If everyone drunk ale instead of Stella Bleedin' Artois England would be a lot pleasanter place. As I've said before, ale is mellow cannabis in liquid form. Don't play into the alcophobe's hands!
Don't blame drinkers - it's the problem drinks
By Ed West, Daily Telegraph 23/07/2007
More bad news for Britain's drinking classes. Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson has stated that he would "strongly commend" an increase in alcohol tax to reduce the soaring rates of drink-related illness, violence and hospital admissions.
This follows Iain Duncan Smith's suggestion of a tax hike on beer, wine and whisky to combat that British disease, binge drinking.
Booze, a vice enjoyed by yobs and Daily Telegraph readers, tends to divide the country not on Left-Right lines but according to the older divisions of Roundhead and Cavalier.
And the Puritans do have a point, as anyone can see by walking sober through a city centre in the early hours.
But is the violence really a direct result of drinking too much? Until very recently, the French consumed more alcohol than the British, and, though they suffer high cirrhosis rates, they don't end up brawling on the streets.
No one has used the term "the French disease" since the introduction of syphilis. That is because liver disease and violence are two different issues, one a private and the other a social cost.
I think the problem is what we drink. A pint of real ale costs just £1.99 in a Samuel Smith's pub in central London, but there's about as much chance of seeing a fight there as at a Jehovah's Witnesses gathering.
Tesco house wine, at £3 a bottle, is perfectly sufficient to make the day seem 10 degrees warmer, and the lunch party shouldn't end in fisticuffs.
However, there are problem drinks that deserve close scrutiny. The super-strength lager known as "wife-beater", alcopops, sugary sweet to make them more palatable to the kids, and brain-rotting cheap vodka; they are all draughts favoured by the trouble-makers - the under-agers, the abusive alcoholics, the fist-flying yobs.
Stereotyping drinkers as homogenous is a form of prejudice tantamount to alcophobia: punitive taxes should target the problem drinkers through the problem drinks. Why should the peaceful majority of the drinking community suffer because of a few extremists?
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
Christopher Hitchens salutes Saddam Hussein!
Missed this while I was away in Couver, but made aware of it a day or two back (cheers Anna!). People are quite free to change their political opinions, but when you think of how armchair chickenhawk Christopher Hitchens has been such a cheerleader for the war in Iraq to be quoted as saying "Saddam Hussain...has sprung from being an underground revolutionary gunman to perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser" must be a tad embarrassing. Though I don't think "The Hitch" has much grasp of the concept of "embarrassing"...
Not much else to say, except it seems to me that many (most? all?) Trotskyites and ex-Trots need to (i) worship power (in Hitchens case, Iraq then, the Neo-Cons now) and (ii) have a need for a father figure to worship (Freud would have a field day).
Iraq Flexes Arab Muscle: New Statesman 05 July 2007
In 1976 Christopher Hitchens saw Saddam as an up-and-coming secular socialist who would transform Iraq into a progressive model for the rest of the Middle East
From The New Statesman 2 April 1976
Hitchens, now an American citizen, remains one of the fiercest and most unrepentant enthusiasts for the US-British overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But, back in 1976, when working for the New Statesman, he took a more admiring view of the Iraqi dictator, as this article shows. Young Hitchens saw Saddam as an up-and-coming secular socialist who would transform Iraq into a progressive model for the rest of the Middle East.
Selected by Robert Taylor
An Arab country with the second largest proven oil reserves, a fierce revolutionary ideology, a large and recently-blooded army, and a leadership composed almost entirely of men in their thirties is obviously a force to be reckoned with. Iraq, which has this dynamic combination and much else besides, has not until recently been very much regarded as a power. But with the new discussions in Opec, the ending of the Kurdistan war and the new round of fighting in Lebanon, its political voice is being heard more and more. The Baghdad regime is the first oil-producing government to opt for 100-per-cent nationalisation, a process completed with the acquisition of foreign assets in Basrah last December. It was the first to call for the use of oil as a political weapon against Israel and her backers. It gives strong economic and political support to the ‘Rejection Front’ Palestinians who oppose Arafat’s conciliation and are currently trying to outface the Syrians in Beirut. And it has a leader — Saddam Hussain — who has sprung from being an underground revolutionary gunman to perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser.
Dining with an old man on a houseboat moored in the Tigris. I discovered that he inadvertently embodied the history of modern Iraq. He had been imprisoned in 1941 for opposing the British, again in 1959 for hostility to Kassem’s pro-Russian line and finally in 1969 by the present regime. The last of these had, he said, been easily the worst. He was personally interrogated by Nadim Kzar, then head of the secret police and since executed for his crimes. There had been torture and brutality of a far worse sort than his previous incarcerations. And yet he declared that he thought the present government the best Iraqi Administration he had seen. Why? ‘Because it has made us strong and respected.’ There seems no getting round this point. From the festeringly poor and politically dependent nation of a generation ago, Iraq has become a power in every sense — military, economic and ideological. Currently, it is pressing for a more aggressive Opec pricing strategy in order to raise more cash for its development projects, and envisages a doubling of oil production from 2m. barrels per day to over 4m. within the next ten years.
