While the Russian economy contracted 7.9 percent overall in 2009 in its worst performance for 15 years, Russia began to escape its recession in the second of the year. More from the Korea Times:

Has Russia’s economic crisis ended? That depends on who you ask. Ask Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, or any official of his United Russia party, and you will be told, “Of course it is over.”

They will even produce proof in the form of an unemployment rate that does not rise, unprecedented increases in pensions, and strong growth in construction and metal-working.

Of course, all these comparisons are made with how things stood last month rather than with the country’s pre-crisis economic performance.

Then there is another “miracle” that the government is starting to trumpet, one discovered in August 2009: an increase in Russia’s population. Unfortunately, in no month before or since have births outpaced deaths.

Ask a member of the opposition whether the crisis has ended, and you will be told that it is only just beginning. Gazprom’s production is falling at a dizzying pace; the country’s single-industry “mono-towns” are dying.

There is truth in both views about the state of Russia’s economy, but because the government controls all the major television channels, it is succeeding in enforcing its view of the situation.

Indeed, the opposition has access only to a few newspapers and radio stations, leaving the Internet the sole remaining space of freedom in Russia.

But there you can read very pessimistic estimates of the country’s economic future. So the Kremlin blinds its citizens with rosy scenarios, while the Internet over-dramatizes reality.

The truth, it is clear, is somewhere in the middle. What is beyond dispute is that Russia’s economic health depends on external factors.

(more…)

The Empathic Civilization is the first book to explore how empathetic consciousness restructures the ways we organize our personal lives, approach knowledge, pursue science and technology, conduct commerce and governance, and orchestrate civil society. The development of this empathetic consciousness is essential to creating a future where we think and behave like the whole world matter.

Jeremy Rifkin is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and the author of seventeen bestselling books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. One of the most popular social thinkers of our time, Rifkin is the bestselling author of The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy, The Age of Access, The Biotech Century, and The End of Work.

This lecture is part of the @Google series of talks and took place on January 25, 2010.

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Energy giant ExxonMobil has suspended work on a liquefied natural gas plant in Papua New Guinea after four local villagers were killed in a tribal dispute. A report from the Sydney Morning Herald:

The clash between two rival coastal villages near the capital Port Moresby occurred in an area where ExxonMobil is to build a plant to liquefy, store and load gas for shipment overseas.

The incident has forced the shutdown of road building works being undertaken by Curtain Bros, an Australian construction firm, to the planned plant site.

The fight erupted on Saturday afternoon after drunken Borea village youths threw stones at Porebada villagers as they were gardening in the area, half an hour’s drive west from Port Moresby.

Porebada villagers went to Borea village later that day to resolve the dispute, but four of them were shot dead.

PNG’s National newspaper reported the fight was linked to ongoing tensions regarding land ownership and LNG leases.

PNG’s Post Courier newspaper reported the two villages met on Sunday night, and Porebada clansmen vowed to close down the nearby LNG-related activities until the dispute was settled.

A spokesman for ExxonMobil in Port Moresby said a police investigation would provide more information about the “tragic event”.

“The safety and security of our workforce and the communities in which we operate are of the utmost importance and we are monitoring the situation closely,” he said.

“The project has temporarily suspended work in the area out of respect for the victims and their families.”

Last week the Post Courier reported 11 villagers were killed in PNG’s Southern Highlands Province (SHP) in a tribal fight tied to a land dispute over the LNG project.

ExxonMobil emphatically denied any LNG connection, while Oil Search, a partner in the $16 billion LNG project, said only two villagers died in the SHP clash.

Thousands of landowners from a variety of groups are set to profit from the LNG project, which will pump gas starting in 2014 from SHP to the plant site near Port Moresby 600km away, before shipping it to mainly Asian buyers for an estimated 30 years.

Landowners spent weeks last year cutting a deal with the PNG government, but some parties believe they missed out or were excluded from the talks.

The plant which will liquefy and load gas for export is expected to become a major pillar of the country’s economy.

But some people in the region are living in extreme poverty and activists say these large-scale projects will only benefit the rich instead of the poor, local population.

