With plunging oil prices, the consumers are clearly thrilled but the oil producers, particularly OPEC, not so much. This video below and the image, courtesy of CNN, clearly explains the gigantic complexities that impacts the price of oil. With $2/gallon already in some parts of the US, the current geopolitical scene will get even more volatile in the months ahead.
Image courtesy: CNN Money
(Source: Telegraph, UK via Reddit)
Allowing women drivers in Saudi Arabia will tempt them into sex, promote pornography and create more homosexuals, according to some conservative Muslim scholars.
Saudi women will have to languish little longer in their plush,& palatial homes and continue their wait for tasting the freedom of driving that so many women around the world take it for granted. The following appeared in today’s Telegraph (and in many news sites on the web): “Academics at the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, which is Saudi Arabia‘s highest religious council, said the relaxation of the rules would inevitably lead to “no more virgins”. The academics, working in conjunction with Kamal Subhi, a former professor at the conservative King Fahd University, produced the conclusions in a report for the country’s legislative assembly, the Shura Council.” Click here to read the full story.
Editor’s note: So, how is the world reacting to this news? As always, the brilliant global hive of Redditors made quite a few interesting comments/remarks on this women-no-drive policy shoved down the throats of Saudi women. Jokes apart, it brings up many serious questions. Many Islamic nations across the globe, such as Malaysia & Bahrain, are as staunchly religious as Saudi Arabia but have understood the value of freedom and enabled their women to drive. No Malaysian cleric will ever step up and utter such non-sense statements and get away with it easily. Heck, at this point one can go on the limb and say even the most oppressive of regimes such as Myanmar and North Korea don’t treat their women like some 2nd class citizens. What is up with the Saudi’s and their obsession with female virgins?
I pity the plight of the Saudi head of state. His situation is like someone caught between the devil and the deep sea. On one side, he must be nervously watching the revolutions sweeping across the Middle East and on the other side, he has to deal with these religious zealots stoking anti-regime sentiments with such recommendations, and ordering how others should live based on their own interpretation of a religious manual. If anything, Saudi monarchs have an ultimate decision to make here and determine if they will side with the rest of the world and treat their women as equals and not second class citizens. Let’s us sincerely hope that the women will ultimately win their freedom.
Here are a couple of related articles published over a period on Transportgooru.com:
(Source: Mashable)
Image Courtesy: Position2.com
The women of Saudi Arabia, who are steadfastly fighting the monarchy for the right to drive, today received a shot in the arm for their ongoing campaign from their counterparts across the oceans. Social media website Mashable.com report the on the development (excerpt):
Fourteen female United States senators have sent a letter to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, asking him to lift the ban that keeps women from driving within the kingdom.
The letter — dated July 26 — comes as a major boost for an ongoing social media campaign against the ban.
The bipartisan letter admits that the kingdom has recently taken some steps that advance women’s rights, including the appointment of its first woman deputy minister and the establishment of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, “the only university in Saudi Arabia that allows women to study alongside men and where women are allowed to drive motor vehicles on campus.”
The 14 senators aren’t the only female politicians to throw their support behind the Women2Drive movement. In the recent months, a number of House of Representatives members — including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.— also expressed their support for the campaign last month. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at a news conference, following a Change.org petition started by activist coalition Saudi Women for Driving, calling the women’s efforts brave. On the other side of the Atlantic, the European Union’s Catherine Ashton, high representative and European Commission vice president, has also issued statements to show her support.
The question remains how much these external forces can sway the King and the his key decision-makers, who are fighting for their own battle against the hardcore religious zealots jockeying for control/power within the Kingdom. Let’s hope the Women of Saudi Arabia win their freedom soon.
(Source: AFP via Yahoo News; The National)
The Mashair Railway, also known as Mecca Metro, rolls out on Sunday to serve pilgrims beginning the annual hajj rituals near the Muslim holy city, bringing a new solution to crowding.
The dual-track light railway, with its initial number of nine stations, connects the three holy sites of Mina, Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat — areas that see massive congestion during the five-day pilgrimage.
Some other interesting nuggets:
Image Courtesy: Go-makkah.com
This will be the first of two rail links aimed at easing pilgrim traffic. The much larger Haramain High Speed Rail, which will travel through the Red Sea city of Jeddah, is set to stretch 444 kilometres (275 miles) between Mecca and Medina, the second Muslim holy site. The first phase of the high-speed rail network expected to cost $1.8Billion, will be built by another multi0national team, including local Al-Rajhi construction group, France’s Alstom and China Railway Engineering. The trains are expected to reach an operational speed of 225 miles/hr and ease traffic of pilgrims between the two sites.
