Any notion that the invasion of Iraq was simply an oil grab took another hit on Tuesday when Baghdad opened the bidding on the rights to develop its massive energy reserves. In a day-long auction of eight huge oil fields — some of the world's biggest — virtually all the 41 foreign companies invited to bid by the Iraqi government balked at the Baghdad terms. The only contract signed was a 20-year deal for a consortium led by BP and China's National Petroleum Corporation to develop the giant Rumaila field in southern Iraq. "Frankly I did not think it would be such a fiasco and embarrassment for the government," says Rochdi Younsi, Director of Middle East and Africa for the Eurasia Group in Washington. "It shows the level of disconnect between the Ministry of Oil and the oil companies."

Even with the election of Barack Obama, we Americans stand in the cross hairs of ominous social and environmental change in the early years of the 21st century. Each day, media reports stream into major networks as they expose ‘symptoms’ erupting across the planet. Water shortages, ozone pollution, species extinction, gridlocked traffic, energy crisis and other calamities dominate the news.

The IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report it had taken a very conservative view of Iraqi production capacity for 2008/14 despite tremendous international interest in the country's oil development projects.

3. Briefs

The band supplies fresh water to almost a billion people and affects climate elsewhere.

Consumers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest city-owned utility in the United States with 1.45 million electricity customers, will see higher power bills in the fight against climate change, he added in his inaugural speech for his second four-year term as mayor on Wednesday.

The proposed changes to the 2007 U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard attempt to make production of corn-based ethanol more efficient and increase output of advanced biofuels.

The country's second bidding round of energy deals "was supposed to be at the end of the year but we have moved it up. We will announce the new date. It could be in the next few months," oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said on Thursday.

The White House suspended a ruling signed by President George W. Bush four days before he left office that found refiners were adequately controlling benzene and other cancer- causing gases, said Cathy Milbourn, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Supplies of spot LNG from projects from countries such as in Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Egypt and Algeria may fall to about 4 million metric tons this year, or to 2006 levels, from about 15 million last year, said Strategic Planning Director Ane Arino Ochoa at Spain’s largest oil company.

EnCana's Rhona DelFrari said the site of the gas leak was close to the area of four other bombings targeting the company's pipelines since October.

The warming of Pacific waters -- a phenomenon called El Nino -- has been moving toward the central Pacific, meaning more storms will form in the Gulf and Caribbean, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology said in the study. Traditionally, when the eastern Pacific warms up, hurricane activity in the Atlantic falls.

The Beijing conference was arranged by China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies (CFISS) and the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS). It was a part of the new IFS research programme on Asian security. "

Thanks to recession and competition from cheaper suppliers, European demand for Russian gas has fallen. It is also summer. So right now governments and gas companies are unusually brave over threats to cut off the gas. They have resisted pressure to give Ukraine a huge loan that both the Russians and Ukraine’s squabbling leaders say is needed to avoid another dispute like the one that blocked Russian gas in January, affecting 18 of the 27 EU countries. Whether Europe’s nerve will hold as winter approaches remains to be seen. Russia supplies 42% of all EU gas imports, and its share is rising.