sg.biz.yahoo.com January 31, 8:56 PM

KARACHI (Dow Jones)--Pakistan's petroleum retail prices will rise an average of 2.4% because of increasing international prices amid the threat of war in Iraq and a strike in crude-giant Venezuela, the oil industry said in a statement Friday.

"In the backdrop of the Iraq crisis and a strike that has disrupted crude exports from Venezuela, prices of crude oil and products have undergone a sharp increase," the Oil Companies' Advisory Committee said in a statement.

The committee, which comprises oil marketing companies and refineries, said oil prices in the Gulf region have risen to their highest level since July 2001.

ADVERTISEMENT Pakistan buys most of its crude and products from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

The statement said light Arabian crude rose 6.1% to $29.60 a barrel in the past 15 days and has gained 8.6% during January.

Domestic prices are normally linked to oil prices in the Gulf region, taxes, and changes in the value of the rupee against the dollar over the previous two weeks.

Oil companies declare high-sulfur diesel and fuel oil prices separately after the two products' markets were deregulated.

Pakistan's oil companies amend retail prices every 15 days under a price review system. Following are the new prices in Pakistan rupees a liter:

                  New Price     Previous Price  %Change

Motor Gasoline PKR32.96 PKR32.64 0.98 High Octane PKR36.83 PKR36.55 0.77 Kerosene Oil PKR21.32 PKR20.62 3.39 Light Speed Diesel PKR18.30 PKR17.53 4.39

-By Saeed Azhar, Dow Jones Newswires; 9221-5872854; saeed.azhar@dowjones.com

www.techcentralstation.com By Brock Yates 01/31/2003

I am truly concerned about the mental health of the liberal establishment. While they seem to have gotten over the alleged election theft from poor Albert and the loss of the Congress in November, this Sport Utility thing seems to have driven them to the edge of madness. Fulminations about these vehicles have escalated to a point where other depredations against humanity by the likes of Saddam Hussein pale by comparison.

Now here comes Gregg Easterbrook in the January 20th issue of The New Republic reviewing Keith Bradsher's anti-SUV polemic "High and the Mighty: SUV's, the World's Most Dangerous Vehicle and How They Got That Way." Easterbrook breaks new ground of hysteria with such florid descriptions of cars such as my own Jeep Grand Cherokee as "Godzilla instruments of death" and "paranoiac contraptions". Wow, and I was celebrating the poor old beast for helping me plow through two feet of snow that blasted Upstate New York during one of the harshest winters since global warming was invented.

Perhaps I should call out the highway patrol to bring back my wife Pamela, who just left on a shopping trip with my eight-year-old granddaughter, Sarah, in her "Godzilla of Death."

Easterbrook's diatribe covers all the predictable bases; that SUV's suck up too much oil, kill innocents by the score in rollovers and, worse yet, transform drivers into homicidal maniacs devoted to crushing Honda Civics in their path.

There are, of course, elemental problems involved in assaults like Easterbook's and those of his idol, Mr. Bradsher. We will discount idiocies on the issue from such luminaries as Ms. Arianna Huffington, who likens the SUV motoring to direct Al Qaeda support or to assorted theological nitwits who wrestle with such cosmic issues as to why Jesus would not drive such vehicles.

For openers, the accusation that SUV's roll over more often (a 22% increase of all rollover accidents in 2001, regardless of the type of car, is cited as the fault of SUV's) can be countered in two ways.

First, the trend line for automobile fatalities has plunged downward for 15 years - ironically since SUV's began to gain market share.

Second, driver error must be included, understanding as we do that a vehicle with a higher center of gravity like an SUV demands added skill and knowledge. But in a no-fault society such as ours, driver responsibility is a non-factor. Even a demented, paraplegic, myopic octogenarian has the same level of safety behind the wheel as a normal human being, according to the politically correct dogma of the day.

Yes, SUV's demand more attention and skill than say, a low, road-hugging BMW. Yes, they can roll over when attempting to treat them like a Formula One car.

But their usefulness in snowy weather, for packing large amounts of luggage, groceries, and recreational gear, not to mention hauling boats, Jet Skis, travel trailers, snowmobiles (yes, we barbarians in the hinterlands outside Washington and New York do engage in such primitive activities) is a great boon to modern, multi-task living.

