EU Moves To Ban Iran Crude Oil 361
rtoz writes with this snippet from the BBC: "EU member states have agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian crude oil to put pressure on the country over its nuclear programme. ... The US, which recently imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, welcomed the news. ... The Iranian state gets more than half of its revenue through the export of crude oil, says the BBC's James Reynolds. If Europe does stop buying, Iran will have to turn to countries in Asia to replace its lost trade, who will demand a discount, he adds."
Re:Cutting the nose to spite the face (Score:5, Informative)
With few exceptions the Chinese are working in conditions of one sort or another which would be illegal here, even if they are not literal slaves literally being whipped
In a communist economy, the population are slaves. Literal whips are replaced by the Type 56 [wikipedia.org] and threats to your family.
As for the rest of your comment, I agree.
Re:Cutting the nose to spite the face (Score:4, Informative)
The British turned against the Jews in 1939 and sided with the Arabs specifically to continue the flow of oil to their country during WW2. I don't think the creation of a Jewish state and oil have any real connection. Walter Rothschild (a zionist Jew) was the one behind the creation of a Jewish state, and it was presented under the auspice of having a territory on the east side of the mediterranean to facilitate troop movements to India in case they began to lose the Raj. Unfortunately for them they had to sell the Indians their freedom to stay in WW2.
Q.E.D. Israel (the Jews there, anyways) never had any bearing or leverage on oil in the region.
disclaimer: I'm not trying to push any sort of agenda, I'm just trying to point out that this line of thought is wrong
Re:Why does Iran deny having a nuclear programme? (Score:5, Informative)
So was in Brazil. You can't just send your spies to look at everything in every country witht he guise of working for the UN. After both sides agreed on a "looking" methodology, the inspectors were permited in. In both of those countries.
When the US invaded Iraq, the UN inspectors had access to all the countries infrastructure.
Re:The EU are surely better than this... (Score:5, Informative)
Can you name a single EU country that is self-sufficient in oil?
the UK
The UK is a net oil importer, and has been since around 2004. Output peaked in 1999 and has been declining since. ("The rate of decline has ranged from 6% to 17%, year-on-year.... The UK produced an average of 2.72 million barrels a day (mbpd) in 1999, hitting a high of 3.1 mbpd in August. But by June 2005 this had fallen to 1.7 mbpd, a drop of 34%.") Is UK oil output running on empty? [bbc.co.uk])
Norway
Norway is not in the EU. It is a net oil exporter but exports have been declining since 1993. see Oil_production_Norwegian_North_Sea.png [wikipedia.org] and oil-production-norway.gif [energyinsights.net]. They hit peak oil in 2001, so reversal of this decline seems unlikely unless they can discover and bring big new fields online. (They will undoubtedly bring more small fields online, the issue is whether this will be enough to compensate for decline in the existing fields) Only 12% of European oil comes from Norway, and they do not have the production capacity to increase this significantly.