Russia to Venezuela, providing a lifeline to the South American country as U.S. sanctions limit its access to the global financial system. A total of $315 million of U.S. dollar and euro notes were sent in six separate shipments from Moscow to Caracas from May 2018 to April 2019, according to data reviewed by Bloomberg from ImportGenius, which compiled Russian customs records it obtains through private sources. ...As a consequence of the scrutiny, the central bank is conducting more transactions in cash, sometimes offering local clients access to euro...

Global energy demand could slump by 6% in 2020 due to the restrictions placed on homes and industry in what would be the largest contraction in absolute terms on record, according to Paris-based IEA, which advises industrialised nations on energy. The slump would lead to a drop in carbon dioxide emissions of 8%, six times larger than the biggest fall of 400 million tonnes recorded in 2009 following the global financial crisis, according to the IEA, which described its estimate as conservative. ... Carbon intensive coal demand has so far been hit the hardest by the pandemic, with demand in...

Iraq’s revenues plummeted in April amid a historic oil price crash, the Oil Ministry said Friday, raising concerns over how the country will cope with severe financial shortfalls while struggling to contain the coronavirus pandemic. The crude-dependent economy earned just $1.4 billion in oil revenues last month, at an average price of $13.8 per barrel, according to data released by the ministry, a sixth of average figures from before the oil price crash... The figures provide the first tangible indication of the desperate circumstances facing Iraq as officials struggle to determine how to implement austerity measures — expected to be...

The Federal Reserve made some changes to its Main Street Lending Program according to a Thursday press release by the central bank that will now extend a much-needed lifeline to the U.S. oil industry. As bankruptcies, capex cuts, and unfavorable financial reports from Q1 start to trickle into the US shale patch, more oil companies in peril will now be able to tap the Main Street fund that was set up to render aid to small and medium sized businesses. Prior to today, those funds were not available to companies who had more than 10,000 employees and $2.5 billion in...

Oil prices surged for a third straight day Thursday amid evidence that fuel demand is starting to return, compounding the benefit from production cuts by the world’s largest producers starting on May 1. West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, was trading up 17 percent at $17.65 per barrel while Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, was higher by 13 percent at $25.43 per barrel. The energy components fell 75 percent and 65 percent, respectively, this year through Wednesday.

WASHINGTON/LONDON/DUBAI - As the United States pressed Saudi Arabia to end its oil price war with Russia, President Donald Trump gave Saudi leaders an ultimatum. In an April 2 phone call, Trump told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that unless the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started cutting oil production, he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from the kingdom, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The threat to upend a 75-year strategic alliance, which has not been previously reported, was central to the U.S. pressure campaign that...

Oil prices moving downwards today with a barrel of West Texas Intermediate at 12.58 a barrel.... Two motorcyle officers rammed by a car driving in the wrong direction in a Paris suburb today.... The Syrian government says that three civilians were killed and four wounded in an early morning Israeli airstrike on the Damascus area..... The US military denying a Syrian Arab News Agency Report that two American soldiers are missing...... Fighting reported in Syria between members of the HTS Al Qaeda forces and Turkish soldiers in the Greater Idlib region.... The United States military killed and injured civilians in...

Dozens of oil tankers anchor off the Californian coast near Los Angeles and Long Beach as the reduced demand for oil takes hold. The tankers are acting as storage tanks for oil as demand has reduced throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

As oil prices have plummeted to levels never before seen, a rift has opened among the companies that extract crude. Some of them say state regulators should force producers to pump less in the hopes such regulation will raise prices. Others say no, just let the market do its job. While Texas, an oil-producing behemoth, is weighing the controversial idea of imposing limits, New Mexico, now an oil powerhouse in its own right, has largely stayed out of that debate. Depending where oil prices go and what other states decide to do, there may come a point when the state...

Here's a pretty dramatic shot of a whooole lotta oil parked off the coast of Southern California.

More than 25 oil tankers are currently floating off the Southern California coastline as the demand for oil plummets. The U.S. Coast Guard filmed video that shows 27 tankers anchored in waters just off the coast by the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach as of Thursday afternoon. Stay-at-home orders across the country have led to a dramatic reduction in the demand for crude oil and now the tankers have no place to deliver the product and instead have become floating storage tanks.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. shale producers, refiners and pipeline companies are scrambling for cash and face likely restructuring as they struggle under heavy debt loads while engulfed in the worst crisis the oil industry has faced. SNIP About half of the top 60 independent U.S. oil producers are in danger of restructuring and will need to find ways to boost their cash pile, according to energy lawyers at Haynes and Boone. SNIP Demand, however, is down by roughly 25% in the United States, and oversupply is expected to linger for months. An April survey of energy producers by the...