OPEC Basket
The OPEC basket will stay above $100 a barrel for the rest of this year, according to forecasts from five banks and consultants, including Barclays Plc and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Its previous record period above this level was from April 7 to Sept. 8, 2008. OPEC's members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.
Not all the spending initiatives work right away, even though citizens praise the changes.
Abu Dhabi plans to provide more services to poorer citizens by focusing on communities like Ras Al Khaimah after academics and journalists signed an online petition calling for the country's Federal National Council, an advisory body with no executive authority, to be chosen by universal suffrage and given more power.
Less than a week after Mubarak's ouster in Egypt, the city of 250,000 people got a visit from Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Learning they lacked electricity, Sheikh Mohammed, who is next in line to the nation's presidency, summoned a utility executive who arrived within two hours by helicopter. "Give them power now," he ordered.
Pro-Democracy Activists
Sheikh Mohammed "sat with the people and listened to our needs," said Yousuf al-Nuaimi, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Ras Al Khaimah, one of seven U.A.E. cities whose per capita income is 45 times less than Abu Dhabi. The Crown Prince promised electricity to the northern sheikhdom, home to one of five pro-democracy activists arrested this year, from a plant in nearby Fujairah and 1 billion dirhams ($270 million) for road and housing improvements, al-Nuaimi said.
Seven months after the visit, Ras Al Khaimah is still waiting for power but residents don't blame the crown prince.
"Abu Dhabi is not the problem," al-Nuaimi said. "The Federal Water and Electricity Authority is the problem. They need to do the connection but they are not. I hope the next step will be for Abu Dhabi to take over FEWA so that we can enjoy the power they promised us."