Word: regionality
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That magic combination has attracted a flood of foreign money, including large sums from the U.S. and the U.K. But investment between the Baltic Sea nations has been crucial too, now comprising one quarter of the region's investment flows. And the financial superpower within the Baltic Sea is undoubtedly Sweden, accounting for 60% of that regional investment. Two years ago, for example, Sweden's fourth largest bank, Swedbank, completed a $2.6 billion takeover of the Hansabank Group, the Baltics' biggest bank, whose distinctive sea-green and orange Viking ship logo can be found from Tallinn to Vilnius. The marriage...
Russia's strategic goals within this region also remain an enigma and a worry. Its resurgent economy could help fuel growth in the area, but a recent trend toward economic protectionism is a potential threat. Several years ago, for example, Moscow tripled export taxes on goods traveling to Latvia in order to help its own ports, a measure that has pumped up St. Petersburg but slowed growth in rivals like Riga. And despite all the hype about free trade, the Baltic Sea region is still not capitalizing on its full potential: an economic study by the Swedish Board of Trade...
...African oil by Nicholas Shaxson, an associate fellow with international affairs institute Chatham House in London, the U.S. imported more oil from Africa than from the Middle East in 2005, and more from the Gulf of Guinea than from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. Nigeria, the giant of the region, supplies 10-12% of U.S. oil imports. "There's a huge boom across the region," says Erik Watremez, a Gabon-based oil and gas specialist for Ernst & Young. "Exploration, drilling, rigs, pipes. It's exploding." Ann Pickard, Shell's regional executive vice president for Africa, agrees: "The Gulf of Guinea...
...most of its oil is offshore, and the assets of international companies have so far not been prone to the sort of nationalist expropriation common in oil's history from Mexico in the 1930s to Russia today. And although there have been attacks on oil installations in Nigeria, the region does not experience the sort of out-of-control violence that now plagues Iraq. Such factors make "West Africa of great interest and great significance," says a senior American diplomat in the region. In fact, five years ago the U.S. State Department declared West African oil a "strategic national interest...
...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...