Spain threatened economic retaliation against Argentina Tuesday after Buenos Aires took control of an oil company said to be worth $18 billion.

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner replaced the chief executive officer of oil firm YPF -- the country's biggest firm -- and said she would send a bill to congress to take a 51 percent stake in the company, the Bloomberg news agency reported.

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Spanish oil firm Repsol is the major shareholder in YPF and it said it would seek compensation on the bases that YPF was worth $18 billion. However, its shares dropped by more than eight percent Tuesday, Reuters said.

"With this attitude, this hostility from the Argentine authorities, there will be consequences that we'll see over the next few days. They will be in the diplomatic field, the industrial field, and on energy," Spanish industry minister Jose Manuel Soria said, according to Reuters.

He added that the government would take "clear and decisive" measures, according to Bloomberg.

Madrid called in the Argentinean ambassador in a rapidly escalating row over the nationalization order, Reuters said.

Fernandez: I'm 'not a thug'
Fernandez's move delighted many of her compatriots but alarmed some foreign governments and investors. 

"This president isn't going to respond to any threats ... because I represent the Argentine people. I'm the head of state, not a thug," she said, according to Reuters. 

Fernandez said the government would ask Congress, which she controls, to approve a bill to expropriate a controlling 51 percent stake in the company by seizing shares held exclusively by Repsol, saying energy was a "vital resource." 

"If this [the YPF's] policy continues -- draining fields dry, no exploration and practically no investment -- the country will end up having no viable future, not because of a lack of resources but because of business policies," she said. 

Repsol described Argentina's move as "clearly unlawful and seriously discriminatory." "This battle is not over," Repsol chairman Antonio Brufau said. 

Spanish media condemned the Argentinean action, which Reuters said was believed to be the biggest nationalization in the natural resources field since the seizure of Russia's Yukos a decade ago. 

Right-wing newspaper La Razon carried a photograph of Fernandez on its front page in a pool of oil with the headline: "Kirchner's Dirty War", referring to her full name. The business newspaper La Gaceta de los Negocios branded the takeover "an act of pillage". 

On the left, El Periodico spoke of "The New Evita", pointing out that Fernandez had announced the nationalization in a room decorated with a portrait of Eva Peron, the actress who was married to a president and revered by many Argentineans for her populist politics. 

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Proposed wind turbines that would go up in moorlands that inspired “Wuthering Heights” are generating controversy with the Brontë Society and nearby villagers, according to reports in United Kingdom media.

Thornton Moor near Haworth, in West Yorkshire, would be home to four 328-foot-high wind turbines flanking the Brontë Way tourist trail, The Telegraph of London said.

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The moor in what is termed “Brontë Country” was an inspiration for all three Brontë sisters, who lived less than five miles away, the newspaper said.

The Brontë Parsonage, now a museum, was the literary family's home from 1820 to 1861, according to the Brontë Society website.

"These moors should continue undisturbed for generations to come and for the swathes of visitors from the UK and overseas drawn to Haworth and Yorkshire by their interest in the lives and works of the Brontës,” Sally McDonald, chairman of the Brontë Society board of trustees, told the Telegraph.

“The Brontës were passionate about the landscape and the moorland hugely influenced the writing of all three sisters,” McDonald said.

“Wuthering Heights,” by Emily Brontë, was set there, she said. Among other books by the Brontë sisters are “Jane Eyre,” by Charlotte Brontë, and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” by Anne Brontë.

The $19 million wind farm proposed by energy firm Banks Renewables would produce enough electricity to power 4,500 homes, the company said.

Bradford councilors are due to vote on an application to install a data-gathering mast next week. Foes fear the project will proceed and be up and running within 12 months.

Phil Dyke, development director at Banks Renewables, said, "The visual impact of a test mast at Thornton Moor would be very slight as it would be a slender structure.” He also said developing sustainable low-carbon energy is vital, telling the Bradford Telegraph & Argus that more countries are bidding for fossil fuel.

Anthea Orchard, chair of the Thornton Moor Wind Farm Action group, was quoted by Sky News on Saturday as saying she was not a "nimby."

"We're used to wind farms here," she said. "But these will be twice the size and much nearer the houses.

In another recent wind farm argument, billionaire business tycoon Donald Trump fiercely opposes a proposal for 11 64-story-high wind turbines off the Aberdeenshire coast of Scotland near his planned $1.2 billion golf resort on the Menie Estate. The BBC has reported that Trump was accused of bullying the Scottish government, a charge his company denied.

