UNCERTAINTIES AND PROBABILITIES

摘要

Last month we considered the possibility of the turmoil in Tunisia, which resulted in the toppling of the country's long- standing dictator, Ben Ali, spreading eastwards to Libya, Egypt and 'perhaps beyond to touch the autocratic regimes of the Gulf'. Well, it has been hard keeping up with fast- moving reality, as Egypt's strong-man Hosni Mubarak eventually left Cairo for internal exile in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh after the Egyptian people had expressed their will in mass demonstrations, and as people took to the streets of Benghazi and Tripoli in Libya, Sana’a in the Yemen, Amman in Jordan, Teheran in Iran and Manama, Bahrain's capital. Although thus far oil and gas supplies have not been disrupted anywhere in North Africa and the Middle East, there is nevertheless almost palpable nervousness in — and obviously beyond — the oil/gas industry about the possibility of contagion spreading to the all-important energy producing areas of the Middle East Gulf.