Strangely, its ally in this push against the Saudis is none other than neighbouring Iran, with which Iraq has only recently ceased a near state of war over Kurdistan. The Shah and his ‘White Revolution’ also need quick money to finance internal development, enormous military expansion and foreign aid programmes. The difference is that while the Shah ranges himself against communism and sends troops to the Gulf to fight Arab guerrillas, Iraq is dedicated to the idea of a single socialist Arab nation from Gibraltar to the Indian ocean; the original Ba’athist dream.
In their different crusades, both Iraq and Iran take a distinctly unsentimental line on internal opposition. Ba’ath party spokesmen, when questioned about the lack of public dissent, will point to efforts made by the party press to stimulate criticism of revolutionary shortcomings. True enough, there are such efforts, but they fall rather short of permitting any organised opposition. The argument then moves to the claim, which is often made in Iraq, that the country is surrounded by enemies and attacked by imperialist intrigue. Somewhere in the collision between Baghdad and Teheran on this point, the Kurdish nationalists met a very painful end. We now know, from the US committee of investigation, chaired by Congressman Otis Pike, that there was a Nixon- Kissinger strategy of arming and encouraging a Kurdish revolt, not for the purpose of creating a Kurdish state (which would have horrified the Shah) but for the purpose of de-stabilising Iraq. It was specifically argued, by those who planned the operation, that the Kurds should not be allowed to win.
They were allowed to take heavy casualties and suffer appalling refugee problems; and then were dumped unceremoniously when it became clear that the Iraqi government was not going to crumble. ‘Even in the context of covert action,’ says the report, ‘ours was a cynical enterprise.’ As one who had, on previous visits to Baghdad, scorned the argument that the Kurds were foreign puppets, I should say that ‘cynical’ is the mildest adjective that could be used about this latest triumph of the Secretary of State.
The Kurds now have a very attenuated version of autonomy, and former members of the Barzani armed forces are being moved to the South. At least, however, Iraq constitutionally recognises that she is a partly Kurdish state, which is more than Iran or Turkey do. Further tests for the regime lie ahead. The quarrel with Syria, which involves differences over Ba’athist ideology as well as a dispute over Syrian damming of the Euphrates river, has now extended to the Lebanon, where Syrian troops have attacked newspapers and buildings controlled by Iraqi-sympathising Palestinians. Relations with Iran are still far from cordial. In response to requests for criticism in the party press, some demands were raised for a constituent assembly, and other complaints voiced about the tightness of the regime. All these remain to be acted on, and as the situation grows more complicated Saddam Hussain will rise more clearly to the top. Make a note of the name. Iraq has been strengthened internally by the construction of a ‘strategic pipeline’ which connects the Gulf to the northern fields for the first time. She has been strengthened externally by her support for revolutionary causes and by the resources she can deploy. It may not be electrification plus Soviet power, but the combination of oil and ‘Arab socialism’ is hardly less powerful.
Not much else to say, except it seems to me that many (most? all?) Trotskyites and ex-Trots need to (i) worship power (in Hitchens case, Iraq then, the Neo-Cons now) and (ii) have a need for a father figure to worship (Freud would have a field day).
Iraq Flexes Arab Muscle: New Statesman 05 July 2007
In 1976 Christopher Hitchens saw Saddam as an up-and-coming secular socialist who would transform Iraq into a progressive model for the rest of the Middle East
From The New Statesman 2 April 1976
Hitchens, now an American citizen, remains one of the fiercest and most unrepentant enthusiasts for the US-British overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But, back in 1976, when working for the New Statesman, he took a more admiring view of the Iraqi dictator, as this article shows. Young Hitchens saw Saddam as an up-and-coming secular socialist who would transform Iraq into a progressive model for the rest of the Middle East.
Selected by Robert Taylor
An Arab country with the second largest proven oil reserves, a fierce revolutionary ideology, a large and recently-blooded army, and a leadership composed almost entirely of men in their thirties is obviously a force to be reckoned with. Iraq, which has this dynamic combination and much else besides, has not until recently been very much regarded as a power. But with the new discussions in Opec, the ending of the Kurdistan war and the new round of fighting in Lebanon, its political voice is being heard more and more. The Baghdad regime is the first oil-producing government to opt for 100-per-cent nationalisation, a process completed with the acquisition of foreign assets in Basrah last December. It was the first to call for the use of oil as a political weapon against Israel and her backers. It gives strong economic and political support to the ‘Rejection Front’ Palestinians who oppose Arafat’s conciliation and are currently trying to outface the Syrians in Beirut. And it has a leader — Saddam Hussain — who has sprung from being an underground revolutionary gunman to perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser.
