Strait of Hormuz (29 Dec 2011, Al Jazeera)

The situation with Iran has continued to developed. First their was the announcement from Iran about the nuclear (power?) program. This was followed by Europe threatening to ban purchases of Iranian oil. Iran responded by threatening blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Now with the British Navy's largest warship and the US Fifth Fleet stationed in those waters the situation is quite tense. This had the effect of raising oil prices $6 - $7 a barrel, which was giving Iran an additional $40 million per day. The story on Marketplace radio explains the sanctions and the obstacles that Europe has in imposing the oil embargo. Europe buys approximately 20% of Iranian oil. It is mostly Greece, Italy, and Spain that is buying the oil, thus one can see the difficulty in reducing the world oil options for Europe. Take a listen here:

What has happened most recently? United States Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner, is going to Beijing to ask them to join in the oil embargo of Iran. Will this happen? Not, likely. Here's a short video of his visit from Bloomberg News.

More pressing news is the assassination of another Iranian scientist that works on their nuclear program. Iran has claimed it is Western spies from either Britain, Israel, or the US. Here's the story from Al Jazeera television (video and article).