Hundreds burned alive in Lagos pipeline fire Wednesday December 27, 2006 The Guardian - Death toll could be as high as 500, says Red Cross - Fire engulfed locals after gang siphoned off fuel More than 260 people were killed yesterday - burned alive when a ruptured oil pipeline burst into flames in Lagos. Crowds of local residents had gone to scoop up petrol using plastic containers after an armed gang punctured an underground pipeline to illegally siphon off fuel. "The number of dead is confirmed at 269," said Red Cross secretary-general Abiodun Orebiyi. "We have retrieved all the bodies." Another 160 people were taken to hospitals in Lagos suffering burns. The remains of hundreds of bodies, most burned beyond recognition, were at the scene of the blast in the densely populated Abule-Egba district of Lagos, next to a car workshop and a sawmill. Some corpses lay rigid on the ground, arms and legs thrust awkwardly in the air with their clothes and skin burned off. It took firefighters equipped with leaking water hoses about six hours to put out the flames as hundreds of people watched. In the absence of an ambulance service, one group of volunteers loaded charred bodies into an estate car operated by the Lagos road safety authority. The explosion happened in an area on the city fringes where the families of low-paid and casual workers live crowded together. "One friend knocked on our door and told my husband they were taking fuel. My husband ran out with two buckets and now he has gone. This is a curse from God," said a woman who gave her name as Ole. "There were mothers there, little children," said Emmanuel Unokhua, an engineer who lives near the scene of the blast. "I was begging them to go back." Mr Unokhua said that residents had thrown fuel over him and a few police who had been unable to control the crowd. "They were not arresting anyone because they had no vehicle to put them in," he said. "There are plenty of vehicles for the dead bodies now." "My brother, my brother," wept Suboke Adebayo as an unidentified charred male corpse was loaded into a waiting ambulance. Ms Adebayo, a 19-year-old student, had spent hours trying unsuccessfully to contact her sibling. "I've been calling him since this morning, but I can only hear a holding tone," she said. A woman in a yellow T-shirt sobbed uncontrollably, slapping herself on the face and clawing her own arms in grief. Long queues have formed at fuel stations across Nigeria over the past few weeks because of shortages in supply of fuel from the national oil company. "Because of the scarcity, people want to make a quick profit or just fill their tank," Mr Orebiyi said. The authorities blame incidents such as yesterday's on "bunkerers", criminals who tap into pipelines carrying refined fuel around the country for the state-owned Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). After taking as much as they can transport for resale under the cover of darkness, they leave the pipelines leaking and villagers in poverty-stricken communities rush to the sites with cans, bowls and buckets to collect as much fuel as possible for use in vehicles, generators and kerosene cookers. A stolen jerrycan of petrol, sold on the black market, can equal two weeks wages for a poor Nigerian. According to observers, however, behind this lies another story of poverty and the mismanagement of the country's natural resources. Lagos is the commercial capital of the world's seventh-largest oil producing nation. Fuel shortages were until recently run of the mill in Nigeria, whose four fuel refineries had fallen into dilapidation under years of neglect by military governments, leading to a paradoxical situation where the country imported refined petrol to be resold at below-market rates, at the same time as exporting crude oil. The loss-making re-import scheme encouraged many dealers to divert their supplies for sale on the more profitable black market instead. Controversial fuel price rises enacted by President Olusegun Obasanjo last year seemed to have resolved the problem, making imports more profitable and thus eliminating the trade in stolen fuel. The head of the NNPC, Funsho Kupolokun, told local television that petrol thieves were to blame for the new shortages, with the corporation struggling for weeks to repair damage they had caused to essential pipelines supplying the populous south-west of the country. But rumours of less transparent causes are already circulating, with some suspecting that marketeers are deliberately withholding supplies in order to profit from a possible new year price rise. Whatever the reason, the shortage has seen the resurgence of Lagos's once-notorious black market fuel traffickers. Residents allege that such gangs have been colluding with some filling-station owners to corner remaining supplies for resale at 100 naira (41p) a litre, almost double the official retail price set by the government regulator, and too expensive for most ordinary people. The Christmas shortage has caused all the more hardship as petrol is not only essential for transport, but for the generators on which most homes and businesses rely in the absence of reliable mains electricity. As the shortage deteriorated into crisis, Lagos-resident activist Lolade Bamidele told the Guardian that in recent days "you can feel the desperation, it is almost palpable". He said that in areas such as Abule-Egba that desperation had bitten hardest and many of the victims would have ignored the risks to obtain a windfall of free fuel. Comment: Nigeria is the world's eighth-largest crude exporter and the fifth-biggest exporter oil to the United States. Its exports to the United States have risen to 1.1 million barrels per day in the most recent government statistics -- about 10 percent of U.S. crude imports. Two years ago, a similar explosion occurred killing 50 people...