Dining with an old man on a houseboat moored in the Tigris. I discovered that he inadvertently embodied the history of modern Iraq. He had been imprisoned in 1941 for opposing the British, again in 1959 for hostility to Kassem’s pro-Russian line and finally in 1969 by the present regime. The last of these had, he said, been easily the worst. He was personally interrogated by Nadim Kzar, then head of the secret police and since executed for his crimes. There had been torture and brutality of a far worse sort than his previous incarcerations. And yet he declared that he thought the present government the best Iraqi Administration he had seen. Why? ‘Because it has made us strong and respected.’ There seems no getting round this point. From the festeringly poor and politically dependent nation of a generation ago, Iraq has become a power in every sense — military, economic and ideological. Currently, it is pressing for a more aggressive Opec pricing strategy in order to raise more cash for its development projects, and envisages a doubling of oil production from 2m. barrels per day to over 4m. within the next ten years.
Strangely, its ally in this push against the Saudis is none other than neighbouring Iran, with which Iraq has only recently ceased a near state of war over Kurdistan. The Shah and his ‘White Revolution’ also need quick money to finance internal development, enormous military expansion and foreign aid programmes. The difference is that while the Shah ranges himself against communism and sends troops to the Gulf to fight Arab guerrillas, Iraq is dedicated to the idea of a single socialist Arab nation from Gibraltar to the Indian ocean; the original Ba’athist dream.
In their different crusades, both Iraq and Iran take a distinctly unsentimental line on internal opposition. Ba’ath party spokesmen, when questioned about the lack of public dissent, will point to efforts made by the party press to stimulate criticism of revolutionary shortcomings. True enough, there are such efforts, but they fall rather short of permitting any organised opposition. The argument then moves to the claim, which is often made in Iraq, that the country is surrounded by enemies and attacked by imperialist intrigue. Somewhere in the collision between Baghdad and Teheran on this point, the Kurdish nationalists met a very painful end. We now know, from the US committee of investigation, chaired by Congressman Otis Pike, that there was a Nixon- Kissinger strategy of arming and encouraging a Kurdish revolt, not for the purpose of creating a Kurdish state (which would have horrified the Shah) but for the purpose of de-stabilising Iraq. It was specifically argued, by those who planned the operation, that the Kurds should not be allowed to win.
They were allowed to take heavy casualties and suffer appalling refugee problems; and then were dumped unceremoniously when it became clear that the Iraqi government was not going to crumble. ‘Even in the context of covert action,’ says the report, ‘ours was a cynical enterprise.’ As one who had, on previous visits to Baghdad, scorned the argument that the Kurds were foreign puppets, I should say that ‘cynical’ is the mildest adjective that could be used about this latest triumph of the Secretary of State.
The Kurds now have a very attenuated version of autonomy, and former members of the Barzani armed forces are being moved to the South. At least, however, Iraq constitutionally recognises that she is a partly Kurdish state, which is more than Iran or Turkey do. Further tests for the regime lie ahead. The quarrel with Syria, which involves differences over Ba’athist ideology as well as a dispute over Syrian damming of the Euphrates river, has now extended to the Lebanon, where Syrian troops have attacked newspapers and buildings controlled by Iraqi-sympathising Palestinians. Relations with Iran are still far from cordial. In response to requests for criticism in the party press, some demands were raised for a constituent assembly, and other complaints voiced about the tightness of the regime. All these remain to be acted on, and as the situation grows more complicated Saddam Hussain will rise more clearly to the top. Make a note of the name. Iraq has been strengthened internally by the construction of a ‘strategic pipeline’ which connects the Gulf to the northern fields for the first time. She has been strengthened externally by her support for revolutionary causes and by the resources she can deploy. It may not be electrification plus Soviet power, but the combination of oil and ‘Arab socialism’ is hardly less powerful.
Friday, 27 July 2007
Back home!
Apols for the lack of blogging since coming back from Vancouver a week and a bit ago. Been busy and/or being sucked into facebook since getting back. Will post in the next few days to keep things ticking over. I haven't forgotten this blog!
Hope all is well out there!
Hope all is well out there!
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Off on hols
The City of Glass. Nice, isn't it?
To Vancouver on Thursday until five to mid-night Sunday 15th July local time, scheduled to touch down at Gatwick 5.10pm Monday 16th July. Don't expect much sense from this blog in the next few weeks (for a change). However, I will tell some stories and recommend places to go and things to do while I'm over.
Hope all is well with everyone else out there...
Noel.