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the cartel of oil producers, celebrates its 50th anniversary on September 14th. The organisation was founded in 1960 with the explicit purpose of manipulating oil prices by controlling supplies. It has generally proved successful. Here are some interesting nuggets for you to chew while you dig deeper in your pockets to pay for that gallon of gasoline/diesel at your neighborhood gas station:
1. OPEC controls around 80% of the world’s proven reserves
2. Over 40% of the worlds production among its 12 member states.
2. Price of oil in the market these days is $75, which the Saudi’s rave as the “ideal price”.
It begs the question who says what’s the ideal price of oil? Speculative investors in the markets around the world are not helping the cause either. It makes you think why are we so hesitant to move away from the fossil fuels and into some other non-petro fuel to power our lives! This group of oil selling, Armani wearing, kingdom-ruling thugs are no different than the Drug cartels who organize and manipulate the market for a different kind of commodity.
An interesting post on Askmen.com goes into great details about the organization. One of the most shocking that I learned from this article is discussed in the next few paragraphs: “Cartels are illegal in many countries. In the U.S., for example, OPEC is in direct violation of antitrust laws, such as the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 — the same act that broke up Standard Oil, American Tobacco and Ma Bell. Antitrust laws don’t criminalize monopolies per se, only if the monopoly is used to eliminate its competition through methods of production or price-fixing.
Ordinarily, U.S. antitrust laws explicitly prohibit dealing with cartels. What makes OPEC so special? Simple: Congress grants OPEC diplomatic immunity from prosecution and in essence treats it as though it were a sovereign nation, even though this is not remotely the case. This status was tested in 1978, when the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), a non-profit labor organization in the U.S., filed suit against OPEC under the Sherman Act. In 1981, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the case, claiming OPEC was protected by its sovereign immunity status.
In 2007, a pair of controversial bills were introduced in Congress designed to amend antitrust laws to include OPEC. If the measures are approved in both houses and the president doesn’t veto it, individuals harmed by OPEC in the U.S. can begin to sue the organization. If this were to happen, few expect OPEC to continue doing business with the U.S.”
Now, would you agree with me that many of the Congressmen and women seem to be in bed with the OPEC?
The Saudi government is building a $1.8 billion monorail to ferry pilgrims among the holy sites of Mecca, Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifah. Once complete, the Saudis estimate 53,000 buses will disappear from the city’s crowded roads, promising a safer, more comfortable pilgrimage. (FYI – For those not in the know, Monorail is a single rail serving as the track for a wheeled or (magnetically) levitating vehicle, has been rapidly paving its way as a modern urban transit system, providing the most-sought-after transportation solutions for a built-up congested city.)
The monorail will be built over the next four years, with the first segment — roughly 35 percent of the project, by one estimate — opening in time for this year’s Hajj between November 25 and 29. Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims must complete if they have the means and ability to do so, is the fifth Pillar of Islam and as such attracts a staggering number of pilgrims.
Arab News quotes Dr. Habeeb Zain Al-Abidine, the Deputy Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Secretary-General of the Commission for Development of Makkah, Madinah and the Holy Sites , saying that a feasibility study conducted by an international company had proposed five monorails linking the holy sites. The project is expected to facilitate the transportation of more than three million pilgrims between the holy sites. “The feasibility study suggested the second monorail be built two to three years after the construction of the first one,” he said, adding that a single monorail would cost SR4 billion. The first monorail beginning from Mina will transport nearly one million pilgrims including 360,000 Arab pilgrims. The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), the Ministry of Transport and the Higher Commission for the Development of Makkah and Madinah have all reviewed a study of the project and welcome it. The study was prepared by the International Transport Projects Company, which is now contacting Saudi authorities to obtain the appropriate license to implement the project.
The Arab News also says that Makkah monorails will be 8 to 10 meters above the ground to ensure smooth flow of pedestrians and vehicles. “The monorail project will help withdraw about 53,000 buses and other vehicles being used by pilgrims coming by land from within the Kingdom and neighboring GCC countries,” the report said.
The committee said the monorail would pass by three stations in Arafat, Muzdalifah and Mina. The last station in Mina will be on the fourth flour of the Jamarat Bridge. Controlled access to the monorail is intended to avoid accidents such as the tragedy at Mina in 2006, when more than 350 people died in a stampede after two busloads of pilgrims disembarked at the entrance to the Jamarat Bridge holy site. Trains on four elevated tracks will carry as many as 20,000 pilgrims an hour in an orderly fashion. The project also includes parking facilities so that pilgrims can park their cars at the entrance of Makkah and then board the monorail.
Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf announced plans to establish a new railway system linking the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emriates. “GCC leaders have given preliminary approval for the project. The final decision will depend on its feasibility,” Al-Assaf said.
