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Gustav was downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane before it crossed the coast and is weakening as it heads inland. Royal Dutch Shell Plc will begin checks today and may restore full output in three to five days. ConocoPhillips said there was no significant damage to a platform in the area.

“It’s a big surprise that Gustav wasn’t as powerful as people thought,” Jonathan Kornafel, a director at Hudson Energy Capital in Singapore, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We’ve seen this before with hurricanes, where the market comes off strongly once the storm makes landfall.”

Crude oil for October delivery was at $108.72 a barrel at 2:47 p.m. Singapore time, down 5.8 percent from the close of Aug. 29 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell as much as 6.1 percent to $108.33 a barrel earlier. Yesterday’s trading is combined with today’s for settlement purposes because of the Labor Day holiday in the U.S.

Natural gas for October delivery was at $7.502 per million British thermal units, down 5.6 percent, while October gasoline was at $2.6850 a gallon, down 5.9 percent.

“The worst of the fears have been calmed,” said David Moore, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd. in Sydney. “The fact that prices are so quickly reverting back to these levels shows that maybe the underlying bearishness in the market is still there.”

The Hutton inquiry heard that he died after making several cuts to his left wrist, which severed the ulnar artery, buried deep in the tissue on the side of the hand nearest the little finger.

An earlier coroner’s inquest was halted when the Government used an obscure law to turn the investigation over to Lord Hutton. His inquiry concluded that ‘there was no involvement by a third party’ in the scientist’s death, which was said to be caused primarily by the cut artery and hastened by the painkillers.

Ms Pederson, a US Air Force officer, met Dr Kelly when she was assigned to work in 1998 as a translator for the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq.

And she revealed in an interview with The Mail on Sunday that, in the months leading to his death, the right-handed scientist was unable to use his right hand for tasks requiring strength because of a painful injury to his right elbow.

According to Ms Pederson, when she dined with Dr Kelly at a Washington restaurant in the spring of 2003, the hand’s grip was so weak that he struggled to get a knife through a steak he had ordered.

The linguist, who counselled Dr Kelly during his conversion to the Baha’i religious faith that she follows, says he had begun to favour his left hand for even relatively minor tasks, a tendency she observed on numerous other occasions.

‘David would have had to have been a contortionist to kill himself the way they claim,’ she said.

‘I don’t know whether he was born right-handed but by the time I first met him he favoured his left hand for any task that required strength, like opening a door or carrying his briefcase.

‘When he embraced friends at the beginning and end of Baha’i meetings, it was his left arm that you felt hugging you and you could tell his right arm hurt him because he rubbed the elbow a lot.

‘I didn’t want to pry but he finally told me the reason in the spring of 2003. It was the last time I saw him before he died. He was visiting America on business and we went out to dinner.

‘He ordered steak and he was holding his knife very oddly in the palm of his right hand, with his wrist crooked, trying to cut the meat.

‘He told me that some time ago he had broken his right elbow and it was never fixed properly, so he had real problems with it. It was painful and it never regained its strength.

‘I just don’t see how he could have used his right hand to cut through the nerves and tendons of his left wrist – especially as the knife he supposedly used had a dull blade.’

Ms Pederson said she believed she was familiar with the knife Dr Kelly is said to have used.

‘He always wore a Barbour jacket and he kept a knife in his pocket,’ she said. ‘It had a folding blade and I remember him telling me he couldn’t sharpen it because his right hand didn’t have the strength to hold a sharpener.

‘It would have taken him a long time to reach the artery that was severed and it would have been very painful.

‘As a scientist, David had no need to kill himself that way. I don’t understand why the British Government isn’t thoroughly investigating this. Logically, he cannot have committed suicide.’

Ms Pederson, 48, whose military duties have included intelligence assignments, has avoided the spotlight since Dr Kelly’s death. But she says she is perturbed by mounting evidence that he may have been murdered.

The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that after his disappearance, a heat-seeking search helicopter flew over the exact spot where his corpse was later discovered. Yet the thermal-imaging equipment picked up no sign of a body – which some experts say suggests he was killed elsewhere.

Moreover, a group of doctors, surgeons and anaesthetists has called for a new inquiry into his death, contending that a cut to the ulnar artery would not cause catastrophic bleeding. Little blood was found at the scene.

They also maintain that the 29 or so painkillers Dr Kelly supposedly swallowed were only one-third of the dosage normally considered as lethal.

Even more mysteriously, there were no fingerprints on the knife he allegedly wielded nor on the bottle from which he supposedly drank water to wash down the tablets.

But perhaps most key is the information that Ms Pederson provided to Thames Valley Police, who were assisting the Hutton inquiry.