Monday, 18 June 2007
Actual Existing Capitalism, Part 47
Inequality is a middle-class issue: Peter Wilby says income disparity should worry Gordon Brown
New Statesman, 14 June 2007
I have long suspected that we are not being told the whole truth about inequality. Growing income differentials in the US and UK, it is said, are caused by the impact of technological change in a global market, which puts a higher premium on employees' skills. The way to a more equal society, therefore, is for the laggards to get themselves educated, preferably in economically useful subjects. If three-year-olds from disadvantaged homes are lagging a year behind their more affluent peers, as the University of London's Institute of Education has just reported, the answer must be more early intervention in family life.
This account is roughly the one favoured by new Labour and, although Brownites seem more inclined than Blairites to utter the word "equality", their policy proposals are almost identical. My suspicion that the standard narrative is, at best, only half true is supported by a new paper from economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Inequality and Institutions in 20th-Century America by Frank Levy and Peter Temin, Department of Economics Working Paper 07-17).
The paper doesn't mention Marx, but it shows the old boy was broadly right. "As capital accumulates," he wrote, "the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse." Since 1980, US productivity has increased by 67 per cent. Median weekly earnings are up only 19 per cent (inflation discounted). In other words, the bosses - shareholders and top executives - have been grabbing more, allowing the richest 1 per cent to double their share of US national income. This is an exact reversal of what happened in the three decades preceding 1980. Median incomes then kept pace with labour productivity while top incomes lagged behind.
Even those bare facts sow some doubts about the conventional wisdom. Millions in the US have acquired word-processing and computer skills since the 1970s and the proportion of Americans who take degrees has long been high by international standards. So why should the difference in incomes have been greater in America than in most European countries?
The MIT paper offers some clues. Whether you consider BAs or high school graduates, median earnings growth since 1980 has still lagged behind productivity gains, and the disparity in incomes within these groups has increased. For example, in 1967, a young Wall Street lawyer's earnings were 14 per cent higher than the median for everyone else of similar age and education. By 2005, they were 120 per cent higher. So, even if you acquire more education and skills, the winner-takes-all rules of the global market will work against you if you come second, third, or lower. The point can best be illustrated in professional football. I doubt the skill levels of Rochdale or Torquay players are significantly lower than they were 30 years ago, or the skills of the top players higher, but the disparity in incomes is far greater.
Sport is a legitimate example of a global market. Since language and local knowledge are of little importance, a player's skills are as valuable in England's Premier League as in Côte d'Ivoire. That is not true of all industries which now have high top salaries. The MIT paper argues that, before 1980, top American salaries were restrained by stronger unions, higher minimum wages, higher taxes, more regulation, and other norms of the "corporate state" that is now so derided. The same applied to the UK. In those days, the social climate didn't favour high pay for bosses. Giving your chief executive a £1m bonus was bad for business. As top people's pay goes out of control - leaving behind even most of the middle classes - that climate could return.
As I argued in this column on 21 May, inequality is becoming a middle-class issue. For example, the scandal of non-domiciled tax status - which allows the super-rich to live in Britain without contributing a penny to the Exchequer - increasingly exercises the Mail and Telegraph, because their readers in the south-east experience direct effects in competition for houses, private school places, childcare and domestic help. The MIT paper quotes examples of how even Americans, who are normally relaxed about inequality, are getting tired of seeing a sharp-suited elite become fabulously rich at everyone else's expense. Perhaps Gordon Brown should hang on to that "old Labour" label a little longer.
New Statesman, 14 June 2007
I have long suspected that we are not being told the whole truth about inequality. Growing income differentials in the US and UK, it is said, are caused by the impact of technological change in a global market, which puts a higher premium on employees' skills. The way to a more equal society, therefore, is for the laggards to get themselves educated, preferably in economically useful subjects. If three-year-olds from disadvantaged homes are lagging a year behind their more affluent peers, as the University of London's Institute of Education has just reported, the answer must be more early intervention in family life.
This account is roughly the one favoured by new Labour and, although Brownites seem more inclined than Blairites to utter the word "equality", their policy proposals are almost identical. My suspicion that the standard narrative is, at best, only half true is supported by a new paper from economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Inequality and Institutions in 20th-Century America by Frank Levy and Peter Temin, Department of Economics Working Paper 07-17).
The paper doesn't mention Marx, but it shows the old boy was broadly right. "As capital accumulates," he wrote, "the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse." Since 1980, US productivity has increased by 67 per cent. Median weekly earnings are up only 19 per cent (inflation discounted). In other words, the bosses - shareholders and top executives - have been grabbing more, allowing the richest 1 per cent to double their share of US national income. This is an exact reversal of what happened in the three decades preceding 1980. Median incomes then kept pace with labour productivity while top incomes lagged behind.