Trump called the turbines "ugly monstrosities" that will ruin the coastline and kill tourism. The issue is not settled.

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Conservationists counted 615 dead dolphins along a 90-mile stretch of beaches in Peru, a wildlife group said Wednesday, and the leading suspect is acoustic testing offshore by oil companies.

"If you can count 615 dead dolphins, you can be sure there are a great many more out at sea and the total will reach into the thousands,” Hardy Jones, head of the conservation group BlueVoice.org, said in a statement after he and an expert with ORCA Peru walked the beaches.

Indeed, the head of a local fishermen's association told Peru21.pe that he estimated more than 3,000 dolphins had died so far this year, based on what he saw in the water and on beaches.

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BlueVoice.org stated that "initial tests ... show evidence of acoustical impact from sonic blasts used in exploration for oil."

The ORCA Peru expert, veterinarian Carlos Yaipen Llanos, said that while "we have no definitive evidence," he suspects acoustic testing created a "marine bubble" -- in essence a sonic blast that led to internal bleeding, loss of equilibrium and disorientation.

Another possibility is that the dolphins suffered from a disease outbreak, Yaipen Llanos said.

 

"It is a horrifying thought that these dolphins would die in agony over a prolonged period if they were impacted by sonic blast," said Jones.

Numerous dolphins first started washing ashore in January, with the largest amount coming in early February. Thousands of dead anchovies were also seen.

BlueVoice.org noted that the U.S. has suspended similar testing in the Gulf of Mexico due to recent sightings of dead and sick dolphins. The ban was set to last through the dolphins' calving season, which ends in May. 

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The whole of Cyprus woke up without electricity Wednesday after a problem at one of its power plants resulted in the entire grid shutting down, according to local media reports.

A malfunction at the Mediterranean nation's main Dhekelia power station in the early hours of the morning, triggering breakdowns throughout the system, was blamed for the black-out, according to the English language Cyprus Mail newspaper.

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The outage caused massive traffic jams during the morning rush hour, with police scrambling to control intersections where lack of traffic lights confused and angered motorists, Agence France Press reported.

Turkey says could annex north if Cyprus stays split

Cyprus's electricity resources are already stretched after its main power generating facility at Vassilikos was almost destroyed in an accidental explosion in 2011 that left 12 people dead. The Famagusta Gazette said last year's explosion occurred in containers, full of munitions, that Cyprus had confiscated from a vessel sailing from Iran to Syria.

London’s Daily Telegraph said Wednesday’s outage forced authorities to put ageing stations back online and to get supplies from the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state which lies north of a ceasefire line splitting the war-divided island. 

Cyprus has a population of about 800,000.

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India may have lost $210 billion in what one opposition politician described as the "mother of all scams," according to reports.

A draft report by government auditors estimated the sum was lost when state-owned coalfields were sold to private operators too cheaply because of a lack of competitive bidding.

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The draft from the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) office, leaked and reported by the Times of India, criticized the allocation of 155 coalfields to about 100 private and some state-run firms between 2004 and 2009, questioning why they were not auctioned off to the highest bidder.

 

However, while the published excerpts criticized the government's methods, they stopped short of direct accusations of corruption and the auditor also later backed away from the loss calculation and said its thinking had changed.

Reuters reported that the revelations had provoked fury in India's parliament, where lawmakers are angry at a string of recent scandals and policy missteps by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

India's 'untouchable' queen faces election test

Singh, who oversaw the coal ministry during some of the period covered by the report, made no comment during his appearance in parliament on Thursday but his office called the leaked report's estimated loss "exceedingly misleading."

Opposition party leader Prakash Javadekar described the coalfield sale as the "mother of all scams" and the government as "the government of looters" in comments reprinted in the Times of India.

Singh has lurched from crisis to crisis since massive corruption in the sale of telecoms spectrum surfaced two years ago, culminating in the quashing of licenses. The telecoms sale may have cost the government up to $36 billion.

The uncertainty over the coal contracts will add to investors' confusion about doing business in one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

Any suggestion of lost revenues also underlines the weakening state of the central government's finances. The budget deficit is expected to blow out to 5.9 percent of GDP this fiscal year from a goal of 4.6 percent, leaving the government financially stretched for the upcoming year and ahead of elections due by 2014.

Reuters and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

Britain is secretly seeking oil-drilling rights in Somalia as it offers the beleaguered country humanitarian and security aid, The Guardian of London reported Saturday.

But al-Qaida-backed terrorists and other Islamist groups say they will fight against any Western powers drilling for oil in Somalia.