Talking about Chinese role in building railway infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the other rail project is 275-mile high-speed rail system linking Mecca and Medina through Jeddah to be built by China Railway Engineering. China’s involvement in both projects (HSR and Monrail) reportedly was clinched during Chinese Prime Minister Hu Jintao’s visit to Saudi Arabia in February, during which representatives of Chinese Railway Corp. met with Saudi Prince Miteb bin Abdulaziz, chairman of the commission for developing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. (FYI – The Mecca deal highlighted the growing role of China in Saudi Arabia’s plan to commit 450 billion riyals (S$180 billion) to major infrastructure, education and new cities projects over the next five years. China is already one of the top buyers of oil from Saudi Arabia, importing 36 million tonnes of Saudi crude last year, according to Chinese figures.)
Mansour Al-Maiman, secretary-general of PIF and chairman of Saudi Railway Company, said the North-South Railway would be ready next year for the transportation of minerals. He said the passenger railway linking Riyadh, Sudair, Qassim and Hail would be floated for tenders within a few days, adding that the work on the project would be completed by 2012. Once complete, the North-South rail link woulc connect mineral-rich Jalamid belt with smelters in Ras Al-Zour near the eastern industrial city of Jubail.
The North-South Railway is given priority due to its importance to industrial development. It is integral to planned phosphate and bauxite mining projects in the north of the country that will link up with processing and smelters on the Gulf coast. French defense group Thales and construction giant Saudi Binladin Group were awarded an SR1.7 billion ($453 million) contract to build signaling, ticketing, communications and security systems for the 2,400-km long North-South Railway.
(Source: Autoblog, Bloomberg & ThisDay)
America might get most of its oil from Canada, but the moves that Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) makes still reverberate here. Thus, a statement by the Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Abdullah al-Sabah to reporters yesterday probably won’t help decrease domestic gasoline prices any time soon. OPEC’s al-Sabah said that the organization will not consider increasing production until the price of a barrel of oil reaches $100.
Crude oil traded in New York has climbed almost 60 percent this year, after plunging more than $100 in five months at the end of 2008 as the global recession curbed demand for fuel.
Oil futures rose above $71 a barrel yesterday for the first time in seven months, and traded at $71.18 as of 9:14 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
OPEC had in the wake of the record oil plunge noted that its revenue had been adversely affected, a development which prompted members countries to set back 35 of the 150 projects due to come on line in the next few years to expand supply. OPEC predicted stronger demand as it decided May 28 in Vienna to keep production quotas unchanged. OPEC agreed at three meetings last year that the 11 members with production quotas would reduce output by 4.2 million barrels a day.
OPEC Secretary General, Abdalla El-Badri , had stated that falling prices of crude oil would not only affect investments in both the upstream and downstream, but will delay future investments.
He raised fears that if the present situation does not change, it will lead to cancellation of future investments and automatically affect oil supply to the market.Following the recent price rally, OPEC at its May 28 meeting agreed to leave outputs at their present levels. Lead producer, Saudi Arabia had predicted that oil prices would likely rise to around $75 a barrel by the end of the year on the back of growing demand in Asia .
OPEC President, Angola ’s Oil Minister, Botelho de Vasconcelos had noted that oil should be between $70 and $75 a barrel to cover the costs of production.OPEC’s Director of Research, Hasan Qabazard , had at an Energy conference a fortnight ago expressed fears that oil prices could fall again because fundamentals were still weak.The OPEC scribe had noted that oil markets were still weak, pointing out that the current price “rally may be unsustainable in the short term because the “rally is driven by funds rather than fundamentals”. However, United States investment bank, Goldman Sachs had stated that a potential economic rebound alongside production cuts by the OPEC could prop up price to $85 a barrel by the end of the year and $95 a barrel by the end of 2010.
TransportGooru Musing:
1. The power of the cartel and its influence in manging the oil prices can only be countered with sustained investments world over in alternative fuel technologies such as electric vehicles ( like in US, Japan and Europe) and hydrogen technology (Norway has a solid lead here).
2. The developing economies are going to have a tougher time in this round compared against the previous years, especially with the recession still showing its strong grip in many countries. Especially, for China and India high oil prices can be crippling as they are battling to out of the recession.
3. Speculative trading in the markets should be reined in (a very hard to execute. Period.
4. Above all, the only real sense of control remaining for ordinary people against this oil mafia is to simply repeat what they did in 2008 – stop driving unless it is really, really necessary. If there is a transit alternative, park the damn car and take the bus or train. Try and find if you have a carpool option available in your city. It might be ridiculous to think about this “shun your car” as an option here. But the secret lies in the “power of one” – as an individual your contribution might be negligible but if done effectively in every community it can make a serious impact.