Even those bare facts sow some doubts about the conventional wisdom. Millions in the US have acquired word-processing and computer skills since the 1970s and the proportion of Americans who take degrees has long been high by international standards. So why should the difference in incomes have been greater in America than in most European countries?
The MIT paper offers some clues. Whether you consider BAs or high school graduates, median earnings growth since 1980 has still lagged behind productivity gains, and the disparity in incomes within these groups has increased. For example, in 1967, a young Wall Street lawyer's earnings were 14 per cent higher than the median for everyone else of similar age and education. By 2005, they were 120 per cent higher. So, even if you acquire more education and skills, the winner-takes-all rules of the global market will work against you if you come second, third, or lower. The point can best be illustrated in professional football. I doubt the skill levels of Rochdale or Torquay players are significantly lower than they were 30 years ago, or the skills of the top players higher, but the disparity in incomes is far greater.
Sport is a legitimate example of a global market. Since language and local knowledge are of little importance, a player's skills are as valuable in England's Premier League as in Côte d'Ivoire. That is not true of all industries which now have high top salaries. The MIT paper argues that, before 1980, top American salaries were restrained by stronger unions, higher minimum wages, higher taxes, more regulation, and other norms of the "corporate state" that is now so derided. The same applied to the UK. In those days, the social climate didn't favour high pay for bosses. Giving your chief executive a £1m bonus was bad for business. As top people's pay goes out of control - leaving behind even most of the middle classes - that climate could return.
As I argued in this column on 21 May, inequality is becoming a middle-class issue. For example, the scandal of non-domiciled tax status - which allows the super-rich to live in Britain without contributing a penny to the Exchequer - increasingly exercises the Mail and Telegraph, because their readers in the south-east experience direct effects in competition for houses, private school places, childcare and domestic help. The MIT paper quotes examples of how even Americans, who are normally relaxed about inequality, are getting tired of seeing a sharp-suited elite become fabulously rich at everyone else's expense. Perhaps Gordon Brown should hang on to that "old Labour" label a little longer.
Sunday, 17 June 2007
The New Scramble For Africa?
Quite a bit has been heard in the media in the last couple of years about China's involvement in developing and exploiting Africa's mineral resources, not least its oil fields. One could gain the impression that the USA is not interested in Africa, or at best, an impotent bystander. However, ask yourself: is there one area of the globe the USA is not interested in, particularly if oil is involved?
The scramble for Africa's oil: Within a decade, the US will be heavily dependent on African oil. Little wonder the Pentagon is preparing a strategy for the region.
Christopher Thompson, New Statesman, 14 June 2007
The Pentagon is to reorganise its military command structure in response to growing fears that the United States is seriously ill-equipped to fight the war against terrorism in Africa. It is a dramatic move, and an admission that the US must reshape its whole military policy if it is to maintain control of Africa for the duration of what Donald Rumsfeld has called "the long war". Suddenly the world's most neglected con tinent is assuming an increasing global importance as the international oil industry begins to exploit more and more of the west coast of Africa's abundant reserves.
The Pentagon at present has five geographic Unified Combatant Commands around the world, and responsibility for Africa is awkwardly divided among three of these. Most of Africa - a batch of 43 countries - falls under the European Command (Eucom), with the remainder divided between the Pacific Command and Central Command (which also runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Now the Pentagon - under the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the defence department - is working on formal proposals for a unified military command for the continent under the name "Africom".
This significant shift in US relations with Africa comes in the face of myriad threats: fierce economic competition from Asia; increasing resource nationalism in Russia and South America; and instability in the Middle East that threatens to spill over into Africa.
The Pentagon hopes to finalise Africom's structure, location and budget this year. The expectation is that it can break free from Eucom and become operative by mid-2008.
"The break from Europe will occur before 30 September 2008," Professor Peter Pham, a US adviser on Africa to the Pentagon told the New Statesman. "The independent command should be up and running by this time next year."
A Pentagon source says the new command, which was originally given the green light by the controversial former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is likely to be led by William "Kip" Ward, the US army's only four-star African-American general. In 2005, Ward was appointed the US security envoy to the Middle East and he is reportedly close to President George W Bush. He also has boots-on-the-ground experience in Africa: he was a commander during Bill Clinton's ill-fated mission in Somalia in 1993 and he served as a military representative in Egypt in 1998. Ward is now the deputy head of Eucom.
America's new Africa strategy reflects its key priorities in the Middle East: oil and counter-terrorism. Currently, the US has in place the loosely defined Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative, incorporating an offshoot of Operation Enduring Freedom that is intended to keep terrorist networks out of the vast, unguarded Sahel. But the lack of a coherent and unified policy on Africa is, according to some observers, hampering America's efforts in the Middle East. US military sources estimate that up to a quarter of all foreign fighters in Iraq are from Africa, mostly from Algeria and Morocco.
