News from December 2005

Blood Flows With Oil in Poor Nigerian Villages

At first glance, it is hard to imagine anyone fighting over this place. …..Yet for months a pitched battle has been fought between communities that claim authority over this village and the right to control what lies beneath its watery ground: a potentially vast field of crude oil that has caught the attention of a [...]

United States Planning a Military Strike Against Iran

The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran. The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike.Jerusalem Post

Housing dream fades at petrol pump

HIGH petrol prices are killing the dream of home ownership for thousands of people in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. Research revealing the real toll petrol prices take on suburban residents comes as experts predict petrol will average about $1.26 a litre next year. Home ownership is being pushed out of reach for those on the urban [...]

A Modest Proposal On Drinking and Driving

As we approach the New Year, the #1 offical alcohol drinking night of the Year, I have a modest proposal for the youth of America: Trade in your driver’s licences for drinking licences. It is astonishing to reflect on how much the automobile has changed our physicial landscape and our culture. The legal drinking age [...]

Saudi Arabia filling Ala. shrimpers’ tanks

BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. “I know, Saudi Arabia. It seems kind of strange. But they’ve been very kind and gracious to us,” said Ernie Anderson, president of the Organized Seafood Association of Alabama, which will administer the Saudi gift. “We all hope this will kick-start the economy down here.” Through their government-owned oil conglomerate, the [...]

Exxon’s Raymond hands reins to Tillerson

…Declining gasoline prices have eased the calls for a windfall tax, but economists and analysts predict renewed criticism if winter heating-bill spikes coincide with more record earnings by late January. Fair or not, Exxon is the industry’s bellwether and its biggest bull’s eye. “The industry set itself up for a shellacking,” said Matthew Simmons, a [...]

Willie Nelson Pushing biodiesel

Willie Nelson drives a Mercedes. But do not lose faith. The exhaust from Nelson’s diesel-powered Mercedes smells like peanuts, or French fries, or whatever alternative fuel happens to be in his tank. While Bono tries to change the world by hobnobbing with politicians and Bob Geldof hosts his megabenefit concerts, Willie Nelson has birthed his [...]

Long hours, expensive fuel hurt port truckers

… Gutierrez Gutierrez, figuring that his truck wasn

The CIS and Baltic press on Russia

ESTONIA: The North European gas pipeline is still on top of the news as the media calls upon a concerted action between the countries the pipeline bypasses to exert pressure on the international community to prevent the project from getting on stream…LATVIA: Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas monopoly, is seen as an arm in Kremlin’s anti-U.S. [...]

Cap on coal prices eased, negotiations allowed

China has eased a cap on coal prices which it imposed to plug power firms’ profit gaps eaten away by increasing fuel costs, the National Development and Reform Commission said. “Miners and power firms can negotiate over coal prices themselves this time,” the top economic policy body said in a statement. “But the government would [...]