Nigeria oil war rages

Militants step up 'oil war' in Niger Delta

Attacks on foreign oil company facilities threaten to disrupt global oil supply.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, terrorism and security roundup
September 17, 2008

Militants in southern Nigeria have sharply stepped up attacks on foreign interests after declaring an "oil war" Sunday. The campaign, which the militants have dubbed "Hurricane Barbarossa," entered its third day Tuesday with an attack on a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline after attacks on Shell and Chevron facilities in previous days.

The Nigerian government has tried to downplay the threat. But the violence looks set to further disturb oil supplies from Nigeria, the United States' fifth-largest source of oil, at a time when global supplies are already being squeezed.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Tuesday that the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said it had "blown up and destroyed" a Shell pipeline.

"A major crude oil pipeline at Bakana Front in Degema Local Government Area ... was destroyed with high explosives by MEND detonation engineers backed by heavily-armed fighters," MEND said in an email statement to the media....

MEND declared an all-out war on the oil industry at the weekend in response to what it said was an unprovoked attack by the Nigerian military on one of its positions on Saturday.

Other less prominent armed groups appear to have either joined forces with MEND or taken advantage of the confusion.

Unidentified gunmen on Monday night kidnapped a Briton in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers, Sagir told AFP, without giving further details.

According to Bloomberg, Shell confirmed the attack on Tuesday.


The militants claimed Monday they had "razed" a Shell oil complex, according to CNN. Shell confirmed that attack, which left one guard and four others dead, and said it had shut down facilities in some locations because of the violence.

A day earlier, MEND had warned all international oil workers to evacuate their staff from their facilities because it planned to "bring these structures to the ground."

"The foolhardy workers and soldiers who did not heed our warning perished inside the station," MEND said, referring to the Shell complex.

The Nigerian military has put on a brave face, saying the militants were hyping their threats to spread fear. According to the Vanguard, a Nigerian daily, one defense official has dismissed any notion of a an "oil war."

The Director of Defence Information, Brigadier-General Mohammed Yusuf, in a statement in Abuja said the military was not at war with any Nigerian or group.

"The oil war propaganda is just a gimmick by the militants to create fear in every law-abiding citizen, both local and foreign alike, and to provoke tension in the polity.

"We are not unaware of their antics and capabilities. The joint task force in place is very capable of containing the indiscretion of the militants. So there is nothing like war."

Since early 2006, MEND has waged a campaign of terror, attacking foreign-owned oil facilities and kidnapping foreign oil workers to draw attention to its political aims, according to a background report by the Council on Foreign Relations.

In that time, MEND has cut Nigeria's oil production by a quarter. One of the group's main demands is that locals receive 50 percent of revenues from the delta's oil. Most oil revenues end up lining the pockets of corrupt Nigerian officials.

The militants, like the Niger Delta's population at large, object to the environmental degradation and underdevelopment of the region and the lack of benefits the community has received from its extensive oil resources.

While there is a revenue-sharing plan in which the federal government distributes roughly half of the country's oil revenues among state governors, these funds do not trickle down to the roughly 30 million residents of the Delta. In 2003, some 70 percent of oil revenues was stolen or wasted, according to an estimate by the head of Nigeria's anticorruption agency.

Whereas many residents used to work as fishermen, oil installations and spills have