Flashback: Up to 50 people feared killed in fuel pipeline explosion and fire in Nigeria 18 September 2004 AP LAGOS, Nigeria - An oil pipeline exploded near Nigeria's largest city as thieves tried to siphon oil from it, with up to 50 people perishing in the flames, police said Friday. "People were stealing fuel from the pipeline when it caught fire and exploded," police spokesman Emmanuel Ighodalo said of the blast Thursday in Amore, a village across a wide lagoon from Lagos, a city of 13 million people. At least 30 charred bodies of victims have been recovered and more still littered the swamps and waterways surrounding the site of the explosion, making it likely the death toll could reach 50, said Ighodalo. Giant tongues of flame coming from the pipeline scorched the nearby vegetation while large plumes of smoke billowed skywards at the scene Friday. Eight bodies, some burned beyond recognition, still lay at the scene, not yet collected by recovery workers. The pipeline, run by state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, pumps imported fuel from the Lagos sea port to western Nigeria. Company officials said the pipeline pumps had been turned off to help firefighters, increasing the likelihood of fuel scarcity in parts of Nigeria. "Our priority is to put out the fire so we can fix the pipeline," an official overseeing a team of firefighters at the site said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The closed pipeline wasn't expected to affect the amount of petroleum sent from Nigeria, Africa's largest exporter of crude and a member of OPEC. Amore residents, including some survivors who escaped the explosion with injuries, fled fearing police arrest, said Ighodalo. Armed police and navy troops kept watch over the village, emptied of its estimated 1,000 inhabitants. One area resident, Tony Nwanma, quoted some survivors as saying a power generator used by the thieves to pump gasoline from the pipeline had caught fire, causing the explosion. In the past, similar explosions occurred when villagers unwittingly ignited highly combustible petroleum as they collected it from ruptured pipelines. A 1998 pipeline blast killed over 1,000 in southern Nigeria. Stealing valuable oil from pipelines is common in Nigeria, where most inhabitants are deeply impoverished despite Nigeria's oil riches. Comment: The question, of course, is why are the people of Lagos so desperate that they would risk their lives to steal some oil? The answer, brings us back to America and other Western nations and what they do so well - steal the natural resources of other countries and create poverty and starvation for millions of innocents. Nigeria to use new US ship to curb oil smuggling: navy LAGOS (AFP) Sep 05, 2003 The Nigerian navy said Friday a new ship donated by the United States will be used to curb oil smuggling from the west African country. A navy spokesman told AFP the new vessel, "NN Nwanbe", was the latest of three Amercian ships donated to Nigeria to strengthen defence ties between the two countries. Oil Wars Transforming the American Military into a Global Oil-Protection Service The Department of Defense has stepped up its arms deliveries to military forces in Angola and Nigeria, and is helping to train their officers and enlisted personnel; meanwhile, Pentagon officials have begun to look for permanent U.S. bases in the area, focusing on Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Uganda, and Kenya. Although these officials tend to talk only about terrorism when explaining the need for such facilities, one officer told Greg Jaffe of the Wall Street Journal in June 2003 that "a key mission for U.S. forces [in Africa] would be to ensure that Nigeria's oil fields, which in the future could account for as much as 25 percent of all U.S. oil imports, are secure." Of course, when the natives get restless over the fact that their wealth is being exported to the West, the best response is some old-fashioned colonial crowd control: Outcry Mounts Over Killings of Nigerian Protesters By Camillus Eboh Mon July 7, 2003 ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's top union official called on Tuesday for a public inquiry into the alleged killing of at least 10 protesters as the oil-producing country waited desperately for an end to a week-long general strike over fuel prices. Lagos police denied the killings, but acknowledged what they said was one accidental death and spoke of serious gun battles on Monday with "hoodlums" who set a police car ablaze. "We were dealing with heavily armed hoodlums who have nothing to do with the strike or the unions," Lagos Police Commissioner Young Arebamen told Reuters. [...] If that fails, and you fear some bad press in the West, then simply label the protesters as "Islamic terrorists" and watch as Western audiences and politicians shrug their shoulders and turn their face away. Clashes over Taliban-style rule kills 29 in Nigeria Sep. 24, 2004 AP LAGOS, Nigeria - A gunbattle between security forces and Islamic militants fighting to create a Taliban-style state in northern Nigeria left 29 people dead, most of them militants, police said today. In the southern oil region, meanwhile, clashes between troops and tribal militia fighters forced oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell to evacuate two facilities, the company said. Shell said there was no disruption to its production and exports. Security forces have been battling militants in the north this week after Islamic fundamentalist gunmen launched their first attack since January, assaulting police stations Monday in the towns of Bama and Gworza. Four police officers and two civilians were killed. However, while playing up the "Islamic terror" angle, it is important to completely ignore the crimes of the sitting Nigerian government that you support: Woman loses stoning death appeal An Islamic court in northern Nigeria ruled on Monday that a young woman must face death by stoning according to Muslim law for having a child outside marriage. - The decision, upholding a verdict by a lower court, looks set to re-ignite international outrage against Nigeria and could stoke sectarian tensions in the country's largely Muslim north. "If one can be sentenced to death for fornication then it makes nonsense of our democracy," said Innocent Chukwuma of the Centre for Law Enforcement Education, a Lagos-based legal rights pressure group. Hey! Watch it buster, that's American Democracy you're talking about!