Moreover, there is increasing alarm within the US defence establishment at the creeping "radicalisation" of Africa's Muslims, helped along by the export of hardline, Wahhabi-style clerics from the Arabian peninsula.
"The terrorist challenge [has] increased in Africa in the past year - it's gotten a new lease on life," according to Pham.
But it is the west's increasing dependency on African oil that gives particular urgency to these new directions in the fight against terrorism. Africa's enormous, and largely untapped, reserves are already more important to the west than most Americans recognise.
In March 2006, speaking before the Senate armed services committee, General James Jones, the then head of Eucom, said: "Africa currently provides over 15 per cent of US oil imports, and recent explorations in the Gulf of Guinea region indicate potential reserves that could account for 25-35 per cent of US imports within the next decade."
These high-quality reserves - West African oil is typically low in sulphur and thus ideal for refining - are easily accessible by sea to western Europe and the US. In 2005, the US imported more oil from the Gulf of Guinea than it did from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. Within the next ten years it will import more oil from Africa than from the entire Middle East. Western oil giants such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, France's Total and Britain's BP and Shell plan to invest tens of billions of dollars in sub-Saharan Africa (far in excess of "aid" inflows to the region).
But though the Gulf of Guinea is one of the few parts of the world where oil production is poised to increase exponentially in the near future, it is also one of the most unstable. In the big three producer countries, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola, oil wealth has been a curse for many, enriching political elites at the expense of impoverished citizens. Angola is now China's main supplier of crude oil, supplanting Saudi Arabia last year. The Chinese, along with the rest of oil- hungry Asia, are looking covetously at the entire region's reserves.
Realpolitik of what suits
Looming over West Africa is the spectre of the southern Niger Delta area, which accounts for most of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels a day. Conflict here offers a taste of what could afflict all of sub-Saharan Africa's oilfields. Since 2003, the Delta has become a virtual war zone as heavily armed rival gangs - with names such as the Black Axes and Vikings - battle for access to pipelines and demand a bigger cut of the petrodollar.
Oil theft, known as "bunkering", costs Nigeria some $4bn (£2.05bn) a year, while foreign companies have been forced to scale back production after kidnappings by Delta militants. Such uncertainties help send world oil prices sky-high.
The Pentagon's new Africa policy is to include a "substantial" humanitarian component, aimed partly at minimising unrest and crime. But the reality is that a bullish China is willing to offer billions in soft loans and infrastructure projects - all with no strings attached - to secure lucrative acreage.
"It's like going back to a Cold War era of politics where the US backs one political faction because their political profile suits their requirements," says Patrick Smith, editor of the newsletter Africa Confidential, widely read in policy circles. "It's a move away from criteria of good governance to what is diplomatically convenient."
According to Nicholas Shaxson, author of Poisoned Wells: the Dirty Politics of African Oil, "[Africom] comes in the context of a growing conflict with China over our oil supplies."
Africom will significantly increase the US military presence on the continent. At present, the US has 1,500 troops stationed in Africa, principally at its military base in Djibouti, in the eastern horn. That could well double, according to Pham. The US is already conducting naval exercises off the Gulf of Guinea, in part with the intention of stopping Delta insurgents reaching offshore oil rigs. It also plans to beef up the military capacity of African governments to handle their dissidents, with additional "rapid-reaction" US forces available if needed. But - echoing charges levelled at US allies elsewhere in the "war on terror" - there are fears that the many authoritarian governments in sub-Saharan Africa might use such units to crack down on internal dissent.
Raising hackles
The increased US military presence is already apparent across the Red Sea from Iraq, where, in concert with Ethiopia, Washington has quietly opened up another front in its war on terror. The target: the Somalia-based Islamists whom the Americans claim were responsible for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Earlier this year, US special forces used air strikes against suspected al-Qaeda militants, killing scores.
FBI interrogators have also been despatched to Ethiopian jails, where hundreds of terror suspects - including Britons - have been held incommunicado since Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in December last year, according to Human Rights Watch. The problem with this more confrontational approach in Africa is apparent. "There's definitely a danger of the US [being] seen as an imperial exploiter," says Shaxson. "The military presence will raise hackles in certain countries - America will have to tread lightly."
Nonetheless, the Pentagon is hoping that Africom will signal a more constructive foreign policy in the region and a break with the past. "Politically [Africa] is important and that's going to increase in coming years," says Pham. "It's whether the US can sustain the initiative."
African oil: the numbers
22% of US crude oil imports came from Nigeria in the first quarter of 2007
25% of US crude imports came from Saudi Arabia in the same period
75% of the Nigerian government's income is oil-related
800,000 Nigerian estimate for barrels of oil lost each day through leaks, stoppages or theft by rebels
$2.3bn cost of building Chevron's Benguela Belize platform off the coast of Angola
Research by Jonathan Pearson
Saturday, 16 June 2007
Public service announcement
Saw this on MSN...you are all pretty intelligent people out there, but better safe than sorry...
