Although scoring a direct hit would be difficult, Hamas fire against Israel’s offshore rigs could prove very significant given the crucial role gas plays in generating the country’s electricity. Earlier today, Hamas claimed to have fired two rockets at an Israeli natural gas installation located about nineteen miles off the coast of Gaza. The Israeli… Keep reading →
The long-running dispute between Iraq’s central government in Baghdad and Kurdistan Regional Government leaders in Erbil entered a new phase when the Iraqi Parliament last week passed a 2013 budget that allocated a fraction of the money requested by the KRG. A bulk of this funding is used to pay oil companies operating in the semi-autonomous region.
“In a blatant stiff-arm to the Kurds, the budget allocates just $646 million to cost recovery for Kurdistan Regional Government oil contractors — a figure that covers only around two months’ worth of the crude that Erbil was slated to provide this year,” Michael Knights said in a Policy Alert from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank. The KRG reportedly requested $3.5 billion. Keep Reading →