£1,000 fine for failing to update identity cards Sunday Telegraph 24/12/2006 A draconian regime of fines, which would hit families at times of marriage and death, is being drawn up by ministers to enforce the Identity Card scheme. Millions of people, from struggling students to newly-wed women and bereaved relatives, will face a system of penalties, netting more than £40 million for the Treasury. People would be fined up to £1,000 for failing to return a dead relative's ID card, while women who marry will have to pay at least £30 for a new card if they want to use their married name, risking a £1,000 fine if they do not comply. The revelations will fuel debate over ID cards in the countdown to their nationwide introduction, which the Government claims will boost security, tackle identity fraud and prevent illegal working. But costs are soaring and the technology has failed in tests. The Government says people will have to pay £30 for a simple ID card, or more than £90 for one with a passport. Experts, however, claim that the cost of a combined card could be as high as £300, pushing the implementation costs beyond £20 billion. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said the fines revelation shows that the scheme "will hit the taxpayer not the terrorists" and is "just another Labour stealth tax". He said: "It is shocking that the Government is considering charges and fines on people at some of the most sensitive times in life. The Conservatives would scrap this plastic poll tax and invest the savings in practical measures to improve security." The first cards will be issued by the Identity and Passport Service to passport applicants in 2009 and will become compulsory from 2010. As well as a picture, the card will carry a microchip holding biometric information such as fingerprints, iris or facial scans. Everyone over 16 applying for a passport will have these details added to a National Identity Register from 2008. The extent of the fines for minor infringements is revealed in written answers from John Reid, the Home Secretary, and other ministers. They show that the Government is drawing up sinister sounding "guidance on death registration" which will order bereaved families to return the card of their deceased relative within a specified period. Failure to do so would carry a £1,000 fine under the "invalidity and surrender of ID cards" section of the Identity Cards Act 2006. Mr Reid confirmed: "We intend to work closely with the General Registrar Offices to ensure that the notification of death and return of the ID card can be done in a sensitive manner." Joan Ryan, the Home Office minister, said that charges would apply "if a person wished to add a married surname to his or her register entry". Based on an estimate of 311,000 marriages a year, that would net up to £9 million a year for the Exchequer. People would be charged at least £30 for lost or stolen cards. Based on the 930,000 driving licences lost or stolen each year, this would earn the Treasury more than £28 million a year, say the Tories. Mr Davis said the potential scale of the fines - those two areas of card "infringement" alone could bring in up to £40 million a year for the Treasury - proved that ID cards were a new stealth tax. In a separate plan that the Tories say could hit millions of students, Mr Reid admitted that applicants will be asked for "all current alternative addresses". Failure to update the register with details such as term-time halls of residence could result in a £1,000 fine. There was also anger over the disclosure that all fees and fines will be paid directly into the Treasury's central funds for general spending and not go towards running the scheme.

