www.thedesertsun.com

Statewide average gasoline prices at the pump have jumped more than 18 percent over the last month to $2.01 from $1.70. This is the first time that average prices moved above the $2 barrier.

PALM SPRINGS -- The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in California has broken the $2 barrier for the first time.

The California Energy Commission, a Sacramento agency that monitors energy issues, said Monday that regular gasoline averaged $2.01 a gallon statewide for the week ended March 3.

Regular gas statewide on average now costs 43.5 cents a gallon more than it did the first week of January, and 68 cents more than it did at this time last year.

In the Automobile Club of Southern California’s latest gas price survey, Palm Springs averaged $1.97 per gallon of gas.

"They’re inching toward that $2 barrier, and probably will hit it in a matter of days," said Jeff Spring, a spokesman for the Santa Ana-based automobile club.

The club is expected to issue its monthly fuel report on average gas prices for cities like Palm Springs and others in the Coachella Valley on March 11.

Terry Parker, director of maintenance operations and transportation for the Desert Sands Unified School District, is getting dizzy over the rapid rise in gas prices.

He’s thinking of ways to renegotiate gas prices with two local supply vendors, and get better deals on repair parts.

Under a worst-case scenario, he might even have to consider layoffs, he said.

The district budgeted $110,000 for fuel costs in its fiscal year ending June 30.

Over the past two months, however, fuel prices have jumped 18 percent on average for diesel and regular gasoline -- and there are four months left in the fiscal year, Parker said.

That’s a projected $20,000 over annual budget, he estimates.

The fuel is needed to run a fleet of 62 buses, and transport a sizeable chunk of the La Quinta-based district’s 25,000 students.

"We have to cut back across the board, not just in fuel prices, but we’re going to have other budget shortfalls as well," said Parker of budget cuts that have been passed along by the state.

For some motorists, the stratospheric gas prices might not mean much.

David Murphy, president and co-owner of Desert European Motorcars Ltd., isn’t worried about his clientele, for instance.

"A rise of 50 cents on the gallon isn’t going to affect them to drive down the street from El Paseo to downtown Palm Springs," Murphy said.

Murphy’s high-brow dealerships in Rancho Mirage and Palm Springs sell Bentley and Rolls-Royce automobiles, Jaguars, Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes Benzs.

"They are probably spending more for heating oil for their other home in Aspen (Colorado) than on their other car," he added.

Crude oil prices have soared because of uncertainty about supplies from the Middle East given the U.S. saber rattling over Iraq, as well as oil supply problems in Venezuela and Nigeria.

In addition, continuing cold temperatures in the eastern United States have increased the demand for heating oil, increasing the competition for available oil supplies.

Additional factors are at work in California as well. Several refineries are down for planned yearly maintenance, tightening supplies and increasing prices on the spot market, explained Rob Schlichting, a spokesman with the California Energy Commission.

When gas prices are adjusted for inflation, gasoline has been more expensive in the past, Schlichting explained.

Average pump prices of $1.34 a gallon in 1981, for example, equate to $2.45 a gallon in today’s dollars.

Schlicting urged motorists to shop around for gas because retail prices varied as much as 30 cents a gallon from station to station in its price survey.

Pat Maio is the Business Editor for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at 778-4625 or via e-mail at pat.maio@thedesertsun.com

abclocal.go.com

With oil prices nearing $40 a barrel, and the economy stumbling, many are calling on President Bush to tap into the massive oil supplies known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The reserve is a nearly 600-million-barrel, 53-day supply of crude oil held in Texas and Louisiana, and designed to protect the country in case of a shortage big enough to threaten the national safety of the economy.

It's up to the president to determine when it should be used.

It took a national energy crisis — the Arab oil embargo of 1973 — to create the reserve in the first place. And some see a crisis in the making now.

"If ever there was a rainy day in the oil market and the economy, this is it," said economist Donald Straszheim of Straszheim Global Advisers in Santa Monica, Calif.

Release Could Drop Oil Prices Those who favor tapping into the reserve right away say it would calm fears and lower prices.

When the first President Bush authorized the use of strategic reserves on the first day of the 1991 Gulf War, for instance, the price of crude oil plunged from $31 to $21 a barrel in a single day — the largest one-day drop ever. He was later criticized for acting too late to keep the country out of recession.

When President Clinton tapped the reserve in September 2000 to relieve high prices and temporary shortages, the price of crude fell $3.50 in a week. He too was later criticized, in this case for using the reserves for political reasons.

The steep rise in crude oil prices over recent months, fueled by talk of war with Iraq, as well as the ongoing work strike in Venezuela and unusually cold winter weather, has had a real impact on the economy and consumers, driving up prices at gas pumps and for home heating oil.

But for now this President Bush is sitting tight. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham last week told ABCNEWS, and the Senate, that strategic reserves are for emergencies only. "Obviously we are prepared to act. But that situation has not yet in our judgment arrived," said Abraham.

As one analyst put it, you can't afford to act on a rainy day when there may be a full-fledged storm coming — a war with Iraq. But with oil prices approaching $40 a barrel and oil supplies at a 28-year-low, the pressure on the president is intensifying.

