Just filling out a bit of a black hole of my coverage: oil and corruption in and around Azerbaijan. First, an American businessman is in trouble over bribing his way towards control over oil:
Frederic Bourke, a founder of the accessories firm Dooney & Bourke, guilty of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the travel act and making false statements to federal law-enforcement officials. The charges were related to a scheme to bribe Azerbaijan government officials in connection with the privatization of the State Oil Co. of the Azerbaijan.
Along with Viktor Kozeny, an investor buddy who was his neighbor at a ski residence in Aspen, Bourke schemed to pay millions to the government of Azerbaijan in order to gain control of the state-owned oil company there.
News in crime: theft of solar panels and fresh water is up.
March 2008 we saw people stealing bees, essentially a work force in horticulture up in demand and down in availability due to diseases. Lately I have seen stories about people stealing water and solar panels.
In fact, Treehuger / Solar Panel Theft is Rampant in California Wineries links to older stories about the trend and has tips on securing your panels! In New Mexico police busted a couple of criminals who seemed to have specialized in solar panel theft and dealing (see Solar panel theft ring busted in Farmington). Energy prices are up, solar panels are expensive, in demand and out there often not being watched and relatively easy to run off with.
Then there is water. Most obviously in need in poor, drought stricken areas, right. Like Kenya where a crime syndicate is diverting half the capitals water for farm irrigation. In the city water is now rationed and feared a possible source of disease. (See BBC / Nairobi water 'stolen for farms'.) But the truth is we need not go to the "third world" to see crime erupt over resources. As prices go up so does the incentive to "bend rules" a bit it seems. I'm sure this example of corruption - city workers tampering with water bills - is far from the first, the only or the last we'll see.
Now fishermen have assaulted Greenpeace activists who suspected foul play.
[As activst Emma boarded the vessel on sea] they punched her, pulled her hair, picked her up and threw her overboard [and later on the pier] She was viciously assaulted by a burly sailor twice her size, holding her down and punching her repeatedly in the face.
Both the big fat lumberjacks and the big, fat and half naked coal miner are just physically intimidating while intellectually challenged. But notice the female coal worker says:
"You may have another way of earning a living, but we don't."
That might as well be a quote by the equally bone headed oil industry. Rather than exploring new ways of "earning a living" they sponsor anti-environmentalist propaganda organizations (just a quick search immediately found a note about Exxon at SourceWatch.org and a website called "Follow the Oil Money".)
For the 6th time in nine months a natural gas pipeline in western Canada has been bombed.
"We are dealing with domestic terrorism. This is an attack on a critical infrastructure."
- Dan Moskaluk, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
EnCana, the natural gas company owning the pipeline, has received threats to cease natural gas production in the area. It has offered a reward of half a million Canadian dollars for the capture of the bomber.
So far no person or nature has been harmed but authorities fear this is only a matter of time.
Human Rights Watch said Friday that Zimbabwe's armed forces have taken over diamond fields in the east and killed more than 200 people, forcing children to search for the gems and beating villagers who get in the way.
"I first heard the sound and then saw three helicopters above us in the field. I was not worried, I just assumed it was a team of buyers who had come for business in helicopters as they sometimes did. However, soldiers in the helicopters started firing live ammunition and tear gas at us. We all stopped digging and began to run towards the hills to hide."
Quote an anonymous survivor.
Army units are given turns overseeing the mine in an effort to keep troop morale from disintegrating along with the rest of the country.
Blood spilled over diamonds is far from a new thing. In fact, it was the theme of a 2006 Hollywood movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly.
Although, for my taste, it has a bit too much of Leonardo running right ahead of mortar explosions and mad gunfire it is a good movie in itself on top of highlighting an important issue. Good acting by Leonardo, Jennifer and not least by Djimon Hounsou who is playing the fisherman / mine slave. Theatrical, yes, but first of all gruesomely blunt in its violence.
From the final scrolling titles though we are given relief:
In January 2003, forty nations signed "The Kimberley Process" [...] It is up to the consumer to insist that a diamond is conflict-free.
2009: The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme collapsing
It might have worked for some years but now it's under serious pressure. Some in the industry argues Zimbabwean diamonds aren't blood diamonds as they fund a government. And 100% of Venezuela's diamonds are being smuggled, Guinea has reported an impossible 500% increase in diamond production year on year, in Angola thousands of small-scale Congolese miners were beaten and expelled and Lebanon is exporting more rough diamonds than it imports despite having no mines. No action has been taken against any of these countries still operating with Kimberley certification.
If the Kimberley Process collapses entirely?
The diamond trade would go back to its criminal past and rebel armies would have no problem finding buyers for their blood diamonds. The potential for diamonds fuelling conflict would be back.
Quote Ian Smillie, Kimberley Process initiative person - who left in anger
Throughout the history about Africa: whenever a substance a value is found, the locals died in great number, in misery. And this was truth of ivory, rubber, gold, and oils and is now true of diamond. According to a devastating report by Global Witness the stones are being used to process arm and finance civil war. We must act to prohibit the direct or indirect import of all of diamonds from conflict Zones
