A few months late to this story, the Wall Street Journal published a piece last Wednesday entitled “Angola Wealth Fund is Family Affair.” This was widely reported in the international press back in the fall when the Fundo Soberano de Angola was officially announced. The Fund, started with $5 billion, now puts Angola in line […]
Kicking off with an introduction from Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, the short documentary Fuelling Poverty amounts to a very brief Nigerian Fuel Subsidy 101 course. In thirty minutes, it covers the history of the issue and methodically explains how the government (encouraged by the IFIs, by the way) failed its people. By removing the subsidy […]
The three most interesting things about the recent Angolan elections were: one, that we knew the result before election (the question was by how much). Two, why did the Angolan ruling party, MPLA, spent so much on election advertising and, three, did anyone notice that the MPLA also used former Brazilian president Lula’s favorite marketing […]
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Cobalt International Energy, a Houston based company with investments in the Angolan oil sector, for possible violation of anti-corruption legislation. Last week the Financial Times reported that three Angolan officials – the same three officials named in muckraking journalist Rafael Marques’s case now waiting before Angola’s Supreme Court – “confirmed to […]
On July 6 2011, the world’s diplomatic elite flocked to one of the globe’s most underdeveloped regions to bask in the warm glow of the birth of a new nation. That South Sudan’s struggle for independence had claimed the lives of an estimated 2million people, and that the majority of its inaugural citizens had been […]
Video of a worthwhile lecture (recorded in February this year) by Berkeley geographer Michael Watts breaking down the workings of the oil industry. In the lecture–titled “Dispossession and Oil Violence”– Watts riffs off David Harvey’s explanation of the workings of neoliberalism, challenges the “the resource curse” theory, makes fun of Paul Collier’s ideas, and gives his […]
“Nigeria is the world’s 8th largest producer of crude oil, yet remains one of its poorest nations — an estimated 70 percent of its 150 million residents live below the poverty line. The environment is paying a steep price as well. An estimated 500 million gallons of oil have spilled into the delta — the […]
While I was in Toronto with Sean and Tsitsi Jaji for the Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS) conference, I checked out Edward Burtynsky’s “Oil” at the Royal Ontario Museum Institute for Contemporary Culture (exhibition runs April 9 to July 2, 2011, and getting into the museum is pricy – $25 per person). The three-year […]
Chevron knows a thing or two about good PR. Something Shell and BP neglected to their peril. Of course we know the difference between good PR and actual actions. Let’s hope these pretty girls’ lives won’t be devastated by another oil company’s exploitation.