As for the accusation that SUV's lead to madness behind the wheel and increases in "road rage", there is not even a shred of proof that such behavior ever exists. "Road Rage" is a shibboleth, unless all illegal behavior - such as running red lights or speeding - is included in the statistics.

Easterbrook moans that the fact that many SUV's carry optional grille guards serves as an example of latent hospitality and concealed homicidal urges. Excuse me, but I know dozens of SUV owners who install such accessories as simple décor items and to hold extra driving lights that are needed on dark country roads beyond the Beltway and Manhattan Island.

But perhaps the most ludicrous of the indictments has to do with the alleged gluttony of the vehicles and how they fill the coffers of the Petrol-Mullahs of the Persian Gulf.

Before we go nuts about such profligate waste consider that only 12 percent of our petroleum (that's one gallon in eight for mathematical ingrates like myself) comes from the Middle East. Moreover, only about 30 cents of the $1.50 we spend for a gallon of gasoline is for crude oil - the rest being for things like taxes, distribution costs and middlemen. Only 15 cents a gallon actually goes to the dreaded potentates. According to people who work calculators better than I, that means 0.8 percent - or less than one percent of the money we spend for gasoline actually ends up in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, the UAR, etc.

Yes, we've got trouble in Venezuela and probably a war, albeit a brief one, in Iraq. But we can still live with foreign oil supplies as new energy conservation sources come on line. Secondly, this nonsense about SUV's can be counter-balanced by the fact that intelligent, non-aggressive, sensible, normal citizens like my wife find them eminently useful, flexible and safe.

As the trucky hulks built on aged pickup chassis are phased out and replaced by cross-over, car-like SUV's that are lower, stronger and better handling, this entire issue that is so stupidly resonant at the moment will surely fade away

At that point I hope experts on the subject like Mr. Bradsher, and Easterbrook, Ms. Huffington and the usually rational Fox news guy Bill O'Reilly will return to their senses.

www.canada.com Jack Fairweather The Telegraph; With files from Reuters Friday, January 31, 2003 CREDIT: Herald Archive, Associated Press

If President George W. Bush orders crude withdrawn from the U.S. strategic reserve, oil could begin to flow within 10 days.

Kuwait will turn off its oil taps, among the most productive in the world, if full-scale war breaks out against Iraq, said officials Thursday, threatening to sharply increase petroleum prices.

Kuwaiti officials have prepared an evacuation of the country's oilfields, many of which are near the border with Iraq where 110,000 U.S. troops are gathering for military action. An official at the state-owned oil company, Kuwait Petroleum Company, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "Iraq still has its short-range missile capacity intact and may use them against Kuwait.

"We cannot put our employees' lives in danger and will have to leave the oilfields if a war between America and Iraq escalates."

A missile strike on the oilfields of Kuwait, one of the largest producers with three per cent of the world market, would have huge effects on the price of oil.

During the first Gulf War, oil prices more than doubled, and claims have been made that should Iraq target the regional oil industry this time round, prices could leap as high as $80 US per barrel.

Insurance companies are also threatening to declare the Gulf area a "no-go area" in the event of war, meaning that many tankers will not travel to the region for fear of being attacked, further reducing supplies.

Saudi Arabia has promised to make up shortfalls if Iraqi oil production ceases. But if Kuwait stops pumping, and with Venezuela's oil industry still not back to full output after a strike, the Saudis might struggle to do so.

Kuwaiti fears of an attack by Iraq seemed to be confirmed by Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister. Kuwait would be part of any "battlefield" created by a U.S.-led invasion, he said.

The U.S. Energy Department is already poised to move oil into the market in as little as 10 days should President George W. Bush order a drawdown of emergency oil reserves in the event of a war with Iraq, officials say.

A withdrawal of millions of barrels of oil by the United States and other industrialized countries is expected in order to calm energy markets and ensure adequate supplies following the announcement of any U.S.-led military action against Iraq.

When that happens, the U.S. Energy Department has a set of procedures in place that will quickly enable it to notify major oil firms that the government wants to sell crude, schedule pickup of the oil and transport it to refineries.

