David Seaton's Energy Links® Editorial - Globalization takes the field In today’s increasingly deregulated world our repertoire of stereotypes, clichés and official narratives is continually being shredded. Every day we are surprised by new competitors, new winners and new losers in a frantic race of unknown destination whose only certainty is its speed. At this moment we live immersed in an interconnected world’s most universal event, the World Cup, so let’s use football as a simple illustration of this phenomena.

Something strange and wonderful seems to have happened to the Spanish national football team. “With Unusual Resolve and a Surge of Power, Spain Advances” was the headline in the New York Times report on the victory over Tunisia.   “Spain, showed great character as it battled back from a goal behind” they continued.  Dominic Fifield wrote in the Guardian, “Spain will clearly take some stopping. Gone is the psychological brittleness of recent finals, with unfamiliar mental strength now allied with the mouth-watering talent this country has long since boasted.”  Disaster prone Spain’s passage through this competition has always been viewed tragically, with “fate”, mysterious flaws in the national psyche or even separatism having taken the blame. David Hershey in the American Sports blog Deadspin wrote, “Torres slammed home the penalty with such venom you might have thought he was trying to blow away all of Spain’s ghosts.”  What has made the difference this year? Globalization finally has. 

Many thought that the unlimited entry of EU players in Spain's first division would harm the national team. Quite the contrary! Nothing in world football is sweeter than playing in the Spanish first division and before Bosman, any good Spanish player practically had his place guaranteed from foreign competition. The World Cup was merely the marketplace where the small quota of foreign players, the Cruyffs, Maradonas and Ronaldos came to the attention of Spanish fans and clubs.  With “job security” in the world’s best league, why should a Spanish player put his legs and reputation at risk outside his club? The market has opened and now Spanish players are in the same precarious position as the globetrotting Dutch, Argentineans and Brazilians... to play in the top Spanish clubs, they had better shine in the World Cup marketplace. Suddenly exposed to the cold winds of globalization the Spanish selection plays with the same cool, competitive professionalism that Spain’s championship winning clubs always have shown. Winners and losers: globalization is kind to those with special abilities; sadly there is no “World Cup” for the office workers, textile workers and the rest of us who already have our own “Bosmans” too.  David Seaton

Nigeria Seeking Release of Kidnapped Oil Workers - Voice of America
The Nigerian police says it is doing everything possible for the release of two Philippine oil workers seized by gunmen Tuesday. Armed men in a speedboat kidnapped the oil workers near Nigeria's oil capital Port Harcourt. Police spokesman Haz Iwendi, who confirmed the incident, said the police have intensified efforts for the release of the kidnapped Philippine oil workers. "Two Filipinos were kidnapped offshore by some men when they were on their oil rig," he said. "No group has claimed responsibility yet; we are still waiting for them. Our men are on their trail." Tuesday's abduction was the latest in a string of kidnappings and attacks on the Nigerian oil industry. Ethnic Ijaw militants fighting for control of the region's resources and the release of their detained leaders have forced the closure of oil fields producing about 500,000 barrels a day since February. But the Niger Delta Volunteer Force, a militant group led by Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, said it had suspended its violent campaigns in the delta. Mohammed Powell, who leads the group in the absence of its jailed leader, told VOA it is considering other options to secure the release of Dokubo-Asari. "We are tired of taking hostages and will not do it again. We are not part of it any longer," he said. "We are saying that we will pray till the day God will release him. What we believe as a people is that we have not done anything wrong to the federal government or Nigerians." Five South Korean gas workers taken hostage in the delta earlier this month were freed after a plea by the jailed militant leader in whose name they were abducted. The Niger Delta Volunteer Force's pledge to abstain from further violence is not likely to ease the security problems in the region. Other groups including the newly formed Joint Revolutionary Council have vowed to continue their violent protests for Dokubo-Asari's release. Several communities in the region are equally angry with oil companies and often resort to violence to push their demands. A total of 31 foreign oil workers, including the two Filipinos, have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta since the beginning of this year. All previous 29 captives have been released without harm, after periods of detention from a few days to several weeks.
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Cholera scandal of oil-rich Angola - Scotland on Sunday
N A nation whose multibillion-dollar oil boom should arguably make its people rich enough to drink Evian, the water that many are instead forced to drink has fuelled one of the worst cholera epidemics to strike Africa in nearly a decade. The Bengo River, its waters dark with grit, its banks strewn with rubbish, supplies two dozen pumping stations with 1.3 million gallons of water each day, filling 450 tanker trucks that in turn supply 10,000 vendors across Luanda's endless slums. The vendors then fill the jerry cans and bath tubs of the city's slum dwellers, who buy the water to drink and bathe in. Health experts say this is one reason for a cholera outbreak that has made 43,000 Angolans ill and killed more than 1,600 since it began in February. But it is only one of the causes. Cholera typically spreads through contact with contaminated water or sewage, and in Luanda's slums both filthy water and sewage is everywhere. Neighbourhoods here are ringed by mountains of rubbish, often soaked by rivulets of human waste. Only about half of the slum dwellers even have an outdoor toilet. Children dance through sewage-clogged creeks and slide down garbage dumps on sleds made of sheet metal into excrement-fouled puddles. Much of the city has no drainage system. In heavy rains the filthy water rises hip-high in some of the poorest dwellings. One development group has estimated that it would take 22,000 lorries to clear away the rubbish. That was in 1994, when Luanda was home to half the population of 4.5 million it has now. "I have never seen anything like it," said David Weatherill, a water and sanitation expert for Doctors Without Borders, which is leading the response to the epidemic. "You see conditions like this on a smaller scale. But I have never seen it on such a huge scale. It is quite shocking." Angola is in the midst of a boom in oil revenue, its hotels crammed with oil executives and its harbour filled with tankers carrying away the 1.4 million barrels of crude each day. The economy grew by 18% last year. The government racked up a budget surplus of more than $2bn. This year it is expected to take in $16.8bn in revenue, well over twice the $7.5bn it received in 2004. Next year, revenue is expected to rise by a third again, almost all because of oil. Economists say the government simply has more money than it can spend. Yet it seems powerless to address even the basic issues of clean water and sewers that would make such epidemics entirely preventable - a paradox that critics attribute to corruption, incompetence or the hangover of a 27-year civil war that flooded the capital with refugees. Sebastião Veloso, Angola's health minister, said the scope of the problem defied a quick fix. "We just do our best," he said. "The lack of infrastructure is a very complicated administrative problem." Only one in six Luandan households is lucky enough to have running water, and for many of them, it comes from a community standpipe, according to Development Workshop, a non-profit group in Angola. The often contaminated river water from trucks that roam the slums costs up to 12 cents a gallon - a hefty sum in a nation where two-thirds of the people live on less than $2 a day.

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