6139008-History-of-Money

the biggest project the company has taken on since its Saudi Arabian investment more than fifty years ago. This time, theRussians are probably not swayed much by the relative amount of money they can make: the real interest is an economiclever they can use to pressure Kazakhstan.New developments are even more bizarre. There have been intermittent hints of pipelines through Afghanistan andPakistan to the Indian Ocean. They would export natural gas from Turkmenistan and oil from Kazakhstan, but they cannotbe built while there is still a vicious civil war in Afghanistan. It is not a coincidence that the northern warlords are backedby Russian aid. The last thing that Russia wants is an outlet to the south for the Caspian oil and gas. Now the Kazakh aretalking to the Chinese. The Chinese project an energy shortage as their economy booms. A pipeline from Kazakhstanacross Sinkiang to industrial China would be expensive to build, but could make up much of China's projected energydeficit. But who is going to finance it? The Japanese would once have been candidates, but they have economic problemscurrently. Nothing is ever simple, and as I write trouble is brewing in the Black Sea. Most people have thought that thedifficult part of oil delivery from Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan would be in getting it to the Black Sea. Now, it seems, that maynot be true. Transit to the Mediterranean is most cheaply accomplished by tanker, but that involves navigation throughthe crowded passage of the Bosphorus. A tanker grounded and burst into flames there only a few years ago, and Turkeyis worried that a major disaster could occur even at current levels of traffic, let alone with the increased traffic that wouldresult from new oil flowing from Novorossiysk. Constraints on tankers will undoubtedly increase.That means that oil is more likely to transit to the Mediterranean in pipelines, which means major capital invested interminals on the Black Sea coast and the Mediterranean coast. Turkey seems to have assumed that any pipelines wouldpass through its territory, an attractive proposition to a country that has no oil of its own, and has been subject to somepolitical pressure from its oil-rich Arab neighbors to the south. In fact, the whole pressure on tanker traffic may be aTurkish ploy to ensure just that: the Russians seem to think so. What the Turks would like most of all is a pipeline acrossTurkey to Ceyhan, a modern oil-shipping terminal that currently has no oil to ship because of the UN embargo on Iraqi oilthat used to reach the Mediterranean at Ceyhan. So even the Middle East intrudes on the Caspian situation... So, theRussians have begun to press for a pipeline that would pass through Bulgaria and Greece to the Mediterranean, bypassingthe Turks altogether. This has the Turks furious, especially as they are historic enemies of the Greeks. Thisenmity is matched, however, by an ancient enmity between the Greeks and the Bulgars (a great Greek hero is anEmperor of Byzantium called "Basil the Bulgar-Slayer"), so we shall have to wait to see how this whole matter is resolved.It all depends on the successful delivery of Azeri and Kazakh oil to the Black Sea, and as we have seen, that is not yet asure thing for the near future.The Spratlys are a group of islands, mostly coral reefs, atolls and sand bars, scattered in the South China Sea. Most ofthem are so low that they are under water at high tide, and none is large enough to have any inhabitants. Until recently,they were visited only by fishermen, lurking pirates, and ships straying off course. There was no real reason for anynation to claim the Spratlys, and although there have been various claims at various times, no nation has ever occupiedthe Spratlys, or exploited them economically. The Spratlys sit alongside the major ocean routes between Asia and theMiddle East. Much of the World's oceanic commerce through the Western Pacific from the Middle East goes through oraround the Spratly Islands, including most of Japan's oil imports (which come from the Middle East). Perhaps moreimportant, the South China Sea may (or may not) have large oil fields that could be exploited from rigs based on theSpratlys, and that has raised for the first time in any practical sense the question of who owns them. Given an economiczone of 200 miles from the nearest land, claimants to one or more of the Spratly reefs could claim ownership of any oilreserves under the entire region.China claims the entire South China Sea, while Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei all claim at leastsome of the Spratlys. Each nation has built some sort of "permanent" structure on a reef it claims, to establish itspresence there. In 1988, the Vietnamese and Chinese navies briefly clashed over the Spratlys, with Vietnam losing sixships. In 1995, small-scale disputes began to escalate again. In January 1995 group of Philippine fishermen was detainedfor a week by Chinese "troops" on Mischief Reef, which is 150 miles west of the Philippine island of Palawan. Though it isunderwater even at low tide, Mischief Reef is claimed as Philippine territory by the Manila government. Also in January1995, Vietnam dismissed a warning from China on some disputed islands where the Vietnamese, with Russiancollaboration, were conducting "a geological survey". In March 1995, the Philippines announced that its military haddestroyed some "foreign markers" from an atoll and a reef. China said it had built the structures, but they were weresimply "shelters for civilian fishermen". Next, the Philippines seized 5 Chinese fishing boats in the Spratlys and arrestedmore than 60 crew members. They were charged with poaching protected sea turtles, fishing with explosives and cyanide,and illegal entry into Philippine waters. In reply, the Philippines accused China of improperly putting warships in thedisputed region and building permanent structures on Mischief Reef. Three days of talks in Beijing between China and thePhilippines failed to resolve the dispute.On March 25, 1995, a Taiwanese patrol boat fired warning shots at a Vietnamese fishing boat near an island claimed byTaiwan. Taiwan said it planned to send a group of armed patrol boats to the area, to erect a monument proclaimingTaiwan's sovereignty over the islands and to help to protect ships in the area from rampant piracy. The project wascancelled at the last minute. In May 1995 there was another confrontation at sea when two Chinese ships intercepted aPhilippine naval vessel carrying 38 journalists to see Mischief Reef. The journalists allegedly saw gun emplacements onfour clusters of metal buildings put up on the reef. The Chinese accused the Philippines of encroaching on Chinesesovereignty by taking journalists there. At the moment, this is low-level mutual harassment. But it escalated in 1999briefly, and could do so again at any time, by accident or design, with unpredictable consequences. Confrontations are stillgoing on in the Spratlys, and I shall update this story at class time.The Hidden History Of Money & New World Order Usury Secrets Revealed at last! Page 627