The Gulf of Guinea has emerged as the second largest pool of commercial petroleum resources in the world and recently surpassed the Persian Gulf as America’s largest supplier of crude oil. African oil tends to be of high quality, low in sulfur, and 2,000 miles closer to U. S. refining centers without maritime transit chokepoints. Unlike security concerns associated with Middle Eastern oil, offshore oil production is easier to protect from ground turmoil. Understandably, the Gulf of Guinea is a nexus of concern for U.S. energy policy since the region will supply 25 percent of its crude oil by 2015.
Just of few years ago, the U.S. military was all but absent from the oil-rich waters of West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. This year, it plans to be there every day. Consequently, the Pentagon has forged both bilateral and regional military partnerships with every African nation in the region with the exception of the Ivory Coast. A report recommends the development of a “regional maritime security network” with U.S. and international security assistance efforts, including planning support, asset donation, and training. A regional maritime security network would help secure oil supplies in the Gulf of Guinea for quelling America’s concerns while strengthening cooperation and geopolitics for the region’s political stability and economic prosperity.
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=208927
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Showing posts with label cooking oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking oil. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Cooking With Poison
Cut-price cooking oil used in most Malian households has been found to contain gossypol, a toxic substance that is known to cause sterility, cancer and inhibit growth.The majority of Malians buy the oil for cooking since, at an average of US$1.25 a litre, it is about half the price of imported oils.
Only two out of 57 oil producers studied around the country had the necessary equipment to produce safely-refined cooking oil , the rest were producing oil containing gossypol, a harmful poison.
Adama Haidara doctor at the Hope Clinic, a medical centre in Sikoro near Bamako, backed this up, stressing it is also linked to cardiac arrests and cancer. “The risks to the consumer after a long period of absorption of non-refined oil are enormous.”
The government has ordered producers to update their equipment, but not all can afford to and some have been forced to shut down production for good.
"The government had no controls in place, no follow-up, nothing…the quality of the oil produced, and the health of consumers mattered little to it,” said Seydou Samaké, a Bamako resident who used to frequently cook with the oil.
“The doctor has arrived after the death. It’s always like that. It took us being poisoned for the government to intervene,” complained Oumar Traoré, a member of the Mali Coalition for the Protection of Consumers (REDECOMA).
Only two out of 57 oil producers studied around the country had the necessary equipment to produce safely-refined cooking oil , the rest were producing oil containing gossypol, a harmful poison.
Adama Haidara doctor at the Hope Clinic, a medical centre in Sikoro near Bamako, backed this up, stressing it is also linked to cardiac arrests and cancer. “The risks to the consumer after a long period of absorption of non-refined oil are enormous.”
The government has ordered producers to update their equipment, but not all can afford to and some have been forced to shut down production for good.
"The government had no controls in place, no follow-up, nothing…the quality of the oil produced, and the health of consumers mattered little to it,” said Seydou Samaké, a Bamako resident who used to frequently cook with the oil.
“The doctor has arrived after the death. It’s always like that. It took us being poisoned for the government to intervene,” complained Oumar Traoré, a member of the Mali Coalition for the Protection of Consumers (REDECOMA).
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