India and oil security

India is jumping into the race to secure oil supplies. Cf. India Daily piece from January 16:

India is on a big spree of buying oil and Gas assets all over the world. From Ecuador to UK to Myanmar, India is in the process of buying whatever assets it can get hold of.
Ecuador's energy minister said on Saturday he wanted India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Canada's EnCana Corp to speed up negotiations for the sale of Ecuadorian oil and gas assets. ONGC has bid for EnCana's oil and gas assets in Ecuador as a part of its bid to acquire stakes in petroleum projects abroad to meet the energy needs of India's rapidly growing economy.

Recently, ONGC has been pricing PetroKazakhstan.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has held initial talks to acquire PetroKazakhstan Inc., a Canadian firm with operations in central Asia, an official at the Indian company said.
State-run ONGC is also negotiating stakes in two Caspian oil exploration blocks in Kazakhstan, he said...
Indian firms, led by ONGC, have acquired stakes in oil and gas ventures in many countries including a 25 percent stake sold by Canada's Talisman Energy Inc. in Sudan's Greater Nile Project.

Coincidentally, Talisman Energy, PetroKazakhstan, and EnCana are all based in Canada.

In principle, the competition between China and India for oil assets should raise any resulting sale prices.

Opportunistic attack timing?

Perhaps it was perceived that the G8 summit would draw spare security resources away from London's infrastructure, thus providing an opportunity for attack.

It is still too early to say whether suicide attacks were involved or not, but it's worth keeping in mind that premature detonation in the past has taken out would-be bombers in the UK. In 1996, a member of the IRA died from his own bomb as it exploded while he was riding a bus. He was certainly no suicide bomber.

Also, there were no suicide bombers in the Madrid attack. Although three suspects apparently blew themselves up when cornered afterward, they were not in a hurry to die otherwise, as one suspect escaped the explosion.

A few thoughts on the recent attacks in London

If the attacks are indeed due to al Qaida and they are being strategic about it, then they should avoid direct attacks on U.S. soil in order to prevent a rally of support for U.S. troops in Iraq. Attacking the U.K. and Spain makes sense as part of an effort to demoralize U.S. allies in Iraq and provoke isolation of the U.S.A.

It may be a coincidence, but 2005 is numerologically equivalent to 7. Thus, 7-7-2005 becomes 7-7-7. Perhaps the chosen date was passed along via a coded phrase along the lines of "the luckiest day of the attack", hiding the numerological interpretation within what would appear to be merely a metaphor.

Going out on a limb, perhaps there was deliberate irony in attacking upon what would normally be a very auspicious day.