Readers Write: Homeownership isn't all bad ? or good; EU is a model for peace

Letters to the Editor for the weekly issue of January 30, 2011: One reader takes issue with an op-ed's reasoning on why Americans should rent, not buy. Another points out that the global reduction in war is largely attributable to the union of previous enemies in Europe.

Homeownership isn't all bad

Justin Martin's Jan. 16 commentary "Why I rent, despite low mortgage rates" is engaging. On the one hand, his diagnosis of the continued dismal state of the housing market is spot on, where renting certainly represents a safe option for a host of persons.

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On the other hand, it does not follow that a stagnant housing market and unsettled employment situation can be brought together so breezily. The vast majority of workers can't set out for other countries for new work. Even within the United States, being a renter doesn't equate with being able to "easily move around."

Historically, a home does appreciate in value over time, and it also proves useful to those who can afford one and go into the process clear-eyed. Granted, there are risks. But there are risks to renters as well. There are risks anytime one places a bet on financial return.

There is really no need to force a dichotomy where one doesn't exist. Buying a house isn't a "spending binge." And being a renter isn't a miracle salve for complex economic woes.

Mark Porrovecchio

Assistant professor of rhetoric

Oregon State University

Corvallis

EU as model for peace

In the Dec. 26 issue, two articles deal with the global reduction in war and violence:?"Wars grind on; but statistically, violence declines" and?"Are we getting better?" The latter features an interview with Harvard professor Steven Pinker about his new book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined."

Neither, however, mentions a major reason for the reduction in the frequency and magnitude of war, namely, that the nations responsible for one of history's greatest carnages, particularly France and Germany, have been, since the end of World War II, bound together with others in an arrangement of shared sovereignty.

Despite the challenges currently facing the European Union over its common currency and other issues, it still constitutes the closest thing we have on the planet to Immanuel Kant's system of "perpetual peace." Accession to the EU also ensures collaborative resolution of domestic and cross-border conflicts. And it is an example to states in other regions of the world.

These are among the core reasons why nations have increasingly discovered that cooperation and collaboration are the optimal ways forward in addressing complex problems that defy the efforts of any one nation to deal with on its own.

Still, this may not be enough to stop the occasional martyr from attempting to destroy the utility of this model by strapping on an explosive device and detonating it in some city center. Obviously, we still have our work cut out for us!

Dennis J.D. Sandole, PhD

Professor of conflict resolution and international relations

George Mason University

Arlington, Va.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/_Zj5snj3IyE/Readers-Write-Homeownership-isn-t-all-bad-or-good-EU-is-a-model-for-peace

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John Lundberg: Scotland Celebrates Robert Burns

This past Wednesday was Robert Burns day in Scotland. The annual birthday celebrations in honor of the great 18th Century poet featured the traditional bagpipe music and boozy dinners, and, this year, the release of a Burns Night iPod app to help make the most of your celebrations. The parties were going smoothly until a four-foot tall papier-m?ch? haggis caused a security incident at a Scottish railway station. But what's a good party without a security incident?

Whether you're familiar with Burns or not, you know his poetry. He penned the words to "Auld Lang Syne" that you fumble through after the ball lands on New Year's Day. And two of the most celebrated American novels, Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, take their names from Burns' poems.

But while Burns has made his mark here, his influence in his home country of Scotland is massive. Burns is Scotland's national poet. He was, and is, revered for choosing to write his poems in the Scottish dialect, rather than in English. And his efforts to celebrate and memorialize Scottish culture were invaluable for their contribution to the Scottish identity.

Burns also, less fortunately, immortalized a Scottish dish called haggis -- the liver, lungs and heart of a sheep spiced and stuffed in a sheep's stomach -- in his poem "Address to Haggis":

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,?
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!?
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,?
Painch, tripe, or thairm:?
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace?
As lang's my arm.

Speaking of poetry, Scots also voted, this year, on their favorite Burns poem. His great narrative poem, "Tam o'Shanter," came in first -- the tale of a man who has a vision of the devil while drunkenly riding home on his horse. It's a moralistic, tongue-in-cheek tale about the evils of drinking. Tam's wife, you see, had warned him that his carousing might cost him:

She prophesied that late or soon,?
Thou wad be found, deep drown'd in Doon,?
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,?
By Alloway's auld, haunted kirk.