Source: ABCNEWS

Last Updated: Mar 4, 2003

news.ft.com By Andy Webb-Vidal in Miami Published: March 4 2003 19:10 | Last Updated: March 4 2003 19:10

The US faces a growing risk from both Middle Eastern terrorists relocating to Latin America and terror groups from the region, a top US military official has warned.

General James Hill, Commander of US Southern Command, told Latin American military officers and regional intelligence analysts in Miami on Tuesday that groups such as Hizbollah, the militant Shia Muslim group, had established bases in Latin America.

These groups were taking advantage of smuggling hotspots such as the "tri-border area" joining Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and Venezuela's Margarita island to channel funds to terrorist groups round the world.

US officials are also worried that weak state institutions are making the region a haven for operatives affiliated to groups such as al-Qaeda who may flee the Middle East in the wake of a war in Iraq.

Security experts say no specific governments in the region can yet be considered "accomplice states" for harbouring terrorists but border and immigration controls must be tightened.

Fernando Falcón, a former Venezuelan state security police chief, said: "If I were al-Qaeda, I would be setting up in Venezuela right now."

Gen Carl Freeman, president of the Inter-American Defence Board, said parts of Latin America were potential rest-and-recuperation hideouts and stop-off points before entry to the US. "Latin American countries are vulnerable," he said. "Terrorists will find the weak link in the chain and take advantage."

Gen Hill also warned that the long-running, drug- fuelled conflict in Colombia was spilling over its borders. "There were more terrorist attacks last year in Colombia alone than in all the other nations in the world combined. This is a battle that must be fought together. If we don't, I fear we risk winning the battle in Colombia and losing the war in the rest of the region."

The warning comes as the strongest signs emerge that the Colombian conflict is becoming enmeshed with increasingly violent political tensions in Venezuela.

Two powerful bombs damaged the Colombian and Spanish diplomatic missions in Caracas last week. The attacks came shortly after Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez criticised Colombia, Spain and the US for meddling in Venezuela's "internal affairs".

Last weekend near their shared border, the Colombian and Venezuelan military defused a truck-bomb several times larger than one that killed 36 at a club in Bogotá.

Mr Chávez said this week that the suspected embassy bombers had been "identified" as linked to opposition groups bent on denigrating him and pinning the blame on his government.

However, intelligence sources in Miami said they suspect the perpetrators were linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) or a group on the fringes of Venezuela's state security police.

Colombia's state security police said yesterday it was investigating the passage of rebels from Farc, including its chief, Manuel Marulanda, across the border into Venezuela.

The deepening insecurity in Venezuela comes as the US steps up its training of the Colombian army in its war against Farc.

Three US citizens working under a US Defense Department contract are being held as "prisoners of war" by Farc after being captured last month.

The US is understood to have agreed to dispatch "intelligence assistance teams" to the Colombian military, although it is not permitted to maintain more than 400 US troops in Colombia, a cap designed to prevent "mission creep".

Robert Steele, a former deputy director of US Marine Intelligence and a private sector adviser, said US resources should be better used to help avert Latin American economic crises that could breed radical political groups. "We have cold war mindsets that are not adequate for today. The US thinks of Latin America as a benign backyard. They are wrong. It is a nightmare ready to go north, and the Americans don't understand that."

www.thenassauguardian.com

Not surprisingly, oil prices are climbing, due to instability in Venezuela and the Persian Gulf.

Last week, the price of a barrel of crude reached almost $40, the highest since 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and about 69 per cent higher than last year.

According to the New York Times, "every time oil prices have risen by at least 60 per cent since World War II, a recession has occurred in the United States, with the exception of a one-month blip in oil prices in 1987."

Higher prices for crude oil have a multiplying effect that flows through the global economy, raising the costs of transportation, production, heating, and other activities. Energy costs are the single most significant indicator of economic trends.

And once again, airlines are being hit hard. The Times reported that American Airlines, a major carrier to The Bahamas, will spend more than $200 million extra on fuel this quarter than in the same period last year. Analysts are predicting that oil costs will soon force American to file for bankruptcy protection.

But how this will affect the Bahamian tourism industry is anyone's guess at the moment, because the politicians responsible for managing our economy are not talking.

Perhaps they are counting on government price controls to resolve the problem.

3/4/03

www.anacortesonline.com

A new column from Brent Stavig --  

Now that the “war” with Iraq is inevitable and appears to be only a scant few weeks away, I think it’s a safe assumption that most Americans have decided where they stand on the issue. The polls indicate that the majority of Americans are supportive of a “war” with Iraq. But the voices of those who are opposed are still loud and strong.

These two groups have very defined reasons behind their support or disapproval of the pending conflict. Those in support see Saddam Hussein as a grave danger to America and the rest of the “free” world. They believe Bush’s assertion that Saddam is hiding vast arsenals of biological and chemical weapons and stands poised to use them whenever he sees fit.

