Word: saudi
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...screened by an unaccountable group of religious élites, Iran is a far cry from many other countries. It is easy to advocate for more representative democracies, but would we necessarily accept the results if Egyptians or Pakistanis were granted a genuine vote? Our hypocrisy shines brightest with Saudi Arabia. There are few nations in the world that are so lacking in what we Americans call basic freedoms, let alone elections. Jason Wojcechowskyj, Sarasota, Florida...
...dreams his dreams, and his little country continues to attract a stream of oil-fevered visitors from overseas: this year alone, officials have arrived from the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Japan. But even if São Tomé and Principe were sitting on as much oil as Saudi Arabia, there would be no guarantee that the black gold would deliver happiness and prosperity to its people. On the contrary, if history is any guide, vast caches of oil can cause developing nations as many problems as they solve...
...energy. According to Poisoned Wells, a new book on 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...
...Oppenheimer & Co., "but they don't have access to them." Only 7% of the world's estimated oil and gas reserves are in countries that allow companies like ExxonMobil free rein, according to consulting firm PFC Energy. Fully 65% are in the hands of state-owned companies such as Saudi Aramco, and the rest are in the likes of Russia and Venezuela, where Western companies can get a foothold one day but lose it the next...
...dollar stash more aggressively. The deal was nicely timed--just before top Chinese officials arrived in Washington for talks aimed at reducing the bilateral trade deficit. "It's a safe bet. It's politically savvy and economically very smart," says Bank of America market strategist Joseph Quinlan. The Saudi plastics buy, in turn, is part of an effort to move up the economic food chain from pumping oil to making things of value out of it. The day after, the CEO of oil-field-services firm Halliburton practically begged for a similar investment from the gulf...