Suriname:Total Announces Third Significant Discovery in Block 58 Offshore Suriname

Total (Paris:FP) (LSE:TTA) (NYSE:TOT) and Apache Corporation have made a significant third discovery with the Kwaskwasi-1 well, in Block 58 off the coast of Suriname. This follows previous discoveries at Maka Central in January and Sapakara West in April.

The well was drilled by a water depth of about 1.000 meters and encountered a total of 278 meters net pay of hydrocarbons, which comprises 149 meters net in good quality Campano-Maastrichtian (composed of 63 meters of high quality oil and 86 meters of volatile oil & gas condensates reservoirs), along with 129 meters of net hydrocarbon pay in Santonian reservoirs, where further wireline logging is ongoing to confirm the quality of the fluids.

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Total Announces Third Significant Discovery in Block 58 Offshore Suriname

Outer space - Russia slams US order to privatize outer space

 Russian officials have accused the US of enacting "aggressive plans to actually seize territories of other planets." US President Trump said Americans have "the right to engage in commercial exploration" in outer space.
Note  EU Digest: USA - Colonizers of outer space or pirates of outer space?

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-slams-us-order-to-privatize-outer-space/a-53051820

ALiens: Of course we are not alone’: Russian scientist says we’re using wrong tools to hunt for aliens

A Russian scientist believes that the only way we can finally discover extraterrestrial life is for experts and researchers from different branches to work together.

Alexander Panov, a leading researcher at Moscow State University’s Research Institute of Nuclear Physics, has spent many years working on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) at the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Radio Astronomy.

In a recent interview, he laments the lack of interaction between researchers involved in both the searches for biological and for intelligent life out in the universe, and called for greater cooperation and pooling of resources between these two distinct fields, which have essentially the same goal: find aliens.

Read more at: ‘Of course we are not alone’: Russian scientist says we’re using wrong tools to hunt for aliens — RT World News

Turkey's President Erdogan says: "Muslims Discovered America Before Christopher Columbus" - by Howard Koplowitz

Muslims discovered the Americas nearly 300 years before Christopher Columbus and a mosque should be built in Cuba to commemorate the occasion, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech Saturday. Erdogan made the remarks while addressing a conference in Istanbul of Muslim scholars from Latin America.

"Muslim sailors arrived in America from 1178. Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast," Erdogan said, according to Agence France-Presse. He said Turkey should construct a mosque on the hill referenced by Columbus. "I would like to talk about it to my Cuban brothers. A mosque would go perfectly on the hill today,” he said.

The idea that a Muslim explorer made it to the Americas before Columbus was posited by the historian Youssef Mroueh in a 1996 article, who claimed Columbus’ diary mentioned a mosque. Erdogan referenced Mroueh’s contentious work in his speech on Saturday.

"Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus," Erdogan said.

Turkey’s conservative leader has been known for making controversial remarks. Earlier this year he said Israel has been more brutal than late Nazi leader Adolph Hitler.

Israelis “have no conscience, no honor, no pride. They curse Hitler day and night, but they have surpassed Hitler in barbarism," he said in July.

Read more: Muslims Discovered America Before Christopher Columbus, Says Turkish President Erdogan

Energy - Fracking Destroys the Environment and Poisons the Air We Breathe - by by Dylan Murphy and Jo Murphy

In 2006 Pam Judy and her family had a new home built on their farm. For three years Pam and her family enjoyed the peace and tranquility of the countryside. However, in 2009 that all changed when a gas compressor station was built 780 feet from her home. Within a short space of time Pam and her family were unable to spend time outside any more as they came down with all sorts of mysterious health problems.

 In November 2010 Pam’s son went outside and came home with blisters in his mouth and had extreme difficulty swallowing which led to a visit to the nearby hospital.

This led Pam to conduct research into emissions from compressor stations. She then contacted Calvin Tillman Mayor of Dish in Texas where many people had experienced similar health problems. Mayor Tillman provided Pam with a list of blood and urine tests to determine levels of chemical exposure. The results of the tests revealed measurable levels of benzene and phenol in her blood.

