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If Morse's thinking holds and crude prices drop to $90 range per barrel (see the link to Morse) then we have another major problem on our hands as the incentives for conservation diminish and there is less money invested in energy conservation, and investment, effort and enthusiasm for new technologies for conservation also diminishes. This risks the environment and carbon dioxide emissions and keeps sending money on expensive oil imports to Saudis, Russia and the middle east which could be better invested in the US for innovation and R&D or returned tothe public. For energy saving conservation technology investors the drop in incentive through a return to cheap oil or expectations of prices that are below $100 for instance can be the worst of both worlds high prices and low investment says Vinod Khosla. He advocates a floor on the price of oil. Stanford Professor Hillard Huntington, executive director of the Energy Modeling Forum, a group of energy experts, says energy saving initiatives could easily take 4 million to 5 million barrels a day of demand off the market in 10 years from the 20 million barrels a day that the USA uses to heat homes, power industry, and fuel cars, trucks and planes. It would be a huge loss for that not to happen. And this has happened before as the oil crisis in the 1980's became a dim memory once oil prices hit a low of $11 in the mid 1980's after conservation kicked in at the time. The idea then is to have some sort of gasoline tax that would keep a floor on the price of oil that Europe already has. And British Columbia has shown how by having a small tax and returning money to the taxpayers with a $100 check refund and in other ways to small business and other txpayers....

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Questions being raised about the Obama administration's approach to the war in Syria.

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VW's labor costs at its new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will be $27 an hour in wages and benefits, according to analysts. The comparable cost for Detroit automakers and Toyota and Honda plants is $52 an hour. Over three years VW is expected to increase this to about $38 an hour, according to the Center for Automotive Research, Ann Arbor, Mich. This will enable VW to price the larger version of the Passat it will make in Tennessee at $20,000, instead of the current price of 28,000.

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President Obama attends a filming of a show for "The View" hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and co-host Barbara Walters at ABC studios on Sept 24, 2012. This happens just as world leaders are greeted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as they arrive for a meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. And just as Tim Arango reports in the NYT that the situation in the Middle East is seeing spillover affects from Syria that affect the entire region, and Middle East tensions are rising.

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From the beginning coordinated effort had little prospect between the U.S., the EU, and Russia to address Islamic State and terrorism with Russia's continuing its policies in Syria. This is less likely now with the shooting down of a Russian war plane over Turkey, continued tensions with bombing of Turkic populations on the border, and Russia's bombing campaign in Syria hitting targets all over the region.

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A shift in Israeli opinion towards greater use of sanctions after antigovernment protests in Iran with deteriorating economic conditions and a 40% decline in the value of the rial. Merchants and ordinary citizens from the middle class are now joining the students and young people who led the protests in 2011.

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Questions and Answers about Islamic State on the BBC website give a short and simple look at Islamic State or ISIS in Syria and Iraq, its origins and how it developed upto the Iraqi government's efforts to retake Mosul in northern Iraq in Dec. 2016.

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Turkey's recognition for Syria's national coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.