Word: oils
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Jonathan will need more than luck to fix Nigeria. His most pressing job is to re-energize the peace process in the oil-rich southern Delta region. Talks to end the decade-old conflict with Delta rebels - they say they are fighting for a fairer share of the revenues from their land, and are also angry about the pollution caused by oil spills - was a central thrust of Yar'Adua's early presidency. Six months ago, Yar'Adua persuaded the rebels to agree to a ceasefire and mass disarmament in return for an amnesty, a small monthly stipend...
...peace process - and all Nigeria - were left in limbo. In December, the main rebel group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), announced it had lost patience with the delay and re-started its campaign of attacks on pipelines and installations and kidnappings of Western oil workers. A few thousand gunmen with a thing for shades, bandoliers and fast boats had the global price of crude back in their crosshairs...
Jonathan is also well acquainted with the environmental damage oil has done to the Delta. He studied zoology, and later taught it at a university in the oil hub of Port Harcourt. He also once worked as an environmental protection officer in the region. "He will perform," says Clark, a political powerbroker in the south and then man who persuaded Jonathan to stand for vice president. (See if a military coup would help Nigeria...
...prove how seriously he takes the issue, Jonathan's second action (after sacking the justice minister, who had campaigned most noisily against his promotion) was to call a meeting with the oil majors in Nigeria. The peace process was his top priority, he told executives from Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell. The rebels have already responded. On Feb. 12, MEND commander Mack Anthony told TIME he had declared a new 90-day ceasefire...
...friends in Los Angeles, a town that is one big river of Priuses. On Friday, I was shocked when a friend came over to dinner and he wasn't driving a Prius. It turned out he was driving his converted 1980s Mercedes that runs on vegetable oil and had left his wife's Prius at home. Nearly every time we drive Cassandra's metallic-green Prius, at some point we are either behind or in front of another metallic-green Prius. There are three Priuses on my tiny cul-de-sac. If this brake problem isn't repaired quickly...