China Using “Soft Power” to Lock Up Venezuela’s Oil and Assure Its Energy Security

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Add this to our growing list of “soft power” moves by China.  This time, China is getting even closer to Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, specifically, its oil reserves.  Recall that only a couple of years ago, Chavez nationalized the oil industry, including projects involving American and other foreign energy companies.  (And note that Brazil’s largest oil company has also signed a deal to supply China…)

From Bloomberg.com:

China Lends Venezuela $20 Billion, Secures Oil Supply (Update3)

April 19 (Bloomberg) — China, the world’s second-biggest consumer of oil, will lend Venezuela $20 billion and form a venture to pump crude from the Orinoco Belt, President Hugo Chavez said, vowing to meet the Asian country’s energy needs.

The financing from China is separate from a $12 billion bilateral investment fund, Chavez said, and will pay for Venezuelan development projects. Venezuela currently sends China 460,000 barrels a day of crude oil. The oil is used to repay the Asian country for $8 billion Venezuela used from the fund for infrastructure projects.

“We agreed on a huge, long-term financing plan,” Chavez said on state television on April 17. “This is a larger scope, a super heavy fund. China needs energy security and we’re here to provide them with all the oil they need.”

snip

Chavez said that the $20 billion loan is the largest that China Development Bank Corp. has extended to a country, and will go toward funding housing, railroad, energy and agriculture projects. China built and launched Venezuela’s first satellite into orbit in 2008.

China last year agreed to loan Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, as the company is known, $10 billion, and signed a long-term supply contract with the company.

“The relations between China and Venezuela extend from below the surface of the earth to outer space,” Chavez said. “We’re producing oil together and our satellite is out there in space. This is a mutating world in transition.”

And, isn’t that satellite deal interesting?

“…a mutating world in transition…”

Chavez hit that one on the head.

What We Need Are a Few Transatlantic Ocean Liners! I Remember When…

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

With the ash cloud still throwing European air travel (and beyond) into chaos over the last few days, and possibly well into the future, I had to think about how great it would be if the transatlantic ocean liners will still plying the seas.

(Editor’s Note: The Cunard Queen Mary 2 is the only transatlantic liner still in service.)

As a kid, I remember the newsreels of the Andrea Doria sinking after being hit by the Stockholm.  My grandfather had taken the trip over on the Andrea Doria but returned on another boat, thus missing the tragic voyage.  I still have the ship’s brochure. (I also have a booklet from the Leonardo DaVinci, which was built to replace the Andrea Doria.)

A few years later my grandfather’s brother returned to Italy on the S.S. United States, which is now on the verge of being scrapped. I remember going to the ship and being on the main deck…and crying uncontrollably because I was so scared and wanted to get off!  The boat seemed so HIGH above the water (I was about 9 years old at the time).

About 13 years later I was on several boats as I took the grand tour around Europe.  One passage was from Italy to Greece, a wonder trip.  Another was an overnight voyage that left from Sweden and passed by the Carlsberg beer brewery at night.  I took one look at the small cabin for four and even with a porthole, I decided to stay up on deck all night.  Couldn’t bear to be below deck!

I guess I had lots of practice being on deck from several summers of taking the New London, Connecticut ferry or the boat from Pt. Judith, Rhode Island out to Block Island, Rhode Island.  This was years before the place was discovered. A friend of my mother’s had bought an old house and was restoring it and she let us stay there.  The trips took a couple of hours which was just about right for me before I started getting antsy.  Since the cars were below deck, about the closet thing to being “enclosed” was in the seating area which also held the snack bar.

Another decade or so later, I traveled frequently to England and on one trip, I took the Hovercraft to France.  I loved the Hovercraft because the pontoons inflated like huge tires and  I felt that, in a pinch, the thing could float.  At least that thought, true or not, reassured me.   I also made my way one year to see the Mary Rose, Henry the VIII’s favorite ship which sunk in the Solent at Portsmouth.