But just when it looks like the devil might take Tam, he escapes, at the cost of just his horse's tail. You can read the entire poem here.

A poignant poem about humanity, "A Man's a Man for A' That'," came in second:

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

And there is perhaps no better way of understanding Burns' value to Scotland than to listen to a Scot singing one of his poems. You can watch a great version of "A Man's a Man" sung by a Lionell McClellend of Moffat, here. It's enough to make a man wish he were Scottish (and A' That).

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lundberg/robert-burns_b_1236879.html

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Wall Street led lower as banks extend losses (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stocks extended losses on Monday, with all three major indexes falling more than 1 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) was down 125.79 points, or 0.99 percent, at 12,534.67. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) was down 15.20 points, or 1.15 percent, at 1,301.13. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) was down 32.14 points, or 1.14 percent, at 2,784.41.

(Reporting By Angela Moon)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/bs_nm/us_markets_stocks

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James Q. To The Rescue (Powerlineblog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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New drug release mechanism utilizes 3-D superhydrophobic materials

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2012) ? According to a recent study, there is a new mechanism of drug release using 3D superhydrophobic materials that utilizes air as a removable barrier to control the rate at which drug is released.

The study was electronically published on January 16, 2012 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Boston University (BU) graduate student Stefan Yohe, under the mentorship of Mark Grinstaff , PhD, BU professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry, and Yolonda Colson, MD, PhD, director of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) Cancer Center, prepared drug-loaded superhydrophobic meshes from biocompatible polymers using an electrospinning fabrication method.

By monitoring drug release in aqueous solution and mesh performance in cytotoxicity assays, the team demonstrated that the rate of drug release correlates with the removal of the air pocket within the material, and that the rate of drug release can be maintained over an extended period.

"The ability to control drug release over a 2-3 month period is of significant clinical interest in thoracic surgery with applications in pain management and in the prevention of tumor recurrence after surgical resection," said Colson. Colson is also a thoracic surgeon at BWH with an active practice focused on the treatment of lung cancer patients.

This approach along with the design requirements for creating 3D superhydrophobic drug-loaded materials, the authors write, should facilitate further exploration and evaluation of these drug delivery materials in a variety of cancer and non-cancer applications.

This research was supported by Boston University, Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology, Coulter Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

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Journal Reference:

1. Stefan T. Yohe, Yolonda L. Colson, Mark W. Grinstaff. Superhydrophobic Materials for Tunable Drug Release: Using Displacement of Air To Control Delivery Rates. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2012; 120118151911004 DOI: 10.1021/ja211148a

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/owxioozQFx8/120127140937.htm

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British police arrest 4 in tabloid bribery probe (AP)

LONDON ? British police say they have arrested four people, including a police officer, on suspicion of corruption as part of an investigation into police bribery by a tabloid newspaper.

London's Metropolitan Police said two men aged 48 and one aged 56 were arrested early Saturday at homes in and around London.

The fourth, a 29-year-old police officer, was arrested at the London station where he works.

The investigation is running parallel to a police inquiry into phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World.

Police said the arrests were made as a result of information provided by Murdoch's News Corp.

A dozen people have now been arrested in the bribery probe, though none has yet been charged.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_phone_hacking

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Video: GDP Number Disappointments Street

There is widespread disappointment in the economy's performance in the fourth quarter, reports CNBC's Steve Liesman. Analysis on the data with Jim Paulsen, Wells Capital Management and Tom Porcelli, RBC Capital Markets.

Related Links:

Business & financial news headlines from msnbc.com

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46163538/

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Witness in 'Rockefeller' case found bloodstains (AP)

ALHAMBRA, Calif. ? A forensic scientist testifying Friday in the murder case against a man who posed as an heir to the Rockefeller fortune said she found four bloodstains in the Southern California guesthouse where the suspect lived.

