THE old, sad, Jewish joke about Moses taking a wrong turn and ending up in a corner of the Middle East without any oil can at last be discarded.

犹太人关于摩西有一个古老又悲哀的笑话是这样讲的，摩西掉错了头，结果来到了中东角上，这时候他没有一滴可被抛弃的油。

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But the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the reliance on Middle East imports and the threat of global warming are reminders that oil is also a pressing worry.

但是，墨西哥海湾的漏油，对中东石油进口的依赖和全球变暖的威胁都在提醒我们石油同样令人担忧。

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The Food and Agriculture Organisation is warning that costs could spiral even further if unrest in Libya and the Middle East keeps driving up the price of oil.

粮农组织警告称，如果利比亚和中东的动荡继续推动石油价格上涨，粮食价格还会进一步攀升。

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Oil became a useful product only in the middle of the eighteen hundreds.

VOA: special.2010.02.25

Middle east oil is critical to the rise of India and China, and in that sense it's very much part of the economic process.

中东石油,对于中印的崛起非常关键，因此它是东南亚经济发展的,重大保障。

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No matter what happens in the distant future, today Schiller is in the middle of the most exciting oil and gas play in the Gulf of Mexico, one whose true scope will become evident in 2011.

FORBES: Names You Need To Know In 2011: John Schiller At Energy XXI

No doubt, the immediate cause for the sudden rise in the price of oil and gasoline is fear of disruptions in the supply of oil due to unrest in the Middle East and the growing risk of war with Iran.

FORBES: How to Stop the Spike In the Price of Gasoline

The great upthrust of the immigrant working class into the middle class after World War II, via the GI Bill, was stopped stone cold by the events of the autumn of 1973, when the October war in the Middle East led to the quadrupling of oil prices virtually overnight and the great inflation set in.

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