Word: barrelfuls
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...zones like the Democratic Republic of Congo. With all that interest, Paul Lubeck, Michael Watts and Ronnie Lipshutz of the Center for International Policy, a U.S. think tank, calculate that the Gulf of Guinea will earn $1 trillion from oil by 2020 if the price stays above $50 a barrel. That's roughly double all the post-colonial aid to Africa since independence in the 1950s and 1960s...
Nigeria: Wretched Excess Tom Pullo looks like a fighter. His chest is a barrel, his forearms are all muscle. Seeing him at breakfast at the Agura Hotel in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, a place favored by foreign oil executives, you might take him for a security guard protecting his charges. But Pullo works for the other side. "We are not taking hostages because of money," he says. "We are taking hostages to draw world attention to our plight." Nigeria is the oil giant of Africa. It is also, as an American diplomat in the region says, "one big problem...
Nigeria pumped its first barrel in the 1950s and has since set records for corruption. The government's own anticorruption watchdog, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, estimates that between independence in 1960 and 1999, the country's rulers stole $400 billion in oil revenues - equal to all the foreign aid to Africa during the same period. And while a small élite became rich, its members fought one another for the spoils. In 47 years, Nigeria has suffered a civil war that killed a million people, 30 years of military rule and six coups. Meanwhile, two-thirds...
...traders tell me the principal market for stolen crude is Basra, Iraq's only access to the Gulf. Fadhila, the strongest Shi'a militia in the city, pretty much monopolizes the trade. Fadhila currently offers pilfered oil for $10-12 a barrel. Buyers have to arrange for small freighters to ship it to Dubai, where it is sold at the dock for around $30 a barrel. The oil is sold on the international markets, commonly using a false certificate of origin or blended with other oil to disguise its origin. More and more frequently, however, co-opted employees in Iraq...
...Only a month ago, investor Sam Zell acquired effective control of the Tribune company - owner of such venerable papers as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune - for not much more than the value of the company's landmark headquarters. After that debacle, Murdoch's cash-on-the-barrel offer of roughly $25 above the Dow Jones share price seemed to spell the end of a nightmare...