Wednesday 9 May 2012

Eye on the Enemy: No Oil Found, Drilling Suspended at Leviathan

Local Editor

Ashkenazi : Barak Generating Ridiculous Media Spin

NFC news website - Itsik Wolf

Former chief of general staff slammed the allegations of minister of "defense" under which he seemingly committed bribery violations in the Harpaz affair. "Accusing Ashkenazi of taking a bribe is baseless and delusional; apparently the minister of "defense" is going through bad time".

The former chief of general staff, Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi refused the accusations of the minister of "defense" under which it seems he committed bribery offenses in the case of Harpaz.

According to him, it is a ridiculous attempt of Barak to generate media spin, in order to prevent an investigation into the disappearance or destruction of all the tapes and documents related to the Harpaz incident from his office.

Furthermore, an aide close to Ashkenazi said that "The accusation of Ashkenazi taking bribe is baseless and delusional. All phone calls in the office of Chief of General Staff were recorded and examined by the comptroller and the police, and no one claimed bribery. It seems, something very bad is disturbing the Minister of "defense"".

Yesterday, Barak headed to the attorney general of the government and claimed that by reading the draft of the State Comptroller on the issue of Harpaz affair, it was obvious that Ashkenazi committed ten different offenses according to the criminal law, including acceptance of a bribe, giving a bribe and abetting bribery, while his confidante, Lt. Col. Boaz Harpaz, interfered in the appointments of senior officers. Barak also pointed out that it requires an investigation by the "Israel" Police.

Barak stated that it is important that his sayings, as provided in the State Comptroller's Report on the issue in the 14 of April, to be present before the law before the case is sewed up. He counted string of violations that are apparently committed by the presumed persons:
- Conspiracy to distort the systems of government and the judiciary.
- Forging of a document in aggravating circumstances and using of fake documents.

- Receiving and giving bribe for the appointment of senior officers in the "Israeli" army and promoting them

- Abetting bribery-

- Deceiving and violating the pledge of public employee
- Plotting a crime

- Military and security offenses, by virtue of judicial and military law
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Iran Established of a Line of Shore-to-Sea missiles in Gaza

Debkafile website

Iran is now working at speed to give the Islamic Jihad a strong military edge over the ruling Hamas in Gaza. DEBKAfile's exclusive military sources reported two objectives:

1- Iran's military command is no longer sure of what would be the reaction of Hamas if "Israel" or the decided to go to war on Iran's nuclear program. Iranians are not sure if Hamas, which is growing distance from the Assad regime in Syria, will support Iran's allies in the middle east and strike "Israel" or US Middle East targets .One of Tehran's top strategic priorities now is to set Islamic Jihad fighters up as the spearhead of a potential attack on "Israel" instead of Hamas from the Gaza Strip and along the Mediterranean western coast.

2. Partly also as a retort to the Qatari and Saudi arms shipments channeled to the Syrian rebels through Turkey, Iran is matching the level and quality of those arms deliveries by its own loads through Sinai or by sea to Gaza Strip.

Our military sources report that the military Iranian aid to Gaza aims to:

1- Establishing of a line of radar-guided shore-to-sea missiles along the Gaza coast to prevent "Israel's" missile ships getting near to the strip to shell shore targets. A system like this can also act as a barrier against "Israeli" armored or Special Forces landings. Our sources indicate that in the last few hours, the Islamic Jihad has received tens of these missiles. Accordingly, Iranian missile experts arrived to the strip to set up the missile deployments and organizing the logistics for their transfer from storage to preset launching sites. In additions, scores of Islamic Jihad fighters are undergoing special course by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian instructors in Gaza are showing them how to use their radar systems.

2- Iranian and Hizbullah missile engineers are working in the mean time on amplifying the explosive blow, range and targeting precision of the estimated Qassam missiles in the Jihad's armory. It is estimated that they posses 20 thousand of these missiles.
To this end, the Iranians are focusing on three tasks:

- Building a military industry for Islamic Jihad in Gaza with production lines that will give them the capacity for the high-speed serial production of dozens of missiles instead of producing them one at a time in small foundries.
- Improving the range of missiles as to bring Tel Aviv and its southern environs within reach of the missiles from the Strip.

- Once those production lines are working, Jihad Islamic will be able double the intensity of its missile attacks on "Israeli" locations from 100 to 200 per day.
According to DEBKAfile's military sources, Iran and Islamic Jihad welcomed "Israel's" to hold an early election on September 4 and considered it as a positive development, for it will give them at least 4 months of calmness during which they will terminate plans without any obstruction, or interference on the part of "Israel". "
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No Oil Found, Drilling Suspended at Leviathan

"Israel" Hayom - Amir Ben David

The size of expectations: drilling for oil in Leviathan field offshore has failed and been suspended, yet the consortium claims that there is potential for significant oil resources to be found later.
The field found at a distance of 120 km off the western coast of Haifa of 6.5 km depth, is economically of very great importance. But no oil was found. However, the consortium, led by Texas-based Noble Energy and "Israel's" Delek Energy indicated that high pressures at the site and found geological signs point to the presence of significant oil resources. Drilling will be renewed using more appropriate rig. It is expected that future exploration will commence at a depth of about 7.5 kilometers because it requires a special drill. The exploration is estimated to be renewed after one year. Currently, they will also carry out a re-evaluation based on the data collected from the failed excavation, after claiming in previous estimates that in each layer of the layers lies about 300 million barrels of oil.

A year and a half ago, the first attempt to search for oil through drilling began, and after several months, the consortium announced they had to stop because of high pressures. It was revealed that the drilling had been halted at the site that is supposed to contain oil, and only after several months the consortium confirmed that there is no oil in the place, and it intends to conduct another experiment. After the re-exploration, drilling stopped for several months for the second time because of the high pressures in the earth, and yesterday drilling halted permanently. Yet the consortium explained that the layer that was accessible via drilling, contained natural gas - i.e. gas mixed with other elements - and much lava. The drilling reached the stiff ground layer with a very high pressure These are encouraging future signs to find oil.

We continue to believe there is potential for significant oil resources in this prospect and the basin," Susan Cunningham, Noble's senior vice-president of exploration and business innovation, said in a statement. Ratio Oil Exploration general director Yigal Landau expressed his optimism by saying, " we will document the drilling data in our models".

He elaborated, " our situation is much better than it was several months ago." "The information collected in the drilling are of very high value and a drilling to explore oil can be planned."

Source: Hebrew newspapers, translated and edited by moqawama.org

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
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