if you noticed the spike in oil prices....
The Fine Arts Building has a grad show up right now that I recomend you too see, esspecially one called "Feed Me, Fuck Me, Fullfill Me". Metal sculptures of vaginal spiders opening up to orange phallic blown glass that are suppended on hooks. Bill Rice has his work up as well, which is always fun.
Im studying all week.
New York Times
April 16, 2006
Editorial
Blood and Oil
Just as things seemed to be calming down in the delta region of Nigeria after a spate of kidnappings and insurgent attacks, the militant group calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta - MEND - announced last week to all who would listen that it was planning new violence against oil facilities in the region. Apparently unconcerned about tipping its hand to the authorities, MEND even gave a date for the start of its new campaign: April 25.
The guerrillas could not have hoped for a better reaction. Crude oil prices immediately jumped on the news, hitting $70 a barrel, as new fears about a supply squeeze hit the global oil market. Adding to the concern is that the latest message, sent to various news organizations, seems a lot angrier and more violent than previous missives. The references to endless buckets of blood sounded more like an Al Qaeda rant than a threat from oil-market saboteurs.
This really should serve notice to Olusegun Obasanjo, president of Africa's most populous country, Nigeria. MEND's tactics - kidnapping oil workers, attacking facilities, killing government soldiers - are despicable, and deserve international condemnation. But the demand for more local control over oil wealth cannot be dismissed just because of its source.
Ever since Royal Dutch Shell discovered oil in the Niger Delta back in 1956, revenue from oil wells has gone to line the pockets of Nigeria's elite: military dictators and corrupt federal and local government officials. Very little has gone to help the impoverished communities in the delta, which remain among the poorest in the world. Environment degradation, caused by oil slicks and gas flares, has gone untreated.
Under Nigerian law, oil revenues go to the federal government, which then passes on a percentage to the states. In 2004, for instance, the 36 Nigerian states received $6.2 billion. Supposedly, about one-third of that went to the four major oil-producing states. But thanks to theft, corruption and mismanagement, on both the federal and state levels, very little of that money reached the local communities.
Traveling through the delta region, it is difficult to comprehend that this is actually an area wealthy in natural resources. Despite generating hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue since oil was discovered, the Niger Delta is one of the poorest and least developed parts of the country. A Wall Street Journal article last week described Warri, the western delta's oil capital, as a "crime-ridden sprawl of rutted streets and cinderblock shops." Lydia Polgreen of The Times reported earlier this year on Obioku, an impoverished delta village that is completely isolated. "With no fast boats available, the nearest health center or clinic is a day's journey away," Ms. Polgreen wrote. "No telephone service exists here. Radio brings the only news of the world outside. Nothing hints that the people here live in a nation enjoying the profits of record-high oil prices."
It is time for Nigeria's government to begin taking into account the plight of the people who live around the oil wells that have sustained the country for so long.
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Great article, and that last line just ruins it all. Why do people need that government when its just corprorate lackeies for big oil? What a horrible idea it is to place the responsibility of taking care of the poor upon the state! Ok, so deleting the last line, and adding a new one, thats the hard part. Does anyone really believe these bikes make a difference when you have semi's cris-crossing the country to bring you bottles of water? Well, my father wrote more eloquantly than I:
I thought this editorial in the Sunday Times pretty much sums up the main struggle in the world today. Let's not confuse patriotism, religious fanaticism, freedom, etc., and all the other rallying cries for violence and wars with the underlying symtoms of exploitation, accumulation of wealth and power, and ownership of the natural environment remaining the key international issues that define our international entanglements. These 'issues" can not be solved by individual nation states.
Distribution of wealth still seems to be an "enlightened" idea. So who's side do we take in Nigeria. It appears that the "enlightened" rebels (not defined much in this article) are trying to redistribute wealth to the poor (?) while the corporate/government, i.e. facsists, control everything from the military, the newspapers, the education system, banking system, and the oil wealth. Of course, the editorial stops short of calling the rebel group MEND terrorists but what else would they be considered in todays geopolitial world. Does MEND have a political structure, defined principles, an agenda or or they organized thugs exploiting the poor and subverting the ideology for personal gain? These are questions we need to seek answers!
