EU agrees on Iran oil embargo

EU ambassadors have agreed to slap an embargo on Iran's oil exports in a bid to halt the country's nuclear program. The decision must now get formal approval from the EU's foreign ministers.

"The principal agreement on the ban for the Iranian oil imports was reached," news agencies quoted an unnamed diplomat in Brussels as saying.

Sources in Brussels reported that the sanctions would introduce a gradual ban on buying Iranian oil and petrochemicals, and that EU members would have to halt imports completely by July 1, 2012. Foreign ministers of the 27 EU member states are meeting in Brussels on Monday to further discuss the sanctions and their ratification. FULL STORY

NATO's War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China's National Energy Security

By: F. William Engdahl (globalresearch.ca)

The Washington-led decision by NATO to bomb Gaddafi's Libya into submission over recent months, at an estimated cost to US taxpayers of at least $1 billion, has little if anything to do with what the Obama Administration claims was a mission to "protect innocent civilians." In reality it is part of a larger strategic assault by NATO and by the Pentagon in particular to entirely control China's economic achilles heel, namely China's strategic dependence on large volumes of imported crude oil and gas. Today China is the world's second largest importer of oil after the United States and the gap is rapidly closing.

If we take a careful look at a map of Africa and also look at the African organization of the new Pentagon Africa Command—AFRICOM—the pattern that emerges is a careful strategy of controlling one of China's most strategically important oil and raw materials sources.

NATO's Libya campaign was and is all about oil. But not about simply controlling Libyan high-grade crude because the USA is nervous about reliable foreign supplies. It rather is about controlling China's free access to long-term oil imports from Africa and from the Middle East. In other words, it is about controlling China itself. FULL STORY

NATO Nations Set to Reap Spoils of Libya War

By: Rachel Shabi (aljazeera.com)

Leaving aside the massive profits from the rebuilding that Libya is now going to need, there are vast oil spoils to distribute. The Libyan oil industry produced 1.6 million barrels a day prior to the war. The country is thought to have 46 billion barrels of reserves - the largest in Africa. FULL STORY