ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

A four-part series that reveals how a secret pact formed a cartel that controls the world's oil. On August 28, 1928, in the Scottish highlands, began the secret story of oil. Three men had an appointment at Achnacarry Castle - a Dutchman, an American and an Englishman. The Dutchman was Henry Deterding, a man nicknamed the Napoleon of Oil, having exploited a find in Sumatra. He joined forces with a rich ship owner and painted Shell salesman and together the two men founded Royal Dutch Shell. The American was Walter C. Teagle and he represents the Standard Oil Company, founded by John D. Rockefeller at the age of 31 - the future Exxon. Oil wells, transport, refining and distribution of oil - everything is controlled by Standard oil. The Englishman, Sir John Cadman, was the director of the Anglo-Persian oil Company, soon to become BP. On the initiative of a young Winston Churchill, the British government had taken a stake in BP and the Royal Navy switched its fuel from coal to oil.

At least 20 vehicles loaded with anti-aircraft guns block road as 200 armed men demand removal of Gaddafi-era staff. Armed men have surrounded Libya's foreign ministry in the capital, Tripoli, to push demands that officials who had worked for deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi's government be banned from senior positions in the new administration. At least 20 pickup vehicles loaded with anti-aircraft guns blocked the roads on Sunday, while men armed with AK-47s and sniper rifles directed the traffic away from the building, witnesses said. Esaam al-Naas, a Libyan military official, said there were at least 200 armed men surrounding the ministry building. He said negotiations with the protesters were under way and that no one had entered the building. Ali Zeidan, Libyan prime minister, said armed groups also tried to storm the ministry of interior and a state news agency on Sunday. Zeidan urged people to help the government in resisting such armed groups. "There are people who

(Reuters) - Tens of millions of U.S. dollars in cash were delivered by the CIA in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags to the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade, according to the New York Times , citing current and former advisers to the Afghan leader. The so-called "ghost money" was meant to buy influence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but instead fuelled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington's exit strategy from Afghanistan, the newspaper quoted U.S. officials as saying. "The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan", one American official said, "was the United States." The CIA declined to comment on the report and the U.S. State Department did not immediately comment. The New York Times did not publish any comment from Karzai or his office. "We called it ‘ghost money'," Khalil Roman, who served as Karzai's chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, told t

Country holds day of mourning after collapse of clothing factory in Dhaka that has killed at least 160 people. Rescuers in Bangladesh have continued to hunt for survivors in a collapsed building as the death toll rose to 161 and criticism mounted of foreign firms that source cheap clothes from the country. More than 1,000 people were injured when the site housing five garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka imploded on Wednesday, allegedly after managers ignored workers' warnings that the building had become unstable. Flags flew at half-mast on Thursday as the shell-shocked country declared a day of mourning for the victims of the nation's worst factory disaster, which highlighted anew safety concerns in Bangladesh's vital garment industry. Army Brigadier General Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder said many people are still trapped in the building, which housed a number of garment factories employing hundreds of people. Workers had warned a day earlier that large cracks

China leads the world in computer espionage, according to an annual report that monitors the state of global cyber threats. Ninety-six percent of cyber espionage cases targeting intellectual property and business trade secrets were attributed to “threat actors in China,” while the remaining four percent were unknown, according to the “ 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report ," which is issued by Verizon, a large U.S. telecom firm. “This may mean that other threat groups perform their activities with greater stealth and subterfuge,” read the report. “But it could also mean that China is, in fact, the most active source of national and industrial espionage in the world today.” While the numbers certainly seem clear, some security experts caution not to draw too many conclusions from the report. “Verizon doesn't explain how they determine that an event is state-sponsored, nor how they distinguish between legitimate attacks originating from China and those which use compromis

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese authorities accused 'terrorists' in China's far west of setting a trap to kill policemen, state media said Thursday, after a US-based rights group dismissed terrorism claims. Twenty-one people were killed in violence in west China's Xinjiang region on Tuesday, local government officials said, adding that six members of the ethnic Uighur minority shot dead in the clashes were suspected of terrorist plotting. "The terrorists may have set a trap," the state-run Global Times daily quoted local officials as saying, adding that knife-wielding men ambushed police after luring them to a house in Barchuk county, in the region's west. Fifteen police and 'social workers' were killed in the incident, including 10 from the Uighur minority, China's Foreign Ministry said. Uighurs are mostly Muslim and see Xinjiang as their homeland. Xinjiang, a region about twice the size of Turkey, is home to around nine million ethnic Uighurs, many o

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Gunmen took control of the Iraqi town of Sulaiman Bek on Wednesday after fighting with security forces, part of a bloody two days of violence that killed 128 people and wounded 269, officials said. Most of the casualties -- 102 dead and 195 wounded -- came from clashes and attacks involving security forces, protesters and their supporters, which have sent tensions in Iraq soaring. The violence, which began with clashes on Tuesday at a protest site in northern Iraq after security forces moved in, is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that erupted in Sunni Muslim areas of the Shiite-majority country more than four months ago. The Sunni protesters have called for the resignation of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and railed against the alleged targeting of their community by the authorities. On Wednesday, five soldiers and seven gunmen were killed and 63 people, including 20 soldiers, wounded in fighting in the Sulaiman Bek area in Salaheddin province, nort

PANMUNJOM — The tense situation on the Korean peninsula may be the world’s most urgent security challenge. However, unlike threats from Iran or Syria’s civil war, the Korean situation has been unresolved for more than 60 years. The conflict's most recognized flashpoint is Panmunjom in the Korean DMZ (demilitarized zone). The division of North and South Korea has spanned seven decades. Neither side recognizes the other diplomatically and both claim the entire peninsula. The peninsula is divided along the 38th parallel. And, it is in the United Nations Military Armistice Commission's conference room T-2, where attempts have been made over the years to resolve the lingering differences. Herman: "So when we are crossing this table here, we are actually crossing into North Korea?" U.S. soldier: “Yes, you'll be crossing into North Korea....The microphones on this table ...are recording and monitored 24 hours a day. The microphones also represent the military demarca