Those who oppose the war see little evidence that Saddam has much of anything that can threaten America or the countries that border Iraq. They also see the enormously powerful American military; guided by the hand of the Bush administration, ready to pummel an entire country of innocent people because America disapproves of a single individual.

Much like the seemingly never-ending debate about abortion, the pending “war” in Iraq has created a line in the sand for most Americans; you’re either for it, or against it, and no amount of sound bites and U.N. speeches will sway either side’s opinion. But I get the feeling that there is a large percentage of Americans, who aren’t represented in polls, who are simply sick and tired of hearing about the issue. How many days can we wake up, turn on the news, and hear more rhetoric from Washington about Saddam not “complying”? How many more newspaper articles about the threatening yet invisible “weapons of mass destruction” can we stomach before we start throwing away Section A and reaching in haste for the Sports Section? How many inane and pointless speeches by President Bush, again and again calling on Saddam (not Iraq) to disarm can we be subjected to before we decide to simply shut Bush out?

The thing that bothers most people I know about Bush’s anti-Saddam rhetoric, is that it never quite makes a concrete or legitimate point. Surely President Bush must be getting frustrated that a large percentage of the American people simply aren’t buying his arguments for attacking Iraq? If there were a clear and obvious danger to America, wouldn’t it be painfully obvious to all of us? Would it really be necessary to try and convince us over and over? If America truly felt threatened by Saddam’s vast arsenal of chemical weapons wouldn’t we be cheering on the Commander-in-Chief with unbridled vigor and “patriotism”?

President Bush has tried to scare the American people into supporting the coming “war”. The Code Orange alerts, duct tape advice, lists of most-targeted cities, speeches from Osama Bin Laden that loosely purport a connection between Al Quaeda and Saddam, and malicious attempts at branding anyone who dares oppose the will of his administration as unpatriotic citizens, simply haven’t worked.

Now the Bush administration is changing tactics. Wednesday night he took to the airwaves in front of Old Glory, and with a gentle smile on his lips tried to convince the American people that we’re going into Iraq to “save” the citizens, not kill them. Well, obviously you don’t slaughter hundreds of thousands of people so they can be liberated. Or are we to understand that the pending Iraqi casualties were sacrificed to pave the way for Democracy?

Of course, one of the most dominating objectives of the invasion of Iraq is to seize the oil resources. On Wednesday night, President Bush addressed that issue too, stating that we want to “save” the oil resources so they’ll be intact for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Can you believe the sheer audacity of this man?

Many people have taken to the airwaves lately to make the case that oil is not the primary objective of the “war”. They argue that we don’t need Iraq’s oil since we get most of our oil from Venezuela and other sources. They argue that if we truly wanted Iraq’s oil we could simply purchase it from a very willing Saddam. They say that if we really wanted Iraq’s oil reserves we could simply walk in and take it without worrying about what the governments of the world think about it. Well, isn’t that what we’re about to do?

I don’t know what our real objective is. But I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with “weapons of mass-destruction”, or the civil rights of the citizens of Iraq. I’m not even convinced that oil is the de facto reason for invading Iraq. Though how can it not be an enormous consideration? It’s estimated that the oil reserves in Iraq would supply the United States with energy for the next century. Let alone make close friends of the “Bush” White House wealthier than Saddam Hussein. How can that not be an attractive objective?

Lately I’ve heard “experts” saying that the primary goal of the invasion of Iraq is to establish an American stronghold smack in the middle of the ever-volatile Middle East. Our threatening presence would serve as a constant reminder to the other Middle Eastern countries that they are on “double secret probation” and had better watch their step. We would become the babysitter of the Middle East, with a front row seat to keep an eye on any aspiring terrorists, and to better control OPEC.

Let’s face it; the estimates of when the American forces will pull out of Iraq are a farce. Once America is in Iraq we are there to stay. Forever. We will install the leader of our choice, possibly draw up a new constitution for Iraq like we did for Japan after World War II, provide well-connected American construction firms with decades of work rebuilding the infrastructure of the country, and establish enormous military bases where our troops will be constantly at the ready for any neighbor who dares to get out of line.

I feel as beaten down as anyone about the pending “war”. But mostly I’m tired of feeling insulted by President Bush, who doesn’t even try to tell us the truth or primary objective for the invasion. I feel embarrassed having a “leader” who shows no respect to our allies, and arrogantly drives a wedge between us. I feel frightened for the safety of our troops who are about to enter into an unknown arena of warfare, where their health is probably more in jeopardy from the inoculations they’ve received than by any weapons Saddam might use against them. And I feel terrible about the thousands of Iraqi civilians, most of whom are 18 years old or younger, who are about to lose their lives in horrendous fashion.

The nervousness and apprehension we feel on this side of the pond is surely felt by our men and women in uniform who are stationed on the other side. I can see the uncertainty trickle uphill to the commanders who will decide to unleash a hellishly ferocious barrage on Baghdad in an attempt to thwart any possible retaliation, and in the course of gross overkill, reduce thousands of kind and beautiful people to a bloody smear on the sand.

Politicians have a mantra these days, “Nobody wants a war!” Well, avoiding a war is very simple, especially when your opponent can’t fight back.