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Despite the major decline in energy prices from their peak in 2008, energy security concerns have increased as major producing and consuming economies differ significantly on how to develop a more secure and stable energy system.

How can producers and consumers develop mutually beneficial approaches to energy security?

The Panelists
Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan
Thierry Desmarest, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Total, France
Khalid A. Al Falih, President and Chief Executive Officer, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia
Tony Hayward, Group Chief Executive, BP, United Kingdom
Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dow Chemical Company, USA
Peter Voser, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Dutch Shell, Netherlands

This panel is moderated by Daniel Yergin, Chairman, CERA; Executive Vice-President, IHS, USA; Global Agenda Council on Energy Security

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Shifts in supply and demand, as well as challenges posed by climate change, will exert ever greater pressure on both corporate and national energy planning over the next decades.

What is needed to tackle the interlinked issues of energy security, economic growth and climate change?

Panelists
Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency, Paris; Global Agenda Council on Energy Security
Robert D. Hormats, US Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs
Lars G. Josefsson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vattenfall, Sweden
Jim Leape, Director-General, WWF International, World Wide Fund for Nature, Switzerland; Global Agenda Council on Climate Change
Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce and Industry of India

This panel is moderated by Armen Sarkissian, President and Founder, Eurasia House International, United Kingdom; Global Agenda Council on Energy Security

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Philip Suttle, a macroeconomist specializing in emerging markets, speculates about probable hurdles to economic recovery in 2010. He identifies four risks to the global economy in the medium term (six to twelve months). The first risk is the price of oil currently around $80 USD a barrel. Should oil head up past $100 USD a barrel that may dampen global demand. The second risk are fiscal issues besetting numerous governments across the globe but in particular, Dr. Suttle worries about turmoil in the US Treasury market. A third risk is tension in the Eurozone and difficulty of maintaining a fixed rate exchange system in a period of high budget deficits couple with high unemployment. The fourth risk is the stability and transparency of the global banking sector though he comes from the perspective of banker worried about excessive regulation hampering the abilities of bank to recover and finance a recovery.

“We should all be prepared to imagine the unimaginable,” he says.

The year 2009 — the worst year for economic performance in recent memory — is ending on a more positive note with most of the world’s major economies growing again. Notable exceptions include Britain and Spain while the prospects of recovery in the United States remain uncertain with an economy that continues to shed jobs.

Philip Suttle is the new Director of Global Macroeconomic Analysis at the IIF in Washington DC. The IIF is the global association of financial institutions, with more than 365 member institutions around the world. Its primary focus is to provide its membership with research on developments in emerging economies.

Mr. Suttle has had a long career as a global macroeconomist, with a specialization in emerging markets. Before coming to the IIF, he was Managing Director and Global Head of Emerging Markets Research at Barclays Capital. He has also worked at the World Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank of England.

For most of his career, however, he was at JP Morgan, where he helped build Morgan’s global economic research effort. He joined JPMorgan in London 1988, where he rose to become Head of European Economic Research. He was transferred to New York in 1992 to help build Morgan’s international economics research effort. In 1996, he was promoted to Managing Director.

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Here is the Monday, January 11th, 2010 edition of what’s making news and interesting reads from around the world. Also please note that off to the left there are two widgets with updates on news from Asia and the world in a separate page: Around Asia & Around the World New Feeds.

Venezuela’s Two-Tiered Devaluation
On Friday after markets had closed, President Hugo Chávez “adjusted” the value of Venezuela’s currency, the bolívar. The bolívar had been fixed at 2.15 to the dollar since 2005 as part of Chávez’s strict controls of Venezuela’s economy in line with his “21st century socialism” policies. But Chávez, in a live address on state TV, said the bolivar would now have two levels — a preferential rate of 2.6 per dollar for essential imports like food, health and machinery and a 4.3 “petro-dollar” rate for other things. The bond market is likely to react positively to the news but the move is likely to spur inflation in Venezuela, already the highest in Latin America. To combat rising prices, Chávez has threatened to expropriate any business that raises its prices.

Venezuela last devalued its currency in 2005, to 2,150 bolivars per dollar from 1,920 bolivars. In 2008, it re-denominated the currency, lopping off three digits. Venezuela’s economy is estimated to have shrunk 2.9 percent in 2009.