When officers flew to meet her in America in August 2003, she says she told them during two days of interviews that she was baffled about how Dr Kelly could have killed himself.

‘The facts just don’t add up,’ said Ms Pederson. ‘The more I have heard about this, the more I have thought about the significance of his weak right hand. I told the police about it when they interviewed me. I said, “How could David have cut his left wrist using a dull knife with his weak right hand?”

‘They said, “It wasn’t a straight cut. It was jagged.”

Put simply, what “Moving to the Center,” means is: moving towards power and money.

“Moving to the Center” is not a move to where the center of public opinion is, but it is a move to the center of where elite consensus is. Once the boundaries of that elite consensus are understood, then we can comprehend the limits of our public choices and more importantly what will be allowed within the confines of our electoral system.

Officials at the special needs evacuation site said things were going pretty smoothly, due in large part to the 211 system that lets them keep track of people who need assistance leaving, and a much more organized system for equipment. About 2,000 people have been helped, authorities said.

Beaumont public transit buses are shuttling residents from neighborhood schools to evacuation centers. Once there, they register with city fire and rescue personnel, who give them a yellow identification bracelet. The bracelet is stamped with the state seal, a barcode and a toll-free phone number.

Guard troops scan the bracelets as evacuees board busses headed north. They’ll be scanned again when evacuees reach shelters. If evacuees are separated from their families, they can call the phone number to find them.

Magomed Yevloyev, owner of the ingushetiya.ru site, was a vocal critic of the region’s administration.

The Russian prosecutor’s office said an investigation into the death had been launched, Russia media report.

A post on Yevloyev’s site says he was detained by police after landing at the airport of the main town, Nazran.

The website owner was taken to hospital but died from his injuries.

Reports quoting local police said Yevloyev had tried to seize a policeman’s gun when he was being led to a vehicle. A shot was fired and Yevloyev was injured in the head.

Fierce critic

Yevloyev was a thorn in the side of Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, a former KGB general.

His website reported on alleged Russian security force brutality in Ingushetia, an impoverished province of some half a million people, mostly Muslims, which is now more turbulent than neighbouring Chechnya.

President Zyazikov had been on the same flight as Yevloyev.

Ingushetia borders Chechnya and has suffered from overflowing unrest.

There is a low-level insurgency, with regular small-scale ambushes against police and soldiers.

In June 2008, the Human Rights Watch group accused Russian security forces there of carrying out widespread human rights abuses.

I wanted to see if they would scan my 11-year-old daughter as she walked by so I walked over to the desk with the computer monitor on it. I got a peek at the monitor for a second or two before one of the bald guys to the left of the TSA agent jumped in front of me and said I wasn’t allowed to look. I couldn’t tell which person was undressed on the monitor.

China’s biggest oil company, state-run CNPC, agreed a $3 billion service contract with Iraq on Wednesday.

The deal could set a precedent for terms that fall far short of the lucrative contracts the oil majors had hoped for as they jostled for access to the world’s third largest oil reserves.

Starved of investment since the Gulf War of 1990-1991 and the subsequent U.S.-led invasion of 2003 that removed former President Saddam Hussein, Iraq holds some of the world’s last large, cheap, untapped oil reservoirs.

“The biggest significance of this deal is that CNPC will benefit as the first international oil company to be developing one of the giant discovered oil fields in Iraq in the new era,” said Alex Munton, analyst at global consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

The 400-plus-page study, Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern, was undertaken by a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the request of the International Joint Commission, an independent bilateral organization that advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on the use and quality of boundary waters between the two countries. The study was originally scheduled for release in July 2007 by the IJC and the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the study, which warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.

Gustav, downgraded to a Category 3 storm by the National Hurricane Center in Miami this morning, may strengthen to Category 4 later today and will make landfall as a “major” hurricane. The storm shut three-quarters of oil output in the region and refineries operated by Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refiner, ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. There will be a special trading session today at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“This storm will prove to be a worst-case scenario for the production region,” Jim Rouiller, senior energy meteorologist for Planalytics.com, said yesterday in an e-mailed message. “This storm will be more dangerous than Katrina.”

The center issued a hurricane watch from High Island, Texas, to Florida at 2 a.m. today. Gustav’s winds were estimated at 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour as it made landfall in western Cuba. While they slowed to 125 miles per hour this morning, the storm is forecast to gain strength as it passes into the central gulf today. Gustav was 425 miles southeast of the Mississippi River’s mouth and traveling northwest at about 15 mph at 4 a.m.

