Reflections by Comrade Fidel

No rest for the world

Anyone would think that after the Summit of the Americas, just 13 days after the G-20 meeting and on the heels of the exhausting tour of France, Germany, Prague and Turkey by President Obama, the world would have the right to rest for a few days.

But that’s not the case. The United States Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, will be meeting in Washington on April 24^th with the G-7 Finance ministers -the super-rich- and this shall be followed right away by a G-20 ministerial meeting to be held on that same day.

The two meetings will take place before the spring assemblies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the bodies that govern the world’s finances.

The interesting thing is that yesterday the Financial Times of London, the most important economic news journal in Great Britain, described Europe’s complications in the field of energy.

The EFE news agency quoted the above-mentioned paper as stating that the United Kingdom’s North Sea production of oil and gas may decrease because the economic crisis has led to a slow down in exploration in one of the most important reserves of the western world.

The number of exploration wells drilled in the North Sea has decreased by 78 percent during the first quarter of 2009 as compared to the same period last year, according to data supplied by the Deloitte Company and published by the economic newspaper.

Only 18 of the evaluation and exploration wells were worked on in the first quarter, which accounts for a 41 percent drop in the total drilling activity, as compared to the same period in 2008.

The UK Oil and Gas Group is even more pessimistic; it has forecast that drilling could fall off this year by 66 percent.

The newspaper adds that the situation in the North Sea is worse than in other places since the new discoveries tend to be smaller and the oil wells less productive and too expensive to maintain.

According to highly credible sources, on April 4^th, during the London Summit presided over by Gordon Brown, the host of the event, the British prime minister behaved in a visibly contemptuous manner towards the Third World participants. He even treated Obama with prejudice due to the fact that he was black.

How much oil will be consumed in the world? At what cost? At what price? Who are the people responsible for the tragedy? What limits will be placed in Copenhagen on the countries that have yet to develop? It is a really complicated problem.

The world does not rest. Neither does Obama.

Fidel Castro Ruz

April 14, 2009

7:02 p.m.