The other aspect worth noting is that multi-tiered exchange rate tend to spur corruption and Venezuela has under Chávez descended to the ranks of one of the world’s most corrupt countries. When Transparency International, an NGO that tracks governance issues, first reported its Corruption Perception Index in 2001, Venezuela ranked 69th in a list of 91 countries — or at the bottom 25th percentile of the world’s most corrupt countries. In 2009, Venezuela ranked 162 in the list of 180 countries, or in the 10th percentile of the world’s most corrupt.

A New Institutional Crisis in Argentina
After Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner removed the President of the Central Bank, Martín Redrado, by decree, the Congress moved to reinstate him plunging the country into another political showdown. The unprecedented confrontation, which could end up before the Supreme Court, has brought to a head a fight over a bid by the president to use central bank reserves to pay down the national debt. Federal Judge María José Sarmiento will examine the government’s appeal of her decision to temporarily suspend a government decree that removed central bank president Martin Redrado from office after he refused to let the reserves be used for debt payments.

Sarmiento has two days to decide whether to accept the appeal lodged by the government on Saturday. If she rejects it, the government can go to the Supreme Court for an urgent decision to resolve an institutional conflict that could threaten Argentina’s fragile economy.

North Korea Seek Peace Treaty with the US
The New York Times reports that North Korea has proposed talks with the United States to reach a formal peace treaty that would replace the truce that ended the Korean War 57 years ago, indicating it would not give up its nuclear weapons until Washington signed such an agreement.

Social Democrat Ivo Josipovic Scores Decisive Win in Croatia
In Croatia’s presidential elections on Sunday, a left of centre Social Democrat, Ivo Josipovic, took just over 60 percent of the vote. Croatia has mixed parliamentary/presidential system with the Prime Minister governing day-to-day affairs but with the President serving as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and conducting foreign policy. More from the EU Observer:

Social Democrat law professor and classical music composer Ivo Josipovic won Croatia’s presidential elections on Sunday (10 January), pledging to back the centre-right government’s efforts against corruption on the path to EU accession.

Mr Josipovic won the vote by a sweeping 60.2 percent against his populist rival, Milan Bandic, according to official results out on Monday. The former chairman of the Croatian composers’ society compared the event to a “victorious symphony.”

Despite being from rival political camps, Mr Josipovic promised to back the centre-right Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor’s drive to implement reforms and fight corruption, as required by Brussels to complete EU accession talks.

South Korea Emerges as Nuclear Power Giant
South Korea’s unprecedented acquisition of a US$20.4 billion contract to develop nuclear power plants for the United Arab Emirates is fueling hopes of at least short-term economic development with regard to nuclear energy-related industries. The acquisition of the contract also marks the beginning of a new relationship with the United States over nuclear power. The largest single construction contact Seoul has ever won, it makes South Korea the world’s sixth exporter of nuclear plants. The Asia Sentinel profiles South Korea’s emergence in the nuclear power industry.

EU Railroad Market Deregulation Sets Stage For a Clash of Titans
As of the first of the year, long-distance passenger rail services are completely deregulated within the EU. Der Spiegel looks at the brewing battle between Germany’s Deutsche Bahn and France’s SNCF for the long distance rail market. It’s a clash of titans. Deutsche Bahn, a joint stock company fully owned by the German government, has long claimed to be Europe’s foremost rail transport company but France’s state-owned SNCF is looking to challenge its German rival. Deutsche Bahn generates about €33.5 billion ($48.5 billion) in sales annually, while SNCF brings in around €25 billion. Deutsche Bahn carries approximately two billion passengers each year.

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Here is the Friday, January 8th, 2010 edition of what’s making news and interesting reads from around the world. Also please note that off to the left there are two widgets with updates on news from Asia and the world in a separate page: Around Asia & Around the World New Feeds.

Lashkar-e-Taiba Attack in Jammu & Kashmir
Indian authorities have killed one Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist in a protracted 22-hour gun battle in Jammu & Kashmir. As many as ten others, including one Indian policeman, have been injured in the second incident in as many days in the restive Indian state. The story in the Times of India. Lashkar-e-Taiba was responsible for the attack on Mumbai in November 2008 and the organization has deep ties to Pakistan’s ISI.

