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New militia is potent force in Nigeria’s oil-rich delta region
Daniel Balint Kurti, Christian Science Monitor
A well-organized rebel group has emerged to shut off more than one-fifth of Nigeria’s oil output.
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WARRI, NIGERIA – Gunmen dressed in black balaclavas and camouflage flak jackets approach in a boat. As it draws alongside, their voices can be heard singing. The chorus fades and they introduce themselves.
“We are the security men of the Niger delta,” says one of the men in the blue speedboat bristling with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. “Nobody is going to hurt you. We are everywhere in the Niger delta.”
The singing militiamen are part of the newly organized Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and are the latest expression of local resentment in a region of the country where tens of millions of dollars worth of oil are extracted each day, but most people live on only several hundred dollars each year.
The MEND organization, whose leadership remains a matter of speculation, appears to be better organized, trained, and equipped than any other group to emerge so far from this restive, swampy region.
(7 March 2006)
OPEC President Edmund Daukoru discusses oil prices, potential supply threat
OnPoint, E&E TV
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet in Vienna, Austria, this week to decide whether to maintain current levels of oil production, amid the the threat of supply disruptions in Iran and Nigeria. During today’s OnPoint, OPEC President Edmund Daukoru explains why he thinks $60 per barrel is a “fair” price for oil, and why prices are unlikely to fall much further. Daukoru, the minister of state for petroleum resources for Nigeria, also addresses the rebel insurgency in his own country and questions about whether Iran will continue to supply the market as diplomats work towards a deal on
(7 March 2006)
A transcript is online.
Energy Secretary Bodman outlines plans on Yucca, nuclear waste and oil security
OnPoint, E&E TV
The Energy Department recently announced the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), an ambitious, international plan to recycle spent nuclear fuel. But lawmakers on Capitol Hill are raising questions about the cost and feasibility of the GNEP program, and what it could mean for the long-delayed Yucca Mountain repository. During today’s OnPoint, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman explains his thinking on GNEP, Yucca Mountain legislation and the interim storage of nuclear waste. Plus, Bodman addresses high oil prices and President Bush’s pledge to lessen the U.S. “addiction” to foreign oil.
(8 March 2006)
A transcript is online.
Why Iran’s oil bourse can’t break the buck
F William Engdahl, Asia Times
A number of writings have recently appeared with the thesis that the announced plans of the Iranian government to institute a Tehran oil bourse, perhaps as early as this month, is the real hidden reason behind the evident march to war on Iran by the Anglo-American powers. The thesis is simply wrong for many reasons, not least that war on Iran has been in planning since the 1990s as an integral part of the United States’ Greater Middle East strategy.
More significant, the oil-bourse argument is a red herring that diverts attention from the real geopolitical grounds behind the march toward war that have been detailed on this website, including in my piece, A high-risk game of nuclear chicken, which appeared in Asia Times Online on January 31.
(10 March 2006)
