Charlie Sifford, a Charlotte native who paved the way for desegregation in professional golf, died yesterday. He was 92.
If Congress approves President Obama’s approved budget, Charlotte’s streetcar line could get an additional $75 million grant, which would help extend the line from the westside to the east.
After ISIS showed a video allegedly showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage, Jordan officials executed the female prisoner, a would-be al Qaeda suicide bomber, that the extremists were demanding be released in exchange for the pilot. “Our punishment and revenge will be as huge as the loss of the Jordanians,” said Army spokesman Mamdouh al-Ameri. “While the military forces mourn the martyr, they emphasize his blood will not be shed in vain.”
After falling under $2 a gallon, gas prices are starting to creep up again. “Unfortunately we expect gas prices to continue to rise gradually in the upcoming weeks,” David E. Parsons, president and CEO of AAA Carolinas, told WRAL. “However, barring any events that could cause global oil prices to greatly increase, we believe we won’t see three dollars per gallon in 2015.”
This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2015.
RE: oil
The price of oil is under pressure from two factors.
First, ISIS is funding itself in large part by selling oil from fields it captured in Syria and Iraq. These sales are being executed on the black market at under-market prices. World market prices fell as demand for “legitimate-priced” oil fell due to some buyers taking their business to ISIS.
Second, Saudi Arabia wants to remove the Assad government from Syria, because SA wants to build a natural gas pipeline from Qatar to Europe. This pipeline would relieve Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas, provided by Russia’s state-owned supplier Gazprom. The problem is the pipeline would need to run through Syria, and Assad is resisting the pipeline in order to continue receiving military and financial support from Moscow. NatGas prices have fallen in concert with oil prices, as Saudi Arabia tries to squeeze Putin into relaxing his support for Syria. So far Putin has chosen to let his own country’s economy suffer short-term rather than capitulate to the Saudis (and the Obama administration) with respect to Assad, because the Qatar-Europe NatGas pipeline could cripple Gazprom.
The fly in the ointment – and when you’re talking about the Middle East there always is at least one – is that Qatar funds ISIS.