Argentina Central Bank President Removed By Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
A week-long stand-off between Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Martin Redrado, the President of Central Bank of Argentina, grew worse on Thursday. Issuing a decree, President Fernández de Kirchner removed Mr. Redrado from his post citing “misconduct and dereliction of duty by a public servant.” Earlier this week, President Fernández de Kirchner announced she had accepted Redrado’s resignation after the bank chief declined to support a plan to use $6.5 billion in reserves to pay the country’s debt. Redrado retorted that he had not resigned, and that only the Congress, not the president, could remove him. Opposition politicians advised Redrado not to abide by the decree and to seek an injunction to protect his rights. The move is likely to provoke a showdown between the President and the Argentine Congress. More from Bloomberg.

Turkmenistan Gas and an Emerging Economic Axis in Central Asia
The Asia Times reports how Russia, China and Iran are quietly tapping the vast natural gas in Turkmenistan for their benefit and in the process cementing a new economic axis in Central Asia.

We are witnessing a new pattern of energy cooperation at the regional level that dispenses with Big Oil. Russia traditionally takes the lead. China and Iran follow the example. Russia, Iran and Turkmenistan hold respectively the world’s largest, second-largest and fourth-largest gas reserves. And China will be consumer par excellence in this century. The matter is of profound consequence to the US global strategy.

The Turkmen-Iranian pipeline mocks the US’s Iran policy. The US is threatening Iran with new sanctions and claims Tehran is “increasingly isolated”. But Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s presidential jet winds its way through a Central Asian tour and lands in Ashgabat for a red-carpet welcome by his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, and a new economic axis emerges. Washington’s coercive diplomacy hasn’t worked. Turkmenistan, with a gross domestic product of US$18.3 billion, defied the sole superpower (GDP of $14.2 trillion) – and, worse still, made it look routine.

Seven Militants Killed in Karachi
Seven suspected militants were killed on Friday when explosives being stored in a hideout in the Pakistani city of Karachi were apparently detonated accidentally according to police in Pakistan. The full story from Al Jazeera.

Scores Dead in Tribal Clashes in South Sudan
At least 139 people have been killed in tribal clashes following a cattle raid in southern Sudan, local government officials said. Armed attackers from the Nuer tribe raided Dinka cattle herders in the remote Tonj area in Warrap state on Saturday, seizing 5,000 animals. Violence between the Nuer and Dinka tribes has been increasing in recent weeks ahead of the independence referendum scheduled for next year. More from Al Jazeera.

Religious Violence Flares in Malaysia
Two Malaysian churches have been attacked, leaving one badly damaged, in an escalating dispute over the use of the word Allah by non-Muslims. From the Jakarta Post:

The attacks sharply escalated tensions in the Muslim-majority country ahead of planned protests later Friday against a Kuala Lumpur High Court verdict which struck down a 3-year-old ban on non-Muslims using “Allah” in their literature.

The Dec. 31 court decision incensed many Muslims, who see it as a threat to their religion. Hateful comments and threats against Christians have been posted widely on the Internet, but this is the first time the controversy has turned destructive.

The ruling was on a petition by the Herald, the main publication of Malaysia’s Roman Catholic Church, which uses the word Allah in its Malay-language edition.

Only the first floor office in the three-story Metro Tabernacle Church was destroyed in the pre-dawn blaze, said Kevin Ang, a spokesman for the Protestant church. The worship areas on the upper two floors were undamaged and there were no injuries.

He quoted a witness as saying she saw three or four men on a motorcycle break the main glass front of the church and throw a gasoline bomb inside. The church occupies a corner plot in a row of shops in Desa Melawati, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur.

Separately, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the compound of a Roman Catholic church before dawn Friday but caused no damage or injuries, said the Rev. Lawrence Andrew, the editor of the Herald.

Andrew said most churches have employed extra security guards amid the protest threats. “Most churches are taking precautions. They are aware it may just blow up,” he said.

The government has appealed the court verdict and the High Court has suspended its decision’s implementation until the appeal is heard.