Pam was determined to force the authorities to take action that would protect her family. In June 2010 she persuaded the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to carry out air quality tests over four days on her land. The results revealed the presence of 16 chemicals, including benzene, which are all known carcinogens.

In November 2010 Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection released a final report into air pollution in the area where Pam Judy and her family live. The report stated that the Department ”could find no emission levels that would constitute a concern to the health of residents living near Marcellus operations …”
Sadly, the experience of Pam’s family is becoming all too familiar to ordinary people all over America who are being poisoned by the toxic chemicals being released by the fracking industry.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a damning report in February 2013 which admitted that there is no systematic air quality monitoring of the emissions from the fracking industry which emits,”large amounts of harmful pollutants that impact air quality on local, regional, and global levels.”
The report further noted how the EPA underestimates chemical pollution from oil and gas wells and did not have a, ”comprehensive strategy for improving air emissions data for the oil and gas production sector …”

For more: Fracking Destroys the Environment and Poisons the Air We Breathe | Global Research

The Arctic Energy and Mineral Resources: Scramble for the Arctic to Dominate Environmental Agenda - by Roland Oliphant

2012 saw the climate-change-fueled dash for the Arctic's riches dominate the environmental agenda.

The debate over the high north, the annual nightmare of forest fires and continuing battles between activists and developers over roads, mines and the Sochi Olympics are only likely to intensify next year.

Greenpeace activists stormed Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya oil rig in the Pechora Sea in the first of what will likely be many confrontations over the development of oil and gas on the Arctic shelf.

In less remote locales, the long battle over the Khimki forest dragged into a sixth year, with activists persuading the European Parliament to hold hearings on Vinci's involvement and President Vladimir Putin revealing at his end-of-the-year news conference that the French construction company at one point had threatened to quit the project altogether.

New fights broke out across the country over construction projects. Plans to mine nickel deposits in the Voronezh region brought together an unlikely alliance of environmentalists, local residents and Cossacks.

Meanwhile, a vocal campaign by environmentalists and ecotourism entrepreneurs forced the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to call an emergency summit over a road across a planned national park in the Khibiny Mountains in the Murmansk region.

Campaigners continued to face harassment. Suren Gazaryan, of the North Caucasus Environmental Watch, will  battle charges of threatening to kill a security guard at the gargantuan neoclassical construction on the Black Sea coast that whistle-blower Sergei Kolesnikov called "Putin's palace."

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/special/environment/eng/scramble-for-the-arctic-to-dominate-environmental-agenda.html#ixzz2FcTe6gVF

Europe looks to open up Greenland for natural resources extraction - by Fiona Harvey

Europe is looking to open a new frontier in the ever more urgent quest for new natural resources – the pristine icy wastes of Greenland.

Oil and gas have been the focus of exploitation so far – but the EU sees just as much potential in a massive opening up of mining operations across the world's biggest island, according to Antonio Tajani, the European commission's vice-president and one of the most powerful politicians in the union. He called the move "raw material diplomacy".

Latest satellite data reveal that 97% of the surface of the Greenland ice sheet underwent surface melting over four exceptionally warm days in July, indicating natural resources will become more available for extraction in the coming decades.

Greenland – with strong historical ties to the EU through Denmark, though the island now has home rule – represents a vast and largely untapped resource. Drilling for oil in Greenland's waters is now at the exploratory stage, having been impractical until recent advances in deep sea drilling. Mining has also been all but impossible across most of the country, which is covered in a 150m thick sheet of ice except for a few coastal strips, but melting ice and new techniques are likely to bring more of the region's potential mineral resources within reach in the coming years.

But Europe may face competition. China is already ahead; one of the most advanced metals mining projects in Greenland is nominally owned by London Mining, a UK company, but most of the finance and direction comes from China. Other countries are also eyeing the prize – although Greenland's historical ties are mainly with Europe, it is geographically close to the US and Canada.

Read more: Europe looks to open up Greenland for natural resources extraction | Environment | guardian.co.uk