HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Lust for oil can overpower a country’s democratic ideals and common sense, and the United States is not immune. Consider Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s rhetorical embrace of Equatorial Guinea’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, in April 2006. “You are a good friend and we welcome you,” she said. Two years earlier, the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations disclosed how Rice’s “good friend” and his family held multimillion dollar accounts, gleaned from government revenue, in Riggs Bank, which was eventually convicted of violating America’s Bank Secrecy Act. When not ripping off the state treasury, Obiang has [...]
WASHINGTON — In early August, Seattle-based Boeing, the nation’s second-largest weapons manufacturer, extended invitations to several East Coast-based online journalists to ride on a lavish Boeing corporate jet to Everett, Wash., to tour the company’s 767 airplane factory. Boeing’s aim: to win some good-will from a relatively neglected slice of the media as the company vies for one of the biggest and most important military contracts in decades. In coming months, perhaps as early as December, the U.S. Air Force will decide between Boeing and a partnership of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman and the European firm EADS for a $40-billion [...]
BANGKOK, Thailand — While desperate people braved pro-government thugs on the streets of Rangoon to protest economically devastating fuel price rises, Burma’s chief energy planner was in Singapore spouting fantastic figures about his country’s oil and gas wealth. Burma has reserves of more than 600 million barrels of oil and almost 16 trillion cubic feet of gas, claimed U Soe Myint last week. Selling Abroad, Shortages at Home The figures, if they are to be believed, should be good news for a country of 53 million impoverished people who suffer intermittent electricity supplies, or none at all in many areas, [...]
