Word: riches
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...even be sexually motivated. While child molesters are largely male and fit a certain stereotype-social misfit, living alone, unemployed, unable to form adult relationships-pedophiles could be anyone. They stalk playgrounds and schools, identify vulnerable children and spend much time "grooming" the victim. They may be the rich uncle who showers kids with gifts while hugging them too tight and for too long. Or the boyfriend who insinuates himself into a struggling single-mother family. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that in over 90% of rapes of children under 12, the victim knew the offender...
...relatively close to the U.S., cutting shipping costs to the world's biggest oil consumer, and most of the reserves are out to sea - which means there's no need to construct pipelines through different nations to get the stuff to market. Equally important: unlike some other oil-rich countries, African nations welcome foreign companies to their oil fields, as there are no indigenous African oil majors. In his 2007 book Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil, John Ghazvinian, a visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, explains the euphoria like this: "African oil is cheaper, safer and more...
Angola is following a path that's painfully familiar among African oil states from Equatorial Guinea to Sudan. The pattern is this: well-connected businessmen and unscrupulous government officials grow impossibly rich, and the ruling élite uses its wealth and largesse to consolidate its own power. Much of this money is funneled into banks and assets abroad, while the majority of the population stagnates or even grows poorer...
...revenues in 2005 alone, and that number is expected to soar until production peaks in 2011. This is the first gusher of wealth in a country that has never known it. But the gains are not evenly spread. In downtown Luanda today, it's clear Angola's new rich are doing well. In April, the $35 million Belas Shopping Center - the country's first mall - opened in a new suburb called Nova Vida. There, in a store called Tapazio, they can shop for such baubles as silver-plated ashtrays and a $7,000 candelabra. Yet 70% of Angolans still live...
...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 of the country's 135 million people remain in poverty, a third are illiterate and 40% have...