U.S. lawmakers spent most of this week lobbing insults at the Cuban government while assessing the risks of an offshore oil spill about 90 miles from the southern Florida coast.

Spanish energy company Repsol is leading an exploratory drilling campaign in Cuban waters and, rightfully so, many wary U.S. lawmakers are still shell-shocked from the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Considering Florida relies on tourism for a substantial part of state revenue, it’s no wonder Florida’s Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll said Cuba can’t be trusted…

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Similar variations of this adjusted unemployment rate make headlines now and again. Our colleague Ed Luce, for instance, noted in December that “if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 per cent”.

But what is striking about the broken line above isn’t where it now ends — at 10.3 per cent — but rather the lack of any meaningful, sustained improvement for more than two years.

This alternative measure has remained above 10 per cent since September 2009,…

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Supporters of pipelines that cross international frontiers have fervent supporters in the energy industry, who maintain that they are “win win” solutions for both energy producing nations and transit countries.
 
The reality is however that the true picture is more mixed, as the following survey shows.
 
Perhaps Exhibit A for the view that international pipelines in fact raise tensions is the ongoing dispute between Sudan and South Sudan over the latter’s exports through Khartoum’s pipeline…

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Independent energy company Gulfsands Petroleum announced this week that it made oil and natural gas discoveries during drilling operations in the country’s northeast. Gulfands was forced to halt production activity in Syria late last year because of sanctions pressure but that did little to curb its Syrian exploration campaign. The 10-month-old conflict in Syria is looking more and more like full-blown civil war and, with most oil majors headed for the exit doors, unless there’s some sort of protective force manning the oil and gas fields in…

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Washington loves free trade – if it produces a surplus for the U.S.
 
In an election year, with a modest economic recovery underway, American politicians are trumpeting their credentials in saving and creating jobs and protectionism sentiment against foreign products is rising.
 
And the number one target?
 
China.
 
Hardly surprising, as during the period January-November China’s surplus balance of trade with the U.S. reached $272 billion, almost 8 percent higher than that…

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