Criminalist Lynne Herold gave the testimony in a preliminary hearing to determine whether Christian Gerhartsreiter should stand trial for the death of John Sohus, whose remains were found at his former home in San Marino in 1994, nearly 10 years after he and his wife vanished.

Herold and her colleagues from the Los Angeles County coroner's office used a chemical reaction at the time to find the stains in the Sohuses' guesthouse, where Gerhartsreiter was a tenant known as Christopher Chichester when the couple disappeared, according to the Los Angeles Times ( http://lat.ms/yLd5Yp).

Herold said three of the four stains showed patterns indicating they had been wiped or something like a body had been dragged through them.

She said she did not take a blood sample because in 1994 such a stain could not be tested for DNA analysis, and it may never be known whose blood it was.

Herold testified that she remembers the investigation despite the passing of so many years, because it was among the most memorable of her career.

"It has from Day One sort of been stuck in my head, and it probably always will be one of those cases that you just never forget," she said.

Many of the witnesses in the preliminary hearing have had difficulty remembering details because so many years have passed.

The couple disappeared in 1985. Gerhartsreiter left town soon afterward.

He is charged only with killing 27-year-old John Sohus; no sign of Linda Sohus has been found.

Gerhartsreiter has previously been exposed as a veteran impostor. On the East Coast, he claimed to be "Clark Rockefeller," a member of the famous family, and married a woman with whom he had a daughter. She divorced him when she found out he had duped her.

Last year, Gerhartsreiter was convicted of kidnapping his daughter in Boston during a custody dispute. He is serving a four- to five-year prison sentence for that crime. He would be eligible for parole this year if he was not facing the California charge, which could bring him 26 years to life in prison if he's convicted.

___

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_re_us/us_rockefeller_mystery

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Synthetic Windpipe Transplant Boost For Tissue Engineering

Surgeons in Sweden replaced an American patient's cancerous windpipe with a scaffold built from nanofibers and seeded with the patient's stem cells. Lead surgeon Dr. Paolo Macchiarini discusses the procedure and the benefits of tissue-engineered synthetic organs.

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow.

An American cancer patient became the second person in the world to receive a synthetic windpipe transplant. Surgeons in Sweden replaced a patient's cancerous windpipe with one that was grown in the laboratory. It was made from plastic nanofibers and seeded with the patient's stem cells.

But just how is this artificial organ turned into a functioning airway? And how can this experimental procedure be used on other organs, perhaps lungs, even the heart in the future?

My next guest, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, was the lead surgeon for both synthetic windpipe transplants. Dr. Macchiarini is the director of the Advanced Center for Translational Regenerative Medicine at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

Welcome to Science Friday.

DR. PAOLO MACCHIARINI: Thank you so much.

FLATOW: Thank you for joining us.

Let's start at the beginning. How was the scaffold for the synthetic trachea built?

MACCHIARINI: Well, basically, by the same fibers that everybody of us has, nanofibers; very, very small fibers that are composed and native to the human trachea. So when we wanted to transplant this organ, we thought what is best. And the best would be to just replicate what human nature has done. And this is the reason why we use these very thin fibers.

FLATOW: And then you seeded the fibers, the mold, so to speak, the plastic, with the patient's own stem cells.

MACCHIARINI: Exactly. Because these first steps, the generation of the scaffold, was entirely made in the laboratory. But without the cells, the scaffold could not be implanted, because the trachea is the only organ which is in contact with the external environment. So if you put a prosthesis(ph) or synthetic material (unintelligible) become infected. And you can have different lethal problems. By reseeded the scaffold with a patient's own stem cells, we were making living plastic tissue.

FLATOW: Did the stem cells then start to grow as trachea cells?

MACCHIARINI: Well, the first step is to produce a nano(ph) composite. Then the second step is to take the stem cells of the patient. The third step is to put the two together using a so-called bioreactor, which is a shoebox where you put this (unintelligible) cells and the scaffold. And the cells are attracted by this scaffold, because it is biomaterial and permits attachment of the cells. And the cells are not only attaching, but then starts to proliferate, are living. So that they feel like they would be in a physiological (technical difficulties).

