News in General

And the winner of the Eurovision Song contest is Azerbeijan? WTF?
..............What I am trying to say is that it's kind of provocative to announce Azerbaijan as part of Europe

"Contract of the Century"

After gaining independence Azerbaijan started to attract badly needed foreign investment into the country.

The implementation of the 20 PSA contracts (requiring $60 billion investment) that have been concluded so far is an integral part of Azerbaijan's oil strategy. The first contract to be signed was Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli

Azeri, Chirag and deep-water Gunashli (ACG)-International Contract No. 1-was signed by President Heydar Aliyev and the participating international companies on September 20, 1994, ratified in Parliament on December 2, and went into effect on December 12. Because of its potential reserves estimated at 6 billion barrels (950,000,000 m3) of oil, this project is often referred to as the "Contract of the Century". The projected investment for this project is $13 billion.


Oil as natural wealth of Azerbaijan depicted on an AZM 1000 banknote (2001)A few months later in 1995, a consortium was organized known as the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC). Originally AIOC was composed of eleven major international companies: BP (UK), Amoco (U.S.), LUKoil (Russia), Pennzoil, (now Devon of U.S.), UNOCAL (U.S.), Statoil (Norway), McDermott (U.S.), Ramco (Scotland), TPAO (Turkey), Delta Nimir (now Amerada Hess of U.S.), and SOCAR (Azerbaijan).

Since then Exxon, now ExxonMobil (U.S.); ITOCHU (Japan); and INPEX (Japan) have joined the consortium. McDermott, Ramco and LUKoil have since sold their shares. AIOC's first president was Terry Adams (UK) of British Petroleum (BP), the company which operates the offshore oil platforms and the onshore Sangachal Terminal.

However, the problem of how to deliver the oil to European markets existed. This problem was solved by the agreement for the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline among Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey in 1998.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was officially opened on July 13, 2006 and now transports crude oil 1,760 km (1,094 miles) from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The oil is pumped from the Sangachal Terminal close to Baku, via Tbilisi the capital of Georgia, to Ceyhan a port on the south-eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. It is the second longest oil pipeline in the world (the longest being the Druzhba pipeline from Russia to central Europe).

The BTC pipeline is expected to make a major contribution to the development of world energy supply with its more than 1 million barrels per day capacity. Thanks to this project Turkey is also expected to earn about $300 million annually. Around 15,000 people were employed during the construction of the pipeline which cost $3 billion

Shah Deniz field is the largest gas field discovered by BP for many years in 1999. The Shah Deniz gas plant at Sangachal Termanal started up in 2007 and made Azerbaijan into a major gas producer. Stage 1 of Shah Deniz project is now complete and supplies Europe with 8 bcma of natural gas via the South Caucasus Pipeline. Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz Project has been approved and is being designed.

They say that before the M9 earthquake, the total electron content of the ionosphere increased dramatically over the epicentre, reaching a maximum three days before the quake struck.
[and thus heating up the ionosphere]

• 
  "Send the fuckers packing."

So...perhaps we will have to later compile a list of the big honchos of theorists that have been pumping out product promoting 2012 for the past few years....who end up being totally off in their theories.
Shall they be returning revenues for their books and DVDs? Shall they appear publicly and admit their fallacies with the same zeal as when they were pushing their products? Or will they make excuses and re-script their stories?

(CNN) -- Despite complaints from Europeans, Russia will keep intact its ban on vegetables from the European Union because of the outbreak of a rare strain of E. coli, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday.

The European Union has told Russia that the ban contradicts the spirit of the World Trade Organization.

"We can't poison our people for the sake of some spirit," Putin retorted.

The E. coli infection has spread to 12 countries and is blamed for at least 18 deaths -- all but one reported in Germany. About 1,800 others have been sickened.
E. coli outbreak spreads across Europe
Spain lashes out over E. coli crisis
Where E. coli lurks
Europeans: DON'T eat your vegetables
RELATED TOPICS

* European Union
* Russia

There have been 552 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) -- a form of kidney failure -- in the current European outbreak, according to the World Health Organization. That's more cases of HUS than in any other outbreak ever worldwide, according to an official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Eleven patients in Germany have died of HUS, according to WHO. Six died of enterohemorrhagic E. coli, EHEC, a strain that causes hemorrhaging in the intestines and can result in abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea.

One person in Sweden also has died.

Across Europe, 1,271 cases of EHEC without HUS have been reported, WHO said on its website.

Although the outbreak's cause has not been confirmed, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce imported from Germany and Spain will be tested before they are sold in the United States, according to David Elder of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"I want to emphasize that this outbreak has not affected the U.S.," Elder told reporters in a conference call. "Produce remains safe and there is no reason for Americans to alter where they shop, where they buy or what they eat."

Two women and a man who traveled last month to northern Germany remain hospitalized in the United States with HUS, said Chris Braden of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A fourth person developed bloody diarrhea, but was not hospitalized, he added.

Two U.S. service members in Germany also developed diarrhea, Braden said. "We have no expectation that this will spread in our country," he added.

In addition to cases in Germany, Sweden and the United States, cases have been identified in Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, according to WHO.

All but two of the cases occurred in people who had recently visited northern Germany or, in one case, had contact with a visitor from northern Germany, the organization said.

Russia's ban on fresh vegetable imports is the strictest response to the outbreak.

Putin said that despite the complaints from European officials, who see the move as disproportionate, "cucumbers that cause human fatalities are indeed smelling bad."

"We expect that our partners at least tell us about the source of this infection, but they themselves can't figure out what's going on," he said.

Russia plans to check on the validity of the ban, he said, but not until more facts emerge from the European Union about the outbreak.

Scientists at the Beijing Genomic Institute have said the outbreak of infection in Germany is caused by a new "super-toxic" E. coli strain, though the CDC said the strain has been seen before, particularly in a 2009 outbreak in the republic of Georgia.

"We have very little experience with this particular strain, but it has been seen before," said Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the CDC's division of food borne diseases.

WHO said the strain has been seen before, but not with an EHEC outbreak.

The CDC said the strain is rare and added that, while it is not aware of any cases ever having been reported in the United States before, it is aware of a few previous reports of the strain in other countries. Britain's Health Protection Agency has said that the strain suspected in the outbreak is "rare" and "seldom seen in the UK."

Yelena Skrynnik, Russia's agriculture minister, issued a statement Thursday assuring Russians that, despite the ban, "the volume of home-grown vegetable production combined with exports (from other countries) is sufficient to fully meet Russia's domestic demand."

In 2010, the imports of tomatoes and cucumbers from the EU amounted to, respectively, 11% and 5% of all imports of those vegetables into Russia, the Russian Agriculture Ministry said.

The ban could potentially affect some larger cities in the European part of the country, where about 90% of vegetables are imported, said Sergey Shugayev, chairman of the Rural Russia Association.

China and Turkey are the two largest exporters of fresh vegetables to Russia, according to the Russian Greenhouses Association.

The European Food Safety Alert Network initially said EHEC was found in organic cucumbers originating from Spain, packaged in Germany and distributed to various countries. But authorities have said the source has not been pinpointed.

Spain's Ministry of Health, Social Politics and Equality said Thursday that all samples of Spanish produce that it analyzed had proved negative.