Most Iranian legislators vote to 'revise' ties with UN watchdog Last Updated: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 | 6:56 AM ET The Associated Press Iran's parliament voted Wednesday to urge the government to "revise" ties with the United Nations nuclear agency, but stopped short of recommending a severing of relations. The vote came four days after the UN Security Council decided to impose limited sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease enrichment of uranium, a process that yields material for either nuclear reactors or bombs. Members of Iran's ruling hierarchy have repeatedly urged the government to cut ties with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency if the Security Council imposes sanctions. The bill said that the government was "obliged to accelerate the country's peaceful nuclear program and revise in its co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency based on national interests." In a session broadcast live on state radio, parliamentary speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said 161 of 203 legislators present voted in favour of the bill. The government supported the measure. "This is a very helpful proposal," Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Reza Asefi told the assembly before the vote. "I ask legislators to vote for it." Speaker Haddad Adel said the bill would not bind the government to a particular course of action. "The bill gives a free hand to the government to decide on a range of reactions - from leaving the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to remaining in the International Atomic Energy Agency and negotiating. We trust the government," Haddad Adel said. Some legislators pushed for a bill that took a more aggressive line against the IAEA, which they accused of being dominated by the United States. "The draft is not appropriate to the United States' animosity to Iran," said legislator Hassan Kamran. "This is a weak draft. It should be stronger." But other legislators said the bill should be thrown out. "There is no need for the bill. We should lessen tensions," said legislator Noureddin Pirmoazzen. For the bill to become law, it must be approved by the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog controlled by hard-line clerics. The United States and some allies accuse Iran of using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for developing a nuclear bomb. Iran denies this, saying its program is strictly for generating electricity from nuclear fuel. Comment: It looks like the pathocrats are taking advantage of the Christmas holidays to turn the screws a few turns while others are feasting. The UN resolution against Iran was passed on Saturday. Olmert met with Abbas on Sunday. Now the Israelis are going to start "pinpoint attacks" against the Palestinians in retribution for a rocket attack, an attack that is most likely the work of Israeli agents in Gaza.

Venezuela Defends Sovereignty Caracas, Dec 27 (Prensa Latina) The purchase of military equipment by Venezuela represents the defense and sovereignty of the country, affirmed retired Lieutenant Colonel Hector Herrera, national director of the Bolivarian Civic Military Front (FRENCIMIBOL). He added that the military would receive new Russian AK 103 Kalashnikov rifles technology to replace the old light automatic rifles of Belgian manufacture. "This level of defense is for individual soldiers, not to be used to attack or threaten any country," he added. He also referred to the purchase of 53 Russian patrol helicopters and MI-35 combat helicopters stationed along the Venezuelan border and areas of difficult access. At the same time Herrera qualified as important the purchase of three MI-26T helicopters, considered the largest in the world, able to transport 100 fully equipped soldiers or 150 persons individually on a rescue mission. The FRENCIMBOL director noted the purchase of Russian Sukhol supersonic planes, two of which are already in the country. Herrera also mentioned a future helicopter training center in Venezuela, the first in Latin America. Before, he pointed out, we had to go to the United States to train.

Cuba slams Costa Rican president for comparing Castro to Pinochet The Associated Press Published: December 27, 2006 HAVANA: Cuba blasted Costa Rican President Oscar Arias on Wednesday for comparing ailing leader Fidel Castro to the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, calling Arias an "opportunistic clown" who does the bidding of the U.S. government. In a statement published in the Communist Party daily Granma, the Cuban Foreign Ministry said it reacted with "profound indignation" to President Oscar Arias' comments likening Castro to his ideological foe. "There is no difference" between the men, Arias said in an interview in Costa Rica last week. "The ideology differs, but both were savage, brutal and bloody." Pinochet, who died on Dec. 10 at age 91, was blamed for a political crackdown that killed nearly 3,200 people during his right-wing military rule from 1973 to 1990. The 80-year-old Castro governed communist Cuba without interruption for more than 47 years until he temporarily ceded his powers to his younger brother Raul following intestinal surgery on July 31. The Washington-friendly Arias, who won the Nobel Peace Price in 1997 for helping broker an end to Central America's civil wars, has exchanged salvos with Cuban officials since he was elected earlier this year. Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and Arias quarreled publicly in August after they suspended a meeting on re-establishing diplomatic relations between the two nations. Arias had also wanted to use the meeting to discuss civil rights on the island, but Lage rejected that idea. In the statement on Wednesday, Cuba called Arias a "vulgar mercenary" of U.S. officials and said Washington "always had on hand another opportunistic clown ready to follow its aggressive plans against Cuba." "President Arias shamelessly supports the United States' annexation plan against Cuba and disrespects the heroic and selfless struggle of our people for their independence and sovereignty," the statement said. The escalated spat comes with Castro still out of public view months after his surgery. On Tuesday, a Spanish surgeon who recently treated Castro said in Madrid that the Cuban leader does not have cancer, as U.S. intelligence officials have speculated, and insisted that he was recovering slowly but steadily from a serious operation. Cuban authorities have not commented on last week's visit to the island by Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, the chief surgeon at Madrid's Gregorio Maranon Hospital. Garcia Sabrido's statements to news media represented the first independent medical assessment of Castro's condition. The Cuban government has kept Castro's condition a state secret, occasionally releasing photographs and videos of him to show he is convalescing.