Whilst we will see the coming days whether the new solution for the BP-spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be effective or not, we can read in this Update that the spill in the Gulf is peanuts compared to what the oil-companies have been causing in for example Nigeria or other places in Africa or in several countries in Latin America.

The tenure of all those stories is that the oil-companies have always acted as if they were above the law, or plainly made the law, as has been coming to the light in stories about the notoriously corrupt system of "safety and regulation" in the US.
Whether it will be different in the future still needs to be seen. Regulations have always been a matter of "negotiations" and "give and take", but it has never gone wrong at such a scale.

That we are now able to read about every move from BP whilst most of us have heard little about all the thousands of spills that occurred over the last years, we may thank the media for, that report with great scrutiny about the attempts, mistakes and failures being made and about that which cannot be denied anymore or is allowed to percolate through to the masses.

Also here, the media are in control, which amongst others can be seen in the hype-ups that occur, the stories that relate the spill with Peak Oil, the above-average effect on the value of BP, the rumours that BP might need to be sold or broken up and much more. That the UK may suffer substantially due to the loss of value of BP is an add-on effect and might have substantial consequences for the UK-economy. If we see BP swallowed up by ExxonMobil, we may see the beginnings of a fight amongst "Brethren".

Much of this has little to do anymore with the spill in the Gulf; much more there is an all-out war going on against large parts of the world, as the recently accepted expansion from US covert operations from 60 to 75 countries shows. It is happening everywhere. As in Afghanistan and Pakistan the "insurgents" are fought by decapitation ( shooting the leaders), the same campaign we see occurring in Europe, Central Asia, in part Asia and several parts of Africa.

Just a few months ago the Dutch government "fell over" some strange incidents occurring around the request for continued support in the Afghanistan-war. Politically, the country is still in shambles and searching for a new government.

More recently, the Japanese Prime Minister needed to go, because he had promised more sovereignty to his people, especially to those in Okinawa, which was subsequently denied, upon which he had to resign.
Only days later, the highly-respected-by-the-people German President was chased out of his office by concerted media-attacks that exploited and twisted an unfortunate remark he had made.

When he was gone, the media-attention was directed upon the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was under a multitude of small and larger attacks discrediting her and her government. This continues almost every day in the way the media write: to discredit and weaken the government, the stability in Germany, the stability of the Euro, the stability of Europe.

At the same time we see suddenly a hype around some possible envelope with money the French President apparently was given quite some years ago, creating great damage to himself and his government. That the accusations are now being found for a large part baseless is less relevant: the man and his government and his party have been damaged and the whole things was just a warning of what can happen when France is not walking the line.

Over the last months we have seen the media-attacks on Greece, on Spain, on the Euro, and Europe and we see the bias in certain media that all the time sing the song of discrediting, twisting, spinning and spreading false information or very specific (des-)information, especially on issues like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China as well as spreading expectations for energy-demand or energy-production that defy reality (and in many cases even common sense) or hype up the danger of peak oil.

In my editorial of 22/3, I wrote about the fact that according to the US Energy Information Administration about 1/3 to almost half of the current oil price is due to media-response, which is some indication of the power this has and the money that is going with it.

Add this to the fact that about 95 % of the Western (mainly US) controlled media is in the hands of just a handful of people that control and direct many hundreds of news-papers, radio-stations, television-stations as well as many thousands of journalists and writers, and have very close links with the neo-cons and some of their close friends and we may see some patterns appearing.
This has not so much anymore to do with oil or with trade, or with cooperation to acquire peace: this seems ever more an attempt to extend influence, dominate, enter with force, create reasons for militarisation and seems to be concerted actions between media, banks, some energy-companies and the military (and government and friends) to make sure that everyone that still counts is weakened or in disorder and anyone else is taken on, as we can see in the many hotspots of "Al Qaida" suddenly popping up all over Africa, spreading death and destruction, conveniently enough at places where lots of oil is expected or that are geo-strategically significant.

Much of what we see these days in terrorist actions, are terrorist actions, but those behind them may be different than what we read in the news-papers, as for example India recently discovered whilst researching the Mumbai-attack, or as also is being found in the case of the sinking of the South Korean frigate, or we may discover in researching of certain anomalous pirate-attacks or hostage-takings.

And we may see even more false-flag operations occurring over time, in the run-up to yet another war, whereas the next one could involve many more of us all than we might think.

Much more is going on than first sight (or the media) allow us to see.
If you want, ask yourself at the occurrence of another "mishap": "Why is this happening now?" and "Why is it appearing in the news-paper (now)?" and especially "Who benefits from it?".
This may lead you closer to the truth than just reading what others have decided you are allowed to know.

Stay critical.

Alexander