Once you have done this, you implant it, implant this in the human body and you give bioactive (unintelligible) that differentiate the stem cells into the (unintelligible) of the trachea. And this happens usually within 14 days after the transplantation.

FLATOW: And so that the stem cells basically grow and become part of the trachea?

MACCHIARINI: Well, rather than growing, they differentiate into the given specific cells. And to avoid infection (unintelligible) the graft. Yes.

FLATOW: And so by the time you transplant it back into the patient, you have the plastic structure and you have tracheal cells that you're putting back into the patient?

MACCHIARINI: Well, we have the nano composite. We have cells. But these are not tracheal cells, because in such a short time you cannot differentiate a cell. You just can have cells that are living. And once they are implanted in the human body, we use the human body as a so-called own bioreactor and we boost the regeneration.

FLATOW: And so how long would it take for those cells to regenerate once they're back in the human?

MACCHIARINI: Well, after one week of the transplantation, we did an endoscopy. That means an evaluation of the graft. And by taking the cells out, we were finding evidence that the cells of the (technical difficulties) inside it were already there. So in short of seven days you can have differentiated cells starting from not differentiated cells.

FLATOW: And how long would it take to cover and make a complete trachea?

MACCHIARINI: Well, we did - before the last patient came home, we did again an endoscopy. And it was lined with the cells. And today we just proved, with the pathologist, that cells were all there. So probably this depends (technical difficulties) three dimensional measures of the trachea. Because if it a - it's a very long - it is a trachea with bifurcation so that many factors play a role. But usually within two to three weeks, if you tell the body to boost, to accelerate regeneration, you can get the complete differentiated trachea.

FLATOW: Two to three weeks you can make the whole trachea.

MACCHIARINI: Well, using the human body as a bioreactor, yes.

FLATOW: So I imagine you could try to do this with other organs in the body, other things.

MACCHIARINI: Well, we are starting to learn what happens with this still experimental therapy. So I'm not so pessimistic to try to do the same with other tissues or organs. And since I'm a thoracic surgeon, I deal with organs of the chest. So I would think of the esophagus at the chest wall, at the liver ? at the lung, and eventually at the heart. Yes.

FLATOW: And how are the patients doing?

MACCHIARINI: Well, probably there was a huge media coverage when he came back in the United States. And he's doing very well. He was seen yesterday by his referring physician in Baltimore. And as far as I know he's doing fine.

FLATOW: Can you reconstruct blood vessels this way?

MACCHIARINI: Well, actually, the Yale University has started to - a clinical trial approved by the FDA using tissue (unintelligible) in children. So the answer would be yes.

FLATOW: And just to understand more completely, this is a - the trachea is - it has a microfiber backbone to it, on top of which you have permeated with stem cells. And the stem cells have been coaxed into becoming tracheal cells?

MACCHIARINI: Exactly.

FLATOW: Exactly. And then they have now totally covered and taken over on top of this structure of plastic? They have now become sort of a living organism?

MACCHIARINI: Yes, sir.

FLATOW: Wow. And you did this all - it all happened within just a matter of a few weeks?

MACCHIARINI: Well, usually - again, depending on the degree of difficulty of the three dimensional aspect of the tissue, you can produce a trachea, for instance, just the tube, in two days. And a bifurcated trachea in 10 days. So now - then you need two days for getting the cells, reseeding the grafts, or in two weeks you have an entire trachea.

FLATOW: And perhaps you might extend your work further, because you deal in this and possibly into the lungs.

MACCHIARINI: Well, ideally, yes. But to me my dream would be another one. It would be rather than replacing the lung or replacing the heart, you use cell therapy to treat these organs before they ultimately do not work anymore. so rather than doing a transplantation, just when we have the first signs of insufficiency, whether to treat these organs with the patient's stem cells, probably targeting the defect that they have, so prolonging and extending their life.

FLATOW: So if you have untreatable tumors, for example, within the patient, you might be able to instead of putting a new part in put the stem cells in and they would grow to replace that?

MACCHIARINI: Well, I don't think that this is so easy. We first need to be very cautious to identify so-called cancer stem cells, because within the cancer you have cells that do proliferate forever and have many of the aspects of undifferentiated and ever proliferating stem cells.