Im studying all week.
New York Times
April 16, 2006
Editorial
Blood and Oil
Just as things seemed to be calming down in the delta region of Nigeria after a spate of kidnappings and insurgent attacks, the militant group calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta - MEND - announced last week to all who would listen that it was planning new violence against oil facilities in the region. Apparently unconcerned about tipping its hand to the authorities, MEND even gave a date for the start of its new campaign: April 25.
The guerrillas could not have hoped for a better reaction. Crude oil prices immediately jumped on the news, hitting $70 a barrel, as new fears about a supply squeeze hit the global oil market. Adding to the concern is that the latest message, sent to various news organizations, seems a lot angrier and more violent than previous missives. The references to endless buckets of blood sounded more like an Al Qaeda rant than a threat from oil-market saboteurs.
This really should serve notice to Olusegun Obasanjo, president of Africa's most populous country, Nigeria. MEND's tactics - kidnapping oil workers, attacking facilities, killing government soldiers - are despicable, and deserve international condemnation. But the demand for more local control over oil wealth cannot be dismissed just because of its source.
Ever since Royal Dutch Shell discovered oil in the Niger Delta back in 1956, revenue from oil wells has gone to line the pockets of Nigeria's elite: military dictators and corrupt federal and local government officials. Very little has gone to help the impoverished communities in the delta, which remain among the poorest in the world. Environment degradation, caused by oil slicks and gas flares, has gone untreated.
Under Nigerian law, oil revenues go to the federal government, which then passes on a percentage to the states. In 2004, for instance, the 36 Nigerian states received $6.2 billion. Supposedly, about one-third of that went to the four major oil-producing states. But thanks to theft, corruption and mismanagement, on both the federal and state levels, very little of that money reached the local communities.
Traveling through the delta region, it is difficult to comprehend that this is actually an area wealthy in natural resources. Despite generating hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue since oil was discovered, the Niger Delta is one of the poorest and least developed parts of the country. A Wall Street Journal article last week described Warri, the western delta's oil capital, as a "crime-ridden sprawl of rutted streets and cinderblock shops." Lydia Polgreen of The Times reported earlier this year on Obioku, an impoverished delta village that is completely isolated. "With no fast boats available, the nearest health center or clinic is a day's journey away," Ms. Polgreen wrote. "No telephone service exists here. Radio brings the only news of the world outside. Nothing hints that the people here live in a nation enjoying the profits of record-high oil prices."
It is time for Nigeria's government to begin taking into account the plight of the people who live around the oil wells that have sustained the country for so long.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great article, and that last line just ruins it all. Why do people need that government when its just corprorate lackeies for big oil? What a horrible idea it is to place the responsibility of taking care of the poor upon the state! Ok, so deleting the last line, and adding a new one, thats the hard part. Does anyone really believe these bikes make a difference when you have semi's cris-crossing the country to bring you bottles of water? Well, my father wrote more eloquantly than I:
I thought this editorial in the Sunday Times pretty much sums up the main struggle in the world today. Let's not confuse patriotism, religious fanaticism, freedom, etc., and all the other rallying cries for violence and wars with the underlying symtoms of exploitation, accumulation of wealth and power, and ownership of the natural environment remaining the key international issues that define our international entanglements. These 'issues" can not be solved by individual nation states.
Distribution of wealth still seems to be an "enlightened" idea. So who's side do we take in Nigeria. It appears that the "enlightened" rebels (not defined much in this article) are trying to redistribute wealth to the poor (?) while the corporate/government, i.e. facsists, control everything from the military, the newspapers, the education system, banking system, and the oil wealth. Of course, the editorial stops short of calling the rebel group MEND terrorists but what else would they be considered in todays geopolitial world. Does MEND have a political structure, defined principles, an agenda or or they organized thugs exploiting the poor and subverting the ideology for personal gain? These are questions we need to seek answers!