Last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted a 55-nation international conference that ended with promises of aid for the country he said was for two decades “torn apart by famine, bloodshed and some of the worst poverty on earth."

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The summit, the Guardian reported, followed a surprise visit by British Foreign Secretary William Hague to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu,  where he discussed "the beginnings of an opportunity'' to rebuild the country.

The Guardian said that away from the summit, British and Somali officials held talks about Somalia’s oil reserves.

Abdulkadir Abdi Hashi, minister for international cooperation in Puntland, north-east Somalia, told the Guardian, "We have spoken to a number of UK officials, some have offered to help us with the future management of oil revenues. They will help us build our capacity to maximise future earnings from the oil industry."

Hashi said Somalia would talk to BP “at the right time” about technology needed to explore Somalia’s oil reserves.

Last month the Canadian company Africa Oil began exploration in the Puntland, the first drilling in Somalia for 21 years.

Hashi, who the Guardian said made the deal with Africa Oil, said the first oil was expected to be extracted within the next "20 to 30 days."

Africa Oil and its partners in the two Puntland licenses, Australia's Red Emperor and Range Resources, are targeting prospective resources of over 300 million barrels of recoverable oil.

The Guardian story comes amid reports from Reuters that an Islamist militia group in the semi-autonomous Puntland  merged with the al Shabaab rebel group, which wants to scrap the licenses of Western oil and gas firms drilling in Puntland.

The al Qaida-backed insurgents used Twitter to declare all oil and gas exploration and drilling licenses nullified. While they do not hold the administrative control in the region needed to enforce their demand, the militants could target installations operated by Western oil companies, Reuters said.

The union comes as the insurgents are being weakened, relinquishing ground to African Union troops around the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and losing territory to Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in parts of southern and central Somalia.

Puntland security officials have previously said the Islamist militia camped out in the Golis hills outside the port city of Bosasso is led by Yasin Khalid Osman.

"I ... the leader of Golis ranges Islamists have signed an agreement with al Shabaab leader Sheikh Muktar Abu Zubeir. We are now al Shabaab," a voice identifying itself as Osman said in an audio recording on al Shabaab's website.

"I urge residents to take part in the jihad against the Christian invaders and the Somali infidels that work with them," he said, referring to the foreign troops inside Somalia.

Osman rarely makes statements, and it was not immediately possible to verify his voice.

This article contains reporting by Reuters.

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Donald Trump claims Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, seems "hell-bent on destroying Scotland's coastline" and making a laughingstock of the country with a wind farm near the billionaire businessman's golf resort, British media reported Thursday.

In a letter to Salmond, Trump said of the proposal for 11 64-story offshore turbines, "With the reckless installation of these monsters, you will single-handedly have done more damage to Scotland than virtually any event in Scottish history."

Trump is nearing completion of the first golf course at his $1.2 billion resort near Aberdeen. It was to include a second 18-hole course, a five-star hotel, luxury villas and timeshare apartments, but last month he froze plans for all but the first course until a decision is made on the "ugly monstrosities."

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The windfarm, The European Offshore Wind Deployment Center, is a $237 million venture by Swedish utility company Vattenfall, engineering firm Technip and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, the Scotland Daily Record reported.

Trump, who touts his "world's greatest golf course" as a generator of 7,000 jobs, said he will fight the wind farm, which Scottish officials have said could power the country seven times over.

"As a matter of fact, I have just authorized my staff to allocate a substantial amount of money to launch an international campaign to fight your plan to surround Scotland's coast with many thousands of wind turbines." He added: "Please understand that I am doing this to save Scotland."

The BBC reported that Trump also said in the letter, "Taxing your citizens to subsidize wind projects owned by foreign energy companies will destroy your country and its economy. Jobs will not be created in Scotland because these ugly monstrosities known as turbines are manufactured in other countries such as China.

"These countries are laughing at you," he wrote, likening the turbines to "bars of a prison."

"Luckily, tourists will not suffer because there will be none as they will be going to other countries that had the foresight to use other forms of energy."

The Scottish government says the country's waters "are estimated to have as much as a quarter of Europe's potential offshore wind energy. A recent study suggests that harnessing just a third of the practical resource off our coast by 2050 would enable us to generate enough electricity to power Scotland seven times over.... An independent Scotland will be able to take full responsibility for this renewables revolution, along with the investment and thousands of jobs it brings."