So whether we could target these cells to block the growth and eventually treat cancer, this is very, very early.

FLATOW: So what makes your technique so revolutionary?

MACCHIARINI: Well, the fact that, first of all, in six months we've had three - we were able to treat 31 and 30 years respectively, young gentlemen that had a tumor of the trachea and they're still alive. So the revolution is there, because there wouldn't be any other treatment options.

And the second revolution is that (unintelligible) is too much, but a new thing is that we were able to ? we saw in the blood of the patient's stem cells that as soon as the (unintelligible) transplant, were already expressing the profile of respiratory cells. So they were recruited from the preferred(ph) and went home to the site of the transplant to make the cells of the trachea.

So that means that indeed, we could do and replicate this for other types of - like the liver, kidney, heart. We just need time and more economic support to prove this concept.

FLATOW: Yes, time and money. That's all we need.

MACCHIARINI: Exactly, as usual.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MACCHIARINI: Exactly.

FLATOW: Well, thank you very much, Dr. Macchiarini, for...

MACCHIARINI: Thank you.

FLATOW: ...taking time to talk with us.

Dr. Paolo Macchiarini is the director of the Advanced Center for a Translational Regenerative Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

We're going to take a break. After the break, we're going to look at two renewable energy projects using pioneering technology. One that taps the heat that causes - under volcanoes. And another project: to float wind turbines off the coast of Maine in really deep water. Not close to shore but far away so you can't even see them from the shore. In deep water creating, you know, electrical energy that way.

We'll talk about it when we get back. Our number: 1-800-989-8255. Tweet us at SciFri@SCIFRI. We'll be right back after this break.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow. This is Science Friday from NPR.

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/145525008/synthetic-windpipe-transplant-boost-for-tissue-engineering?ft=1&f=1007

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UK Muslims convicted in landmark gay hatred case (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? Three British Muslim men were found guilty on Friday of stirring up hatred by distributing leaflets calling for the death of homosexuals in what prosecutors said was a landmark case.

The men, from Derby, had posted and handed out pamphlets near their local mosque with the title "Death Penalty?" featuring a mannequin hanging from a noose and saying gay people would to go to hell.

The leaflets were part of a protest by a group of Muslim men against a forthcoming Gay Pride parade in the city.

Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed became the first people in Britain to be found guilty under a law introduced in 2010 making it an offence to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The jury at Derby Crown Court heard how one witness had felt he was being targeted and feared he would be burned, said Sue Hemming from the Crown Prosecution Service.

"While people are entitled to hold extreme opinions which others may find unpleasant and obnoxious, they are not entitled to distribute those opinions in a threatening manner intending to stir up hatred against gay people," she said in a statement.

"This case was not about curtailing people's religious views or preventing them from educating others about those views; it was that any such views should be expressed in a lawful manner and not incite others to hatred."

Gay rights group Stonewall said the case vindicated their call for specific legislation to protect homosexuals.

"We're satisfied to see these extremists convicted for distributing offensive and inflammatory leaflets that suggested gay people should be burnt or stoned to death," said Ben Summerskill, Stonewall Chief Executive.

The men will be sentenced on February 10.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Steve Addison)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/lf_nm_life/us_britain_muslims_gays

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The Simpsons Are Already Making Fun of Steve Jobs [Video]

You probably missed this among the CES clusterfuck: the Simpsons made fun of Steve Jobs on this week's episode, titled Politically Inept, with Homer Simpson. As Homer is being interviewed on TV, "Steve Jobs unveils iGhost" crawls across the news ticker. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ael1CBUbw2U/the-simpsons-are-already-making-fun-of-steve-jobs

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Key US oil supplier may cut off spigot Sunday (AP)

NEW YORK ? One of the biggest suppliers of oil to the United States may shut off the spigot this weekend, pushing crude and gasoline prices higher for Americans.

Nigeria, which supplies 8 percent of U.S. oil imports, could see production halted if striking workers walk off the job Sunday. Workers are demanding the return of a vital government fuel subsidy that has kept gasoline prices low in that impoverished and restive nation of 160 million people.

