1, t | mm || VV Vr | VV wait set to join hited Arab Republic. DAMASCUS—The British protected Sheikdom of ait, on the Persian Gulf, and the new Republic of Iraq are We ee itces said this devel- follows a series of a last week between , ~ot Nasser, head of the ke . Arab Republic, Iraqi hat Ba the ruler of Ku- Titan Abdullah al Salim » Who is spending the Mer in Damascus. “ Sources said the talks the a Yield good fruits in lite, future, particularly in oa the scope of co- 10n between Kuwait on Side and the United Arab Mtockholm bast tis Be? join the United Arab Republic, Syrian sources said Republic and Iraq on_ the other.” Sheik Abdullah, whose 5,800-square-mile territory ac- counts for some 50 percent of Britain’s oil imports, was glad to see “new faces in power in Iraq,” the sources said. (Kuwait, which borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia, has been under British protection since 1899. Persian Gulf experts say there is a strong pro-Egyptian element among the population of 206,000). Congress Wtges check on West STOCKHOLM—Dominated from the first moment to the lop Di he critical situation in the Middle East, the Congress rsa tig tmament and International Co-operation at its closing Noni here adopted an appeal to the peoples of the whole £0 stop U.S. and British aggression. Scenes of great en- nih the 1,000 delegates, Mom Y two votes against, Xen = the action already Munty y the people of many ‘by, &s, whe Opinion in many heart the world,” said the » “has expressed itself ati Steat demonstrations, Mitione to parliament, Yi 5 Sand actions by trade ling 29 other organiza- Wea, testing against the The -2 im the Middle East.” 4p we nates urged “a great ing ae the number, scale ity riety of such actions, %ch ee to the conditions in “y Suntry Net, Special] responsibility On the people of the " conference United States, Britain and such other countries as are being used as bases for, or whose governments are sup- porting, the aggression to bring it to an end.” In his concluding speech. to the congress, Britain’s Profes- sor J. D. Bernal said that the action of the peace forces had already resulted in some gov- ernments agreeing in principle to a Summit conference. But he warned against any ten- dency to rejoice too early. “The activities of the peace movements in every country must not be relaxed, but rather intensified and kept at their highest pitch until the Summit actually takes place,” he said. 89 Soviet scientists Writers say end it” . OSCOW — Ninety-six S oviet scientists and 93 Soviet Nora, 189 famous figures in all—have signed separate Rote, S to colleagues the world over, calling for the end of The 10? in the Middle East. “eng Signatories include ‘ty ay like Prof. Kapitsa ‘lem President of the rites, of Sciences, Prof. Rh Nov, with writers like ho, CShurg, Mikhail Shol- Mey, €ra_ Panova, Boris XN , and many others. thy wally,” say the scien- slay © scientists are par- Sa Worried as we witness ‘, tenn ous fires of war be- Mi, f7 in the Middle Bast " a 'S our firm conviction os minded people We «tied as we are “ey frefore appeal to all Stlence to do every- thing possible at this crucial moment to cut short this ag- gression and prevent a Third World War from - breaking out.” Recalling the ruins and des- truction brought about by the Second World War the Soviet writers in their appeal to their colleagues say: “We call on you to prevent ruins appearing on the bank of the Thames and the Hudson River, to prevent the sad graves of soldiers from appear- ing among the orchard blossoms.” } [Medterrancon § Ros SERS ‘ SEES ORRO LOS Sook eS ee. PS Ue rekee tres + SOR LE REGHANISTAN % ¥ iRAN or: < > Ps an egg Y — 4 15 “<- 880 Over 5,000 million gallons of crude and refined oil is imported into Britain annually from the Middle East alone, which supplies one barrel in five of the world’s oils Where does it come from, and who owns it? Most of the giant oil companies—Americin, British, Dutch and French — have their tenacles in each of the main oil-producing areas of the world. But some get a far greater proportion of their revenues from the Middle East .than others. Whereas, for example, the U.S. Standard Oil, of New Jer sey, gets 17,500,000 metric tons from all Middle East sources, or only some 18 per- cent, British Petroleum gets as much as 98 million. metric tons, almost its entire oil pro- duction. However, U.S. oil interests in the Middle East are now a good deal larger than the British. It has been estimated that in 1955 American companies accounted for 53 percent of the total oil production in the Middle East, compared with the British and British-Dutch share of 30 per cent. Most of the remaining in- terest is accounted for by the French group: Compagnie Francaise de Petroles. So here is an anomaly; whereas the British companies, especially British Petroleum, might be relatively hardest hit financially by a chain-reaction of Arab _ self-determination leading to nationalisation of their oil resources, the Ameri- cans have the biggest stake in Middle East oil, yet are less dependent than B.P.. on the region because of their vast stakes in the American con- tinent. American muscling in cn Middle East oil has been a postwar feature. As early as 1928 U.S. companies secured a share in the Iraq Petroleura Company and in the early 1930s U.S. companies dug themselves in in Saudi Arabia. Since the war Aramco (Arabian American Oil Com- pany) has expanded and U.S. interests have a 40 percent stake in Iranian Oil Partici- pants, the consortium which handles Iranian oil. The setting up of the Na- tional Iranian -Oil Company after Mossadeq’s abortive at- tempts to nationalise Iran’s oil gave the Americans the chance to get their feet. still farther under the table. The biggest proportion of Britain’s Middle East oil comes from the sheikdom of Kuwait at the head of the Persian Gulf, which is a British protectorate: To take British Petroleum as an example, of this com- ’ & An oil tanker from the Middle East arrives in Brituin. August 1, 1958 — pany’s total oil production 57 percent comes from Kuwait 28 percent from Iran and 10 percent from Iraq. In so far as the Soviet Union is a Middle East country, no survey of oil in the region, however brief, can ignore Soviet oil resources across the borders from Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The Soviet Union’s share in world oil production has more than doubled since the end of the war, and now accounts for nearly 12 percent of the total. She is the world’s third largest oil producer. Alone of the Great Powers the USSR is not tainted with the smell of oil extracted from semi-colonial countries, with their appalling standards for the masses and feudal regimes propped up by the interlocking capitalist oil combines and their governments. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 3