Patrick Goss: Editor - Tech & Gadgets: Don't fall for e-mail hoaxes
I don’t know about you but I don’t know any deposed kings, exiled leaders or righteous princes. I’m fairly certain that I haven’t inadvertently entered any worldwide lotteries and I’m pretty darn convinced that, although I haven’t spoken to him about it, Bill Gates will not be sending me a cheque for thousands of pounds if I forward an email about Microsoft to all my friends.
Because today I am in the world of hoax e-mails, and the really pressing question is: why the hell do people fall for them in the first place?
There was a time when I had a little sympathy for people who fell into these traps – especially when the internet and e-mail were still relatively young and people simply weren’t used to being deluged with requests.
But that was then and this is now – when my parents spend as much time on the internet as I do, and there have been more stories written on these scams, phishers and hoaxes than I care to mention.
Basically – if you fall for one of the hoaxes now then you need your head looking at.
The deposed ruler chronicles
Let’s take, for example, the popular ‘deposed ruler’ e-mail. Now I’m all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but it beggars belief that someone reads this story and doesn’t raise an eyebrow.
Generally the mail goes like this:
• Hello I’m a Nigerian/Albanian/African prince/PM/president who has been cruelly usurped.
• If you help me then I can make you a millionaire
• All I need is a few hundred dollars to get my throne back. (occasionally this only comes out in later e-mails)
Now, let’s for a moment ignore the first two points (don’t worry I’ll get back to them in a minute) and focus on the third.
You’ve never met this person, never heard of them and they want you to send them money. Would you send money to someone you met at a party once who said exactly what was said above? No. You’d probably laugh in their face and resolve not to go to any other parties the host organises.
Even if the original e-mail doesn’t explicitly state that you need to send your money, you can’t get away from points one and two.
First point, why would they be e-mailing you? Have you got a reputation for your skilful handling of African politics? Have you got a huge bottomless pit of wealth that can restore the person to their ‘rightful’ throne/parliament?
Point two: okay so here’s the hook. You can be a millionaire for no work at all! Really? If this doesn’t raise your eyebrows I can only assume that you have been at an overzealous stag party and don’t have any left. How many people do you know that got involved in get-rich-quick schemes and came out as millionaires? Any?
Perhaps you heard about the FRIEND of someone you kind of know who made a killing in a pyramid scheme or by setting up his own religion, but you probably know as well as I do that get-rich-quick schemes are about as reliable as an ashtray on a motorcycle.
The Microsoft/AOL spoof
One of the hoaxes I have most recently written an article on is a phishing/fraud e-mail that went around purporting to be from Microsoft and/or AOL. This particular version suggested that you had, wait for it, WON a lottery for just using Microsoft / AOL products and were a millionaire.
Great! Show me the money.
Of course, to get your greedy mitts on this cash there are some very minor hoops to jump through. Like giving them your credit card details, your mother’s maiden name, the name of your first pet, your best friend (and their credit card number too if you have it).
The e-mail is headed by a hastily photoshopped Microsoft banner, and starts with the words: ‘Congratulation, congratulation, congratulation!’. I don’t even want to start on the formatting.
I wrote a fairly lengthy dissection of the e-mail on my blog, and thought little more of it, until I noticed that the whole thing was getting a lot of hits from people typing bits of it into search engines – presumably to see if the offer was real.
Which brings me to another point - in this day and age of search engines it really isn’t that hard to check these things out. Although not by any means foolproof, if you get a dodgy e-mail a few brief key taps can fairly quickly establish that you aren’t the only person to have received it.
Don’t forget that scams pretending to be from the likes of e-Bay, Microsoft, PayPal etc are treated very seriously by those companies and they will do their best to publicise that you shouldn’t reply to these e-mails.
So come on people…
I’d really like to never have to write another article outlining the latest phising scam or money hoax, but I know there’s no chance of that. It genuinely astounds me that people who have enough brains to press letter keys in the right order to make words fall for what, even at their most sophisticated, are pretty transparent, pathetic attempts to get personal details or money out of them.
There are big lists of what you should look out for in hoax and phishing e-mails – some of them written by me, but the most obvious list of things you should go through is this:
1/ Don’t be naïve: the best way to find out if you’ve won the lottery is to check your numbers and if a Nigerian Prince needs your help I’m sure he could send one of his minions to your door (although I’m assuming even then you would ring the consulate to make sure).
2/ If you get an e-mail about anything you do online that involves money, treat it with quadruple suspicion.
3/ If you have any doubts don’t respond to the e-mail or click on any links.