It's unclear how much of Nigeria's production would be affected. At worst, the country's 20,000 unionized oil workers could take as much as 2.4 million barrels of daily crude production off the market, striking at the heart of Nigeria's oil-dependent economy.

Even if strikers are only partially successful, fears of tightened global supplies could raise oil prices by $5-$10 per barrel on futures markets next week. Gasoline prices would follow, rising by as much as 10 cents per gallon and forcing U.S. drivers to spend an additional $36 million a day at the pump.

Gasoline now costs $3.39 per gallon (89 cents a liter) after rising 11 cents since the start of the year. Experts predict the national average could rise as high as $4.25 per gallon ($1.12 a liter) in 2012.

The Nigerian government already has offered a smaller, temporary fuel subsidy and will meet with union leaders on Saturday. The strike could be called off but protesters have promised to halt production if they don't get the full, $8 billion subsidy restored.

Disruptions would have a long-term impact on Nigeria's economy. Union president Babatunde Ogun said it could take six months to a year to restart oil fields once they're shut down.

"If everything comes to a standstill, the government will budge," Ogun told reporters this week in Lagos.

The threat to shut off oil production is the latest move by protesters after a week of violent, anti-government clashes throughout the country. The strike began Monday to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan's decision to abandon the fuel subsidy.

"It's going to be a showdown this weekend," in Nigeria, Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit said. "You can only hope that cooler heads will prevail."

It's hard to predict how effective a national oil worker strike would be.

Oil production facilities are usually automated, allowing them to pump oil out of the ground without anyone at the platform. But if something breaks, if the pressure in the well fluctuates, or if other problems occur that cause an automatic system shutdown, there wouldn't be anyone there to get production running again.

It's likely oil companies operating in the region _Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni S.P.A. ? would simply shutter their platforms and wait for political tensions to subside, Gheit said. Oil companies could still export oil from storage terminals on the coast; that is, if union workers at the terminals stay on the job.

The price of oil already has swung up and down this year because of supply concerns in another oil-rich part of the world, the Persian Gulf. Iran, the world's third-largest crude exporter, is sparring with the U.S. and Europe over its nuclear program.

While Iranian imports are banned in the U.S. because of long-standing tensions, the country supplies 2.2 million barrels per day to the rest of the world, including Europe. Meanwhile, Libya is quickly restarting oil fields that were shut down during the anti-government uprising last year. It has about 1 million barrels per day back online, and it expects to increase production to pre-rebellion levels of 1.6 million barrels per day by mid-year.

Oil prices fell by $2.86 this week to end at $98.70 per barrel in New York. Prices dropped as Europe delayed a decision to ban Iranian imports. But they could snap back up given the variety of geopolitical problems affecting world supplies, including the threat of a Nigerian oil worker strike.

The U.S. government expects the price of oil to average $100.25 per barrel this year.

Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, said oil could jump by $5-$10 per barrel if the strike begins Sunday. Nigeria ranks behind Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Venezuela in oil exports to the U.S. It produces a valuable crude variety that is easier and cheaper to turn into gasoline than others.

Investors, who have been numbed from years of political unrest in Nigeria that included sabotage, thievery, environmental protests and other operating problems, may wait to see how the government works with the union. Nigerian oil always seems to be under a perpetual threat of some kind, Lynch said.

"Though this time seems more serious," he said.

Nigerians have been upset for years as international oil production damaged the environment with little apparent domestic benefits. One of the only visible perks was the fuel subsidy. Removing it forced gasoline prices to jump overnight from $1.70 per gallon to at least $3.50 per gallon ? a crippling increase for a nation where most people live on less than $2 a day.

The government still seems determined to have its way, Barclays analyst Helima Croft said, but an oil field strike would be a game changer. If workers can shut down oil production, it's only a matter of time before declining oil revenues will force the government to cave, she said.

"Any disruptions in either oil production or exports would severely constrain government activities and its ability to meet its obligations," Croft said.

Eighty percent of the country's revenue comes from oil.

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Follow Chris Kahn on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ChrisKahnAP

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120113/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices_nigeria_impact

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