Muslims argue that “Allah” is exclusive to Islam, and its use by Christians would confuse Muslims and tempt them to convert to Christianity.

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Here is the Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 edition of what’s making news and interesting reads from around the world. Also please note that off to the left there are two widgets with updates on news from Asia and the world in a separate page: Around Asia & Around the World New Feeds.

Obama Administration Halts Release of Yemeni Detainees at Guantánamo
The Obama administration said Tuesday that it is suspending the repatriation of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay to Yemen, where a deteriorating security situation driven by a branch of al-Qaeda has stoked fears that detainees could join up with the radical Islamist group. The decision affects at least 30 Yemenis who had been cleared for release by a Justice Department-led inter-agency review. These individual now face many more months in detention. More from the Los Angeles Times.

DEA: “Unholy Alliance” between the FARC and Al-Qaeda
Jay Bergman, DEA director for the Andean region of South America, has said in an interview with Reuters that the FARC and other Colombian guerrillas have entered into “an unholy alliance” with Islamic extremists including Al Qaeda who are helping the Colombian rebels smuggle cocaine via Venezuela through Africa on its way to European consumers.

Interdiction efforts have made it more difficult to send cocaine straight from Colombia and other Andean producer nations to the United States and Europe.

So criminal organizations including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are going through Africa to access the European market. And they are doing it with the help of al Qaeda and other groups branded terrorists by Washington, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“In the mid to late 1990s when the Europeans became better at maritime interdiction, off the coasts of Portugal and Spain for example, traffickers started moving their routes southward. So the next progression was to Western Africa,” said Jay Bergman, DEA director for the Andean region of South America.

Three West African men accused of ties to al Qaeda were extradited to New York in December on drug trafficking and terrorism charges.
It was the first time U.S. authorities established a link suggesting al Qaeda is funding itself in part by providing security for drug smugglers in West Africa.

“As suggested by the recent arrest of three alleged al Qaeda operatives, the expansion of cocaine trafficking through West Africa has provided the venue for an unholy alliance between South American narco-terrorists and Islamic extremists,” Bergman said in an interview over the weekend.
To reach the U.S. market, Colombian smugglers are meanwhile being driven to use disposable, fiberglass submarines. The homemade craft are constructed in the mangroves of Colombia’s Pacific coast, used to carry drugs to Mexico for transshipment to the United States, then sunk.

All big Colombian trafficking groups, including the 45-year-old FARC, are using Africa to reach European cocaine consumers while Mexican cartels import chemicals used to make methamphetamine via the same route, Bergman said.

“For trafficking organizations to survive, they first and foremost have to be flexible and make adjustments quickly to law enforcement efforts,” he added.

“West Africa is that current alternative.”

When sea interdictions stepped up, traffickers started using planes to get cocaine to Africa. Most flights appear to take off from Venezuela, which shares a border with Colombia.

“All of the aircraft seizures that have been made in West Africa, and we’ve made about a half a dozen of them, had departed from Venezuela. If you look at the range and refueling requirements, that’s the place you have to fly from,” he said.

“Geography is the key reason why Venezuela has become a springboard location,” Bergman added.

€30 Billion Green Energy Project in Europe
Nine countries in northern Europe are hoping to boost renewable energies by creating a new grid to balance out weather-related fluctuations. More from Der Spiegel.

China Tightens Its Rare Earth Mineral Trade
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has announced that it will create a reserve for rare earth metals next year. The announcement of the intention of its department of raw materials director, Chen Yanhai, only wriggled its way out of an obscure conference by reports in the People’s Daily. This comes on the back of a report released in August by the ministry called the ‘Rare Earths Industry Development Plan 2009-2015′, which called for greater controls over their sale and development.

Rare Earth Minerals (REM) are a class of 30 minerals, 17 of which are considered critical in the development of low-carbon technology from wind-turbines to hybrid car batteries and much else in between and so any debate that followed MIIT’s published plan might be expected to be animated. The story in the Asia Sentinel.

Latest Suicide Bombing Attack in Pakistan Kills Three
Three security officials were killed and eleven other injured as the suicide attackers tried to hit an army barrack in Tarar Khel in Rawlakot area of Azad Kashmir. The story from The Nation.

