| 7/3/2014 | 07/03/2013 | 07/03/2012 | 07/03/2011 | 07/03/2010 | |
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| Active Rigs | 191 | 190 | 215 | 172 | 133 |
There have been 759 confirmed or suspected cases of the haemorrhagic fever in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday, with 467 people dead.
"This makes the ongoing Ebola outbreak the largest in terms of the number of cases and deaths as well as geographical spread," the WHO said in a statement announcing a two-day conference in Ghana to be attended by 11 West African health ministers.
"Decisions taken at this meeting will be critical in addressing the current and future outbreaks," it said.
Since West Africa's first ever epidemic of the deadly and highly contagious fever broke out in Guinea in January, the WHO has sent in more than 150 experts to help tackle the regional crisis.
Despite the efforts of the UN agency and other health workers, there has been a "significant increase" in the rate of new cases and deaths in recent weeks, the WHO said.
If this "thing" in Iraq goes as it appears to be going, once the sand settles, I may have to add a fifth center of gravity: IranSyriaIraq. Which leads us to Saudi Arabia. One word: terrified.That didn't take long. The (London) Telegraph is reporting that Saudi Arabia is moving 30,000 troops along the Iraqi border, concerned about the spread of "foreign fanaticism," also known as "jihadism" (see below):
Saudi Arabia has sent 30,000 troops to reinforce its long northern desert border after Iraqi troops withdrew from the other side.
Fighters from Islamic State, the jihadist group, and its allies have already seized frontier posts on Iraq's western borders with Syria and Jordan. The southern border with Saudi Arabia, which regards itself as vulnerable to the threat of jihadism, is more than 500 miles long.
Large parts of it are with Anbar province, the centre of Islamic State power in Iraq and now almost entirely under the control either of the group itself or of Sunni Arab tribes that have allied with it.
The last serious incursion into Saudi Arabia also came from Iraq, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Iraqi forces were eventually repelled from the Saudi town of Khafji, the following January, but only after they were attacked from the air by American jets. [The Saudis can assume they cannot count on US air support this time around.]
Since then, the border has been relatively stable and far more concern and attention has been paid to the southern border with Yemen, which is mountainous and hard to control, and where there have been two separate, long-running insurgencies, one jihadist, and one led by a Shia breakaway movement.
Five years after the Great Recession officially ended, most states still haven't regained all the jobs they lost, even though the nation as a whole has.
North Dakota is an exception.
In May, the overall economy finally recovered all 9 million jobs that vanished in the worst downturn since the 1930s. Another month of solid hiring is expected in the U.S. jobs report for June that will be released today.
Yet 32 states still have fewer jobs than when the recession began in December 2007 — evidence of the unevenness and persistently slow pace of the recovery.Other data points at the linked article:
| 7/3/2014 | 07/03/2013 | 07/03/2012 | 07/03/2011 | 07/03/2010 | |
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| Active Rigs | 189 | 190 | 215 | 172 | 133 |
Ever-increasing production of natural gas liquids is driving another round of fractionation capacity expansions in Mont Belvieu, TX, which is—and will remain—the hub of US fractionation activity. But Mont Belvieu fractionators are not without competition. Huge increases in fractionator capacity are also coming on-line in Appalachia to handle the rising volumes of natural gas liquids (NGLs) coming out of the Marcellus and Utica. Mont Belvieu may be king of fractionation, but others want a share of the kingdom. Today we update the ongoing NGL production boom and plans to add fractionation capacity in Mont Belvieu and NGL-related export capability nearby.
Production of mixed NGLs has risen sharply in the past five years, and the pace of growth is only increasing. Almost all of these mixed NGLs are the product of natural gas processing plants, which have increased in number by about 125 or 25 percent over the five year period. Fractionation facilities separate mixed NGL streams (sometimes known as “y-grade”) into so called “purity” products - ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline (also known as C5+) that are used in a wide variety of petrochemical, heating, gasoline blending and other markets. Mont Belvieu (about 30 miles east of Houston) has traditionally been the center of the fractionation world because of geography and geology. It is located near several oil and gas production regions; it is in the heart of petrochemical production; it is along the coast (necessary for both importing and exporting); and it sits atop one of the world’s largest salt dome formations (which provide ideal storage capacity for all kinds of volatile hydrocarbon products that must be stored under pressure). Given the US’s new leadership in the availability of low-cost NGLs, another key reason for Mont Belvieu’s importance is its proximity to existing and planned olefin cracking capacity and to existing and planned export facilities for propane, butane and other NGLs. As we have said in many other RBN Energy posts, the US shale revolution is spurring a major revival of petrochemical production, particularly along the Gulf Coast, that will result not only in increased olefin production (petrochemicals such as ethylene, propylene, etc.), but in increased exports of olefins and their derivative products. Because of its leader status, Mont Belvieu prices for NGLs and purity products also serve as the benchmarks, or prices against which NGL prices in other parts of the US are referenced.
The number of people out of work for 27 weeks or longer -- the so-called long-term unemployed -- decreased as a percentage of all jobless to 32.8 percent, the lowest since June 2009.Elsewhere Reuters connected the dots: the decrease in long-term unemployed coincided with the end of benefits for the long-term unemployed. Imagine that.
Job creation surged beyond expectations in June and the unemployment rate fell to an almost six-year low, underscoring the strength of a U.S. labor market that will help spur a rebound in growth.
That's huge.The addition of 288,000 jobs followed a 224,000 gain the prior month that was bigger than previously estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 215,000 advance. The number of long-term unemployed Americans fell to 3.1 million, showing they're having greater success finding work.