Tag: Niger Delta

A video purportedly released by the armed Boko Haram sect based in northeastern Nigeria showed what was said to be school girls who have been held by the group for a month. The Boko Haram leader said that the young women could be released in exchange for the prisoners belonging to their organization being held by the Nigerian government.

A Dutch court has rejected a bid by Nigerian farmers to hold Shell’s parent company responsible for oil damage to their villages, saying that only the Anglo-Dutch oil giant’s Nigerian subsidiary was partly responsible. On Jan. 29, the court dismissed four out of five allegations against the company but ordered it to pay compensation to one Nigerian farmer.

At Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting, impacted community members who had traveled to the company’s headquarters from around the globe confronted CEO John Watson with the brutal human and environmental abuses caused by the oil giant’s operations.

Western imperialism continues to interfere in the governance of independent African states. We see a trend not just of neo-colonialism but one which moves towards re-colonization. And if we add to this the purchase of huge tracts of African land for agriculture by Middle East countries and China, the people of Africa are being betrayed once again.

Saint Calogero, an African priest, is the patron saint of the Sicilian town of Agrigento. But in the 21st century, African refugees who traverse the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean Sea find Calogero’s city, indeed the entire country, unwelcoming, even hostile to them.

"Have you forgotten the holocaust? Have you forgotten the gulags in Russia? Communism, nazism, fascism did not come from Africa. ... A Western country was the first to use weapons of mass destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those countries have been able to rise. Africa, there is hope," Bishop Tutu assured.

"Due to the media blockout, Americans may not realize that a rise in the price of gas at the pump is related to bloodshed in the Niger Delta," said Daphne Wysham, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. "As one of the largest consumers of Nigerian crude, the United States government cannot stand idly by and watch innocent civilians being killed, starved and maimed."

The case of Bowoto v. Chevron pitted Chevron and its relationship with the notoriously violent Nigerian police and military against Nigerians who peacefully protested the destruction of their environment and livelihood by Chevron's oil production activities.

“Bayview residents have been living with asthma way longer than the 49ers have been living with a third-rate stadium.”