TIAA-CREF Divests from Sudanese Investments
TIAA-CREF (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund), one of the largest money managers in the United States, has divested itself of its equity stakes in four East Asian energy firms – PetroChina, CNPC Hong Kong, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Sinopec – over their business ties to the Sudan. The firm, however, decided to maintain its stake in PETRONAS citing progress in on-going talks with the firm over their ties to the Sudan. The TIAA-CREF press release courtesy of All Africa.

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Here is the Monday, January 4th, 2010 edition of what’s making news and interesting reads from around the world. Also please note that off to the left there are two widgets with updates on news from Asia and the world in a separate page: Around Asia & Around the World New Feeds.

Japanese PM Hatoyama Wants a More Equal Relationship with the US
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of Japan said Monday he wants to press for more equal ties with the United States. In a televised speech on New Year’s Day, PM Hatoyama said it is important “for both sides to be able to firmly say what needs to be said, and increase the relationship of trust.”

Hatoyama also reiterated his determination to find a mutually acceptable solution to a row with the United States over the relocation of a U.S. Marine base on the southern island of Okinawa within the space of several months. Not only are Okinawans opposed to a plan to move the Futenma base to a different part of the island, but the tiny pacifist Social Democratic Party has threatened to leave Hatoyama’s ruling coalition if the plan goes ahead unchanged. More from Agence France Presse.

Abbas Visits Hosni Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh
The President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas will visit with Egyptian Hosni Murbarak on Monday in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh on the tip of the Sinai peninsula. It is expected that President Mubarak will encourage the Palestinian leader to restart peace talks with Israel. On Sunday, the Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera reported that Obama’s administration supported Egypt’s vision for a Middle East peace plan that would include a complete halt of construction in West Bank settlements as well as the release of senior Palestinian officials from Israeli prisons. More this part of story in Haaretz.

The other relevant development is that Egypt and Saudi Arabia have quietly working behind the scenes to effect a reconciliation between the Hamas and Fatah. Hamas and Fatah have been feuding since March 2007 when Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip. More on the joint Egyptian-Saudi diplomatic effort from Al Jazeera.

Gordon Brown Bets £100 Billion on Wind
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will launch a £100 billion green power revolution when he awards a raft of development contracts to build a new generation of offshore wind farms. The hope is to provide at least a third of the UK’s energy from wind power by 2020. The plan is also critical component of Brown’s plan to cut British carbon emissions. The full story in the Times of London.

US Lifts HIV Travel Ban
The US has lifted a 22-year immigration ban which has stopped anyone with HIV/Aids from entering the country. President Obama had said when he announced the lifting of the ban that such a restriction was not compatible with US plans to be a leader in the fight against the disease. The new rules come into force on Monday and the US plans to host a bi-annual global HIV/Aids summit for the first time in 2012. More from the BBC.

South Korean Firms Win UAE Nuclear Deal
Nuclear Power Daily reports that South Korea won a landmark deal to build four nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates. A South Korea-led consortium beat U.S. and French rivals and clinched a $40 billion deal to build and operate four nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates, in one of the world’s biggest nuclear power contracts, Seoul’s energy and industry ministry said Monday. The deal marks South Korea’s first export of a nuclear power plant and its single largest overseas construction project in terms of value, it said. With the deal, South Korea becomes the world’s sixth exporter of nuclear power plants.

Angola’s State Oil Company Wins Rights to Develop Two Iraqi Oil Fields
Energy Daily reported that Angola’s state oil company, Sociedade Nacional de Combustiveis de Angola (Sonangol), had won the rights to develop the Qayara and Najmah fields, which between them contain an estimated 1.66 billion barrels of oil, in Nineveh province. The agreement is a 20-year deal.

It’s a remarkable development when you think of it. Previously, most oil development projects were the province of major oil companies in the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Italy but now Angola, which recently became Africa’s largest oil produce,r is making a bid to become a global player in the energy field. Sonangol is a parastatal firm. Sonangol said the move to drill abroad was part of a strategy to bolster Angola’s global image. The oil company is also eyeing exploration opportunities in Brazil, Ecuador and the tiny African island state of São Tomé and Príncipe.

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