BP, Exxon, Shell

BP Plc, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, led producers shutting wells and whisking staff ashore. About 77 percent of Gulf oil output and 37 percent of natural-gas production was shut, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said in a statement yesterday. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the nation’s largest crude-oil terminal, closed yesterday.

The New York Mercantile Exchange announced an extended trading session beginning at 2:30 p.m. today because of Gustav.

Fields in the Gulf produce 1.3 million barrels a day of oil, about a quarter of U.S. production, and 7.4 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas, 14 percent of the total, government data show. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 closed 95 percent of regional offshore output and, along with Hurricane Rita, idled about 19 percent of U.S. refining capacity.

Exxon Mobil is shutting its Chalmette, Louisiana, refinery. Nonessential employees have been released so they can evacuate as requested by local officials, Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil said in a notice posted on its Web site yesterday.

Refineries Shut

The refinery, which can process 192,000 barrels a day, is run by Chalmette Refining LLC, a joint venture between Exxon and state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

ConocoPhillips, the second-largest U.S. refiner, began shutting down two refineries in Louisiana that together process almost 500,000 barrels a day of crude oil, the company said in a statement posted on its Web site late yesterday.

Marathon Oil Corp. began closing its 256,000-barrel-a-day Garyville, Louisiana, refinery, yesterday, according to a statement posted on its Web site. Valero was shutting its St. Charles refinery west of New Orleans and may decide today whether to shut its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, spokesman Bill Day said in an e-mailed message.

Three Louisiana parishes with refineries have ordered mandatory evacuations.

Refinery production slowed at some complexes owned by Shell and Motiva Enterprises LLC, its venture with Saudi Arabian Oil Co., Shell said in a statement on its Web site.

Market Concern

“The big question for the market is going to be how quickly after Gustav passes will the industry be able to recover and get back online,” said Andy Lipow, president of Houston- based Lipow Oil Associates LLC.

Enbridge Inc., Canada’s largest pipeline company, and its U.S. affiliate closed conduits capable of bringing ashore 6.7 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas. Evacuation of Terrebonne Parish shut 550 million cubic feet a day of gas flow into the 10,500-mile (16,900-kilometer) Transco line to the U.S. northeast, owner Williams Cos. said in a statement.

Exxon Mobil said yesterday it had shut platforms producing 5,000 barrels of oil and 50 million cubic feet of natural gas.

BP, Europe’s second-largest oil company, said it shut Gulf production and evacuated all staff by noon local time yesterday. Its normal production is equivalent to 290,000 barrels a day from the region.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the second-largest U.S. independent oil producer, said in a statement on its Web site yesterday that it had shut the equivalent of 105,000 barrels a day of production, with all of it to be closed tonight.

Workers Evacuated

Shell said it would shut daily production equivalent to 510,000 barrels of oil yesterday.

Workers from 45 rigs and 223 production platforms were evacuated as of 12:30 p.m. yesterday, the Minerals Management Service said in a statement on its Web site. About 998,000 barrels of daily oil production have been halted in preparation for the storm, as well as 2.75 billion cubic feet of gas.

Crude oil futures on the Nymex fell 13 cents to $115.46 a barrel on Aug. 29 on speculation supplies will be adequate to meet demand after the storm passes. Natural gas futures fell 10.7 cents to $7.943 per million British thermal units.

Most U.S. financial markets are closed until Sept. 2 for the Labor Day holiday. Nymex said in an Aug. 29 statement that electronic trading will begin at 2:30 p.m. New York time today with trades dated Sept. 2.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port shut at 9:30 a.m. local time yesterday.

“It’s time to get our people off the offshore platform,” spokeswoman Barbara Hestermann said yesterday in an interview.

Shipments to customers continue from the port’s 53 million barrels of storage on shore, she said.

Katrina, Rita

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 cut supplies for months. About 27 percent of Gulf oil production and 19 percent of gas output was still shut in January 2006, the Minerals Management Service reported.

Rising waters from a Category 4 storm can cut escape routes as early as five hours before landfall, with flooding as much as six miles inland. The coastal storm surge may reach 18 feet, and the winds can rip away roofs and walls of homes, according to the National Hurricane Center.

A Category 5 storm can destroy the roofs of industrial buildings, flatten all trees and homes, and drive a storm surge above 18 feet. Only three Category 5 storms, Andrew in 1992, Camille in 1969, and the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, have made landfall in the U.S. since record-keeping began.

At its forecast track and intensity, Gustav would drive a 20-foot storm surge topped by heavy waves across southeastern Louisiana, Rouiller of Planalytics.com said. “The untested levees at New Orleans will be overwhelmed and may fail.”