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Nigeria’s oil industry is hugely profitable, but poverty remains widespread. Now, British officials are investigating the potential laundering of $40 million by a former Nigerian state governor, including direct cash payments by Chevron and Shell to his private businesses.
Photo: Gas flares on a Nigerian oil rig (Travelling Steve)
EDITOR’S NOTE: This week’s News You Might Have Missed is the final edition researched and written by Julia Scott. Julia started with NYMHM in early 2003, and went on to set a standard for “important but overlooked news” that remains unmatched for its breadth, depth and journalistic rigor. Her tireless efforts defined NYMHM through four years of growth and change. Her work has been insightful, determined, humane and always revelatory. We wish her the best as she continues her successful career as a full-time, daily newspaper reporter here in the Bay Area.
Immigration opponents (right, in the Oklahoma legislature’s public gallery) have advanced a new law that makes it a crime to “hire, transport or house an illegal immigrant.” Religious leaders have pledged to disobey, and some Constitutional concerns have surfaced.
Photo: bjmccray
Discrimination against Israeli Arabs has spurred court rulings and confrontations at all levels of Israeli society, including in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, where Jewish and Arab legislators (such as Jamal Zahalka, lower right) find their disputes are increasingly bitter.
Photo: (c) LisaG
Important but overlooked news from around the world. QUOTED:
“Two or three problems out of 4,000 result in the whole process being shut down. It’s very hard for child welfare advocates to respond. They don’t want to defend one adoption taking place that shouldn’t be. But at the same time, 3,999 children are being deprived of a family.”
Leased to the United States by the British in the early 1970s, the island of Diego Garcia is home to extensive U.S. military facilities that include, critics say, a CIA “black site.” The Guardian reports that British MPs will investigate the claims.
Photo: Air Force hangars on Diego Garcia (gin_e)
Important but overlooked news from around the world. QUOTED:
“Good luck to the Knesset, we’ll leave the Knesset to you, and all the racists can choke.” — Israeli-Arab legislator Muhammad Barakei trades heated words in Israel’s legislature (see “Middle East,” below). CONTENTS:
*Top Stories*
The Taliban’s volatile mix … of foreign fighters
The twin horns of a co-epidemic: AIDS and TB
Whistle-blowers muted by bureaucracy
*War & Terrorism*
The persistence of rendition
*Middle East*
Israeli Arabs say home is not so sweet
*Religion & Society*
Thailand’s Muslim conflict
TOP STORIES
* The Taliban’s Volatile Mix …
A crackdown on media appears to be easing in Zimbabwe, with the government of Robert Mugabe agreeing to consider a new publishing license for a popular daily newspaper. It could be a ray of sunshine at a time of increasing political repression.
Photo: Political graffiti/benettontalk.com
Africa’s struggle with mineral wealth and regional poverty has a new poster child, as Tuareg nomads in Niger take up arms (at right) for a greater share of the booming uranium trade there.
Photo: (c) Sergio Pessolano
This young partisan of the United Russia party — the leading backer of President Vladimir Putin — may not have to vote at all in the future, thanks to sharp new limits on international election monitors, and new laws that shut the opposition out of Russia’s upcoming Dec. 2 poll.
Photo: KRHamm