Along the way I developed a fascination with the Titanic and saw the first traveling exhibit when it hit Atlantic City, New Jersey.  It continues to be the sort of fascination that reinforces all the scary boat stuff I seem to harbor since those days on the deck of the liner that took my “uncle” back to Italy.

On a business trip to LA back in the early 80’s I took some time and visited the Queen Mary, now in Long Beach.  Just a few weeks ago I saw a show on how they were doing a lot of restoration on this wonderful ship.

Of course, as a fan of classic movies, there are always scenes on liners and getting on and disembarking, complete with crowded piers of well wishers and streamers trailing off the side of the ships as they slowly edge away from the dock.

So, it didn’t take very long to wonder…WHAT IF THERE WERE STILL OCEAN LINERS crossing the Atlantic these days??

I found a great site that has many pictures and stories about many of the old liners.  Here’s the introduction to  Rob Lightbody’s Website:

The Great Transatlantic Ocean Liners.

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The Transatlantic Ocean liners changed the world.  Up until the 1960s they were the only way to travel to the “new world”.They were the equivalent of the 747 today – but much more exciting.  Each arrival and departure in Liverpool, Southampton or New York was an event in itself.

They were extremely elegant, fantastically fast and unbelievably huge!  The biggest man made objects that could move – and boy did they move!  They were high society at sea, and THE place to be seen.

Are you American? If so, chances are your grandparents travelled on one of the great ocean liners like the Mauretania.

Are you European?  If so, chances are a relative of yours left on one of these great ships, or one of your relatives worked to build them.

What you probably don’t know, is that these great ships helped us to win two world wars – they were the biggest troopships the world has ever known.

You can scroll down to see the many great liners that once graced the seas.

Sure it took about a week for a crossing, but travelers weren’t jammed into seats and subjected to foul air and the possibility of deep vein thrombosis.

…No problem with stretching your legs on a promenade around one of the great ocean liners! (although…those cabins below deck might still get to me…)

Related Links

More pictures of the great liners (photos)

The S.S. United States (designed as a cold war weapon disguised as a passenger ship)…info on the ship and the efforts to save her)

The Andrea Doria (overview)

The Leonardo DaVinci

The Sinking of the  Andrea Doria (with audio of the reports of the sinking)

The Mary Rose

The Queen Mary

The Hovercraft(s) across the English Channel (service stopped in 2000)

Marching for Women’s Equality and Lives, Circa 1989

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

I’ve been busy over the last days talking to relatives and neighbors who have either lost a job or are not finding a job since graduating from college.  They seem to have a sense of inertia, without a clue as to what to do.

I give them a real pep talk, with practical suggestions. I lost a couple of  jobs due to recessions…back in 1975 and again in 1981.  I was willing to take pay cuts, start at the bottom, take courses, learn how to write several types of resumes, switch fields and move if I had to.  The people I have talked to don’t seem to have that sort of drive and I’m not sure why.  Things are worse now in term of a future which doesn’t bode well for a return to normalcy, of course, but I’m struck by the sense of disbelief that seems to be hampering these folks.  It’s crippling them and they aren’t prepared to look at themselves and be willing to alter their set-in-stone plans.

The same sort of paralysis seems to extend to women these days.  Sure, we’ve been sold out by the national organizations, but the misogyny and attack on women’s health seems to be quite acceptable these days.  I can’t quite understand this sort of thing, since I came up through the days when we were fighting for our rights.

I was rummaging through a drawer and found a button from 21 years ago nearly to the day.  It was a march on Washington, one of several I went to.  I remember riding on a bus put together by the local chapter of NOW.  Many women’s groups joined together. We were all fighting mad in 1989.

I’m still angry and now I’m also broken-hearted.  This button brings me back to a day when women were galvanized and had a voice.

I wonder if these days a march on Washington would be even able to be organized, if there would be any interest… and if it actually occurred, whether it would be ignored by the media.

Something is very wrong, very wrong indeed…

When we were marching...