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Explosion in Baumgarten (Austria) gas transit plant, russian gas delivery halted for Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia. Italy declares energy crisis. Gas price in Europe jumps ~20%. Crude oil futures rise too.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMyiQtm56co (far away video)
* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/12/least-one-killed-18-injured-explosion-austrian-gas-plant/
* https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/891284/Austria-gas-plant-blast-Europe-energy-crisis-fuel-shortages-Italy-state-emergency
* https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-12/u-k-gas-surges-after-explosion-in-austria-tightens-supply
UPDATE from: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42321217
Police have cordoned off the area. Some victims suffering burns have been airlifted out by helicopter, Austrian ORF news reports.
One unconfirmed report spoke of 60 hurt.
"I heard a huge explosion and thought at first it was a plane crash," photographer Thomas Hulik, who lives in a nearby village in Slovakia, told AFP news agency. "Then I saw an immense ball of flame."
Gas Connect said the incident should have no effect on gas deliveries to Austria but those to Italy and Croatia might be reduced.
Meanwhile, Russia's Gazprom Export said it was working to redirect gas flows.
It said it was "doing everything possible to secure uninterrupted gas supplies" to customers in the region.
Spot prices rose sharply across Europe after the incident.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @12:30PM (2 children)
You are saying it like there was option C - no assholes, but previously you explicitly wrote: "But, there will always be an asshole."
If so, then for any particular side, their asshole is clearly better option than other side's asshole.
However I see what you mean, and this is what we've got: we strive for "no assholes" option again and again, which explains and rationalizes the intentions behind actions which brought in this wave of instability, but all we get is a bunch of less strong assholes in place of one big asshole, and resulting effect on the innocent is even more widespread suffering.
When you try to cut a steak on a plate using only a knife without waiting for a fork to be brought to the table, usually the mess ensues. Don't jump out of the airplane door just hoping that you've got parachute. Prepare parachute before you jump. ... etc. I could go with these analogies all day.
That's flip side of overachievers: they want it done now, even if they will fail because of their impatience. It goes to show that their goals are selfish ones - to snatch laurels, not the stated ones - whichever good is to be brought. None gets a bronze monument for nurturing and building up new enlightened leaders to world's less free regions over long decades. And it all could be lost in days - look at the Balkans after dissolution of Yugoslavia or Central Asia after Soviet Union. They got almost instant regression to pre-19th century at the fall of the hat! You can't expect to remove inner walls from a classer box without carefully replacing them with new ones, in fact installing new ones prior to removing old ones, and expect that everything stays tidy. Once communist ideology was out, so were its parts which it had in common with modern democracy - inter-ethnic tolerance and basic human solidarity, but none bothered to think beyond anticommunist propaganda to see that vacuum left after one ideology will not automatically get filled with modern ideas, but instead as one layer is ripped off, an older, preceding mindset will resurface. When we today remove strongmen dictators from e.g. Arab world, we are pushing those nations deeper back into their historical (as recalled) narrative.
In short, people in high places are (either) incompetent or/and irresponsible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @03:36PM
When it's not an asshole, the USA often overthrows him/her and installs their pet asshole.
The USA has overthrown a number of democratically elected leaders who were arguably better for their people than the assholes the USA installed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 16 2017, @06:35AM
people in high places are (either) incompetent or/and irresponsible.
No, people in high places generally are psychopaths. Incompetence and irresponsibility are irrelevant.