Such a drawdown of reserve oil may not be necessary, as Saudi Arabia has said it will pump more oil to make up for a cutoff in Iraq's crude exports in a war.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve now holds 599 million barrels of crude, worth about two months of U.S. oil imports. It can be drawn at a rate of 4.3 million barrels a day for 90 days, then the rate drops as storage caverns are emptied.

Other industrialized countries that are members of the International Energy Agency, which would co-ordinate a global release of oil reserves, have a total of 700 million barrels in emergency oil. Most of that is held by Germany and Japan.

Some IEA member countries, such as Britain, do not have government-controlled oil reserves. Instead, oil companies are required to maintain excess crude inventories.

Department officials would not say whether IEA members had made a decision to release emergency oil if Iraq is attacked, or what would be the United States' share.

The scenario on how IEA members would release oil has already been worked out, but the amount for each country is a last-minute decision that can be settled among the IEA's governing board, department officials said.

During the 1991 Gulf War, the United States accounted for half the oil that was released among IEA members.

"It wouldn't necessarily be that this time around. That's not a standard understanding," one department official said.

The department has a list of companies it believes would be interested in buying oil from the stockpile, and these can be notified within several hours within Bush's order.

Oil companies, and the public, will then be able to view the terms of an oil solicitation on the department's Web site. Offers for how much companies are willing to pay for each barrel of reserve oil would be due electronically several days after the president's announcement.

Energy Department officials said it would take about a day to select the winning firms. The department has planned for the entire process -- announcement of an oil release to delivering to energy firms -- to take 15 days.

However, department officials said the oil could be put into the market as soon as 10 days if firms had space immediately available on pipelines or empty tankers waiting nearby to transport the crude.

The oil could then be shipped to refineries for processing in a few hours, depending on the location of the reserve site.

A barrel of crude yields about 86 litres of gasoline, 43 litres of diesel fuel and heating oil and 18 litres of jet fuel, according to the Energy Department.

The government stores its oil in underground salt caverns at four sites in Texas and Louisiana. The typical cavern holds 10 million barrels and is cylindrical, with a diameter of 65 metres and a depth of 650 metres -- large enough for Chicago's Sears Tower with 55 metres to spare to spare.

The four reserve sites are connected to major commercial pipelines with easy access to refineries. "Our sites in total are connected by pipeline to almost 50 per cent of the country's refining capacity," the official said.

Oil sold at the reserve's West Hackberry site in Louisiana would have to travel only a few hours by 16 kilometres of pipeline to huge refineries owned by Citgo and Conoco that together could process about 560,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

At the other extreme, shipments to Illinois refineries that serve Chicago and the Midwest would take more than a week.

The Energy Department has been running the reserve's four sites to receive oil to meet the Bush administration's goal of filling the stockpile though those shipments have been suspended to keep more oil in the market. The operation could be reversed quickly, department officials said.

"To reconfigure our sites to go out (with oil), rather than in, is not a big deal. It would be ready before day 10 (after a drawdown order) to pump oil out," a department official said.

The delivery process could take longer if pipelines are bottlenecked with prior shipments, as the government does not have the authority to override private delivery contracts.

Separately, department officials downplayed the possibility of a pipeline owner not making space on its system for reserve deliveries in order to drive up crude or product prices.

In California's energy crisis two years ago, the state accused pipeline owners of clogging up their systems to raise the price of natural gas shipped to power plants.

Department officials said that was not likely to happen with oil because, unlike natural gas, oil can be transported by both pipeline and competing tankers.

www.commondreams.org by repost • Friday January 31, 2003 at 08:13 PM Published on Friday, January 31, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines" by Thom Hartmann

Maybe Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel honestly won two US Senate elections. Maybe it's true that the citizens of Georgia simply decided that incumbent Democratic Senator Max Cleland, a wildly popular war veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam, was, as his successful Republican challenger suggested in his campaign ads, too unpatriotic to remain in the Senate. Maybe George W. Bush, Alabama's new Republican governor Bob Riley, and a small but congressionally decisive handful of other long-shot Republican candidates really did win those states where conventional wisdom and straw polls showed them losing in the last few election cycles.

CAN THE VOTING MACHINES BE TRUSTED? by Arawaik • Friday January 31, 2003 at 11:36 AM sf.indymedia.org

DIRECTOR RESIGNS JANUARY 29, 2003 www.thehill.com