Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Shell. Guilty.
Bill Quigley
27 May 2009
🖨️ Print Article

Almost a fifth of the oil imported by the U.S. comes from Africa, and in the decade to come this percentage will rise.  The eastern part of Nigeria, from which Big Oil has pumped more than a trillion dollars worth of black gold since the 1960s, remains the poorest part of the country, and one of the most ravaged and polluted on earth.  Thousands of gas flares have burned for decades, generating acid rains that have poisoned fisheries and crops.  The land is crisscrossed by thousands of miles of leaking pipes and dotted with oil slicks.  The air is unbreathable, cancers are endemic, there are no schools or hospitals and life expectancies are among the lowest on the African continent.  Shell Oil is on trial in a New York courtroom, accused of hiring the Nigerian government to murder its own citizens for protesting the pollution of their environment and demanding a share of oil revenues be spent where the oil is extracted.

Need to know more?  Check out http://shellguilty.com.

 

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Biden Sliding Towards World War III
    29 May 2024
    The idea of a world war should not be relegated to science fiction. Western escalations in Ukraine could lead to conflict with a nuclear power.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    POEM: Enemy of the Sun, Samih al-Qasim, 1970
    29 May 2024
    Read against the terrible incineration of Rafah today, this poem of resistance and refusal, by Palestinian poet Samih al-Qasim, is as powerful now as it was fifty years ago.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Kenya’s President Ruto Defies His Own Country’s Constitution and High Court to Invade Haiti
    29 May 2024
    I spoke to William Sakawa, a producer and reporter with the Nairobi-based media outlet African Stream, about Kenyan President William Ruto’s agreement to invade Haiti for the US.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Hearing! Hearing! Hearing!
    29 May 2024
    "Hearing! Hearing! Hearing!" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen’s Book, “The Black Antifascist Tradition”
    29 May 2024
    This week’s featured authors are Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen. Their book is The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back From Anti-Lynching to Abolition.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us