So please don’t fall for the scams. They rely on one person in thousands responding to them and that one person is pretty much responsible for a good percentage of the rubbish that clogs up our inboxes.
Patrick Goss: Editor - Tech & Gadgets: Don't fall for e-mail hoaxes
I don’t know about you but I don’t know any deposed kings, exiled leaders or righteous princes. I’m fairly certain that I haven’t inadvertently entered any worldwide lotteries and I’m pretty darn convinced that, although I haven’t spoken to him about it, Bill Gates will not be sending me a cheque for thousands of pounds if I forward an email about Microsoft to all my friends.
Because today I am in the world of hoax e-mails, and the really pressing question is: why the hell do people fall for them in the first place?
There was a time when I had a little sympathy for people who fell into these traps – especially when the internet and e-mail were still relatively young and people simply weren’t used to being deluged with requests.
But that was then and this is now – when my parents spend as much time on the internet as I do, and there have been more stories written on these scams, phishers and hoaxes than I care to mention.
Basically – if you fall for one of the hoaxes now then you need your head looking at.
The deposed ruler chronicles
Let’s take, for example, the popular ‘deposed ruler’ e-mail. Now I’m all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but it beggars belief that someone reads this story and doesn’t raise an eyebrow.
Generally the mail goes like this:
• Hello I’m a Nigerian/Albanian/African prince/PM/president who has been cruelly usurped.
• If you help me then I can make you a millionaire
• All I need is a few hundred dollars to get my throne back. (occasionally this only comes out in later e-mails)
Now, let’s for a moment ignore the first two points (don’t worry I’ll get back to them in a minute) and focus on the third.
You’ve never met this person, never heard of them and they want you to send them money. Would you send money to someone you met at a party once who said exactly what was said above? No. You’d probably laugh in their face and resolve not to go to any other parties the host organises.
Even if the original e-mail doesn’t explicitly state that you need to send your money, you can’t get away from points one and two.
First point, why would they be e-mailing you? Have you got a reputation for your skilful handling of African politics? Have you got a huge bottomless pit of wealth that can restore the person to their ‘rightful’ throne/parliament?
Point two: okay so here’s the hook. You can be a millionaire for no work at all! Really? If this doesn’t raise your eyebrows I can only assume that you have been at an overzealous stag party and don’t have any left. How many people do you know that got involved in get-rich-quick schemes and came out as millionaires? Any?
Perhaps you heard about the FRIEND of someone you kind of know who made a killing in a pyramid scheme or by setting up his own religion, but you probably know as well as I do that get-rich-quick schemes are about as reliable as an ashtray on a motorcycle.
The Microsoft/AOL spoof
One of the hoaxes I have most recently written an article on is a phishing/fraud e-mail that went around purporting to be from Microsoft and/or AOL. This particular version suggested that you had, wait for it, WON a lottery for just using Microsoft / AOL products and were a millionaire.
Great! Show me the money.
Of course, to get your greedy mitts on this cash there are some very minor hoops to jump through. Like giving them your credit card details, your mother’s maiden name, the name of your first pet, your best friend (and their credit card number too if you have it).
The e-mail is headed by a hastily photoshopped Microsoft banner, and starts with the words: ‘Congratulation, congratulation, congratulation!’. I don’t even want to start on the formatting.
I wrote a fairly lengthy dissection of the e-mail on my blog, and thought little more of it, until I noticed that the whole thing was getting a lot of hits from people typing bits of it into search engines – presumably to see if the offer was real.
Which brings me to another point - in this day and age of search engines it really isn’t that hard to check these things out. Although not by any means foolproof, if you get a dodgy e-mail a few brief key taps can fairly quickly establish that you aren’t the only person to have received it.
Don’t forget that scams pretending to be from the likes of e-Bay, Microsoft, PayPal etc are treated very seriously by those companies and they will do their best to publicise that you shouldn’t reply to these e-mails.
So come on people…
I’d really like to never have to write another article outlining the latest phising scam or money hoax, but I know there’s no chance of that. It genuinely astounds me that people who have enough brains to press letter keys in the right order to make words fall for what, even at their most sophisticated, are pretty transparent, pathetic attempts to get personal details or money out of them.
There are big lists of what you should look out for in hoax and phishing e-mails – some of them written by me, but the most obvious list of things you should go through is this:
1/ Don’t be naïve: the best way to find out if you’ve won the lottery is to check your numbers and if a Nigerian Prince needs your help I’m sure he could send one of his minions to your door (although I’m assuming even then you would ring the consulate to make sure).
2/ If you get an e-mail about anything you do online that involves money, treat it with quadruple suspicion.
3/ If you have any doubts don’t respond to the e-mail or click on any links.
So please don’t fall for the scams. They rely on one person in thousands responding to them and that one person is pretty much responsible for a good percentage of the rubbish that clogs up our inboxes.
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