(Source: Lede – New York Times)
A young Saudi woman has launched an online campaign using YouTube,Facebook and Flickr to get Saudis to discuss, and possibly reconsider, the ban on women drivers in the Kingdom.
Image: "We The Women" campaign @ Flickr
As an article published last month in the English-language Saudi newspaper Arab News explained, the project, called “We the Women,” was started by a 24-year-old Saudi woman studying design in the United States who asked to be identified only by her first name, Areej. According to Arab News, she started thinking about how onerous the ban was when she saw that her retired father was forced to spend much of his time “chauffeuring her, her mother and three sisters.”
Image: "We The Women" campaign @ Flickr
The core of the campaign is a set of stickers, in the form of speech bubbles and bumper stickers, which Saudi men and women are encouraged todownload from Flickr, fill in with their thoughts, and then display. Some people are also taking pictures of what they write on their stickers and then adding those photographs to the project’s Flickr set of “Declarations.”
Printed at the foot of each sticker is the simple message: “To drive, or not to drive, that is the question.”
As the project description on Flickr explains, the woman behind it wants to hear other voices, not just amplify her own:
We the Women is a campaign that aims to raise the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia and to start a real, public conversation. The We the Women declaration bubbles and bumper stickers were created as a space for self expression. Feel free to fill it out with your opinion on the issue and stick it wherever you feel it needs to be.
The images of the speech bubbles posted on Flickr so far have already sparked debate. Here is part of an exchange the woman running the project had in the comments thread beneath a speech bubble that said, simply, “I don’t like the backseat!” with two other Flickr users, calling themselves Mac Moo and Mr. Nice 2009 (web punctuation intact):
Mac Moo says:
lol….my dear….u are goood at writing,,,but its for your own safety… women must not left alone…in islam…and thats for good of both man and women…. you know how exactly west world is…..i think the government is doing it rite.
N7nu – We the Women says:
just to clarify…This is a user submission. I did not write this. Secondly, do you think that if women were allowed to drive we would be westernized as a society? How come women in the time of the prophet were allowed to ride camels. Isn’t that the same thing?
ALGIERS (AFP) – OPEC wants to see oil prices rising to more than 70 dollars a barrel, the oil cartel’s secretary general Abdalla El-Badri said Sunday.
“The price of 50 dollars is not enough to cover investment costs for the future,” El-Badri told reporters in Algiers.
“The price which allows reasonable and acceptable revenues is more than 70 dollars a barrel,” he added.
El-Badri was speaking after talks with Energy Minister Chakib Khelilahead of the next meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna on May 28.
“There are positive signs of a recovery in the world economy, which we have to take into account before taking a decision on the future,” he added, in response to a question regarding a possible cut in oil production.
“Our forecasts are coherent, those of the IEA (International Energy Agency) are exaggerated,” he added.
On April 15, OPEC lowered its forecast for demand for crude oil in 2009 because the drop in consumption caused by the worldwide recession.
It now says production will drop by 1.6 percent, or 1.37 million barrels a day, down to 84.18 mbd. Its previous report in March forecast a drop of 1.01 million barrels a day to 85.55 mpd.
The IEA, in its latest forecast earlier this month, cut oil consumption by 1.0 million barrels a day for 2009 to 83.4 million barrels, citing the weak global economy as a factor.
TransportGooru Musing: With the entire world moving with heavy investments towards alternative energy such as electric vehicles, OPEC’s “The price of 50 dollars is not enough to cover investment costs for the future” sounds idiotic. OPEC will continue to survive as a group until the developing economies in Asia and Africa figure a way out of oil-dependency.
(Source: BBC via Autoblog; Photo: Saudi Jeans via Autoblog)
Saudi Arabia recently instated a new type of license plate that is expected to be fitted to 49 million cars in the kingdom. As opposed to the old Arabic-only plates, the new plates feature Arabic and Latin letters and numbers. Drivers can even request that the three letters on the lower right form certain 3-letter English words, like “nut.”While it’s a creative interpretation, it’s not exactly what the Colorado mother of three vegetarian kids had in mind. Coffman-Lee is a vegan, and as she puts it, “I’m very expressive. I’m anti-fur, anti-rodeo, anti-circus when they come to Denver, and I thought, ‘Here’s a chance to be positive and say I love something.'” She even says that a friend at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal (PETA) liked the idea so much they were willing to pay the $60 plate fee.Hopefully, with a little explanation and maybe even a tasty sample of the jiggly white stuff, the rejection will be overturned and her car can become the vegetarian-message-on-wheels that it was meant to be.