Trump last year blamed a failing global economy for delaying Aberdeen's luxury development, according to a report at the time in The Guardian. "The world has crashed" since 2005, Trump said, citing the timing of his purchase of the Menie estate and dunes.

The purchase provoked a long-running battle with local residents, councillors and environmental groups about his proposals, which involved heavily altering the legally protected rare dunes, The Guardian reported.

Trump is using the wind farm as an excuse to cut and run, David Milne, a neighbor of the Trump property who has refused to yield to the developer and sell him his home, told The Guardian in January.

In pursuing the Scottish estate for his project, Trump has touted Scotland as the birthplace of his mother, Mary MacLeod. A New York Daily News story from June 2008 shows him outside a house in Tong, on the Isle of Lewis, where his mother was brought up before she emigrated to the U.S.

"She grew up in a simple croft until she landed in Manhattan at the age of 20 and her first language was Gaelic," says a Trump-signed letter on the Trump International-Scotland website, which also traces his Scottish ancestry.

Msnbc.com's Jim Gold contributed to this story. 

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LAGOS, Nigeria -- Soldiers have barricaded key roads in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos as the president offered a concession to halt fuel price protests that he said were being stoked by provocateurs seeking anarchy.

Troops and police also blocked entrances to protest venues in Nigeria's second-largest city of Kano on Monday, including a park near a university and a square in the city center.

 

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The deployment of troops is a sensitive issue in a nation with a young democracy and a history of military coups. President Goodluck Jonathan said in his televised speech early Monday that agitators have hijacked the demonstrations.

Jonathan announced the government would subsidize gasoline prices to immediately reduce the price to about $2.27 a gallon. The concession might not be enough to stem outrage over the government's stripping of fuel subsidies on Jan. 1 that kept gas prices low in this oil-rich but impoverished nation. Even with the measure announced Monday, gasoline would still be more than a dollar higher than it was just 16 days ago, and anger in Africa's most populous nation is also now aimed at government corruption and inefficiency.

Tens of thousands have marched in cities across the nation of more than 160 million people, while a strike by Nigeria's biggest union began Jan. 9, paralyzing the country.

Reuters reported that the protests have "become an outlet for thousands to vent their grievances against what they see as a venal ruling political class and incompetent government, which is struggling to tackle an insurgency by the Boko Haram Islamist sect based in the largely Muslim north."

Remi Sonaiya, a student, told Reuters: "The bottom line is we don't trust the government to do what they say anymore."

Strike suspended
Unions on Monday suspended their strike following the government's concessions, but it was not immediately clear if wider anger would be calmed by the measure.

• PHOTOBLOG: Nigeria protests grow

In Lagos, a city of 15 million, army soldiers set up a checkpoint Monday morning on the main highway that feeds traffic from the mainland into its islands.

An Associated Press reporter saw more than a dozen Nigerian air force personnel, who were carrying assault rifles and wearing green fatigue uniforms, questioning occupants of cars at a roundabout where more 1,000 protesters had regularly gathered last week. Drivers had to slow down because the airmen had put metal barricades and debris in the street. They asked the drivers to identify themselves and say where they were going.

At a park in Lagos' Ojota neighborhood on the mainland, where more than 20,000 people had gathered Friday for an anti-government demonstration, two military armored personnel carriers were parked near an empty stage. About 50 soldiers and 50 other security personnel surrounded the area carrying Kalashnikov rifles, waving away those who tried to enter to resume demonstrations. A crowd of several hundred people gathered a few hundreds yards away.

"They are here because they don't want us to protest," said Remi Odutayo, 25, referring to the soldiers in the park. "They are using the power given to them to do something illegal" by stopping demonstrators from gathering.

• STORY: Social media widen scope of Nigeria protests

Jonathan's speech Monday came after his attempt to negotiate with labor unions failed late Sunday night to avert nationwide strikes entering a sixth day. Nigeria Labor Congress President Abdulwaheed Omar said early Monday morning he had ordered workers to stay at home overnight, but that might not keep people away from mass demonstrations.

A report on Nigerian news website This Day said the president told his audience: "There was near-breakdown of law and order in certain parts of the country as a result of the activities of some persons or groups of persons who took advantage of the situation to further their narrow interests by engaging in acts of intimidation, harassment and outright subversion of the Nigerian state. I express my sympathy to those who were adversely affected by the protests."

Jonathan's government abandoned subsidies that kept gasoline prices low on Jan. 1, causing prices to spike from $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter) to at least $3.50 per gallon (94 cents per liter). The costs of food and transportation also largely doubled in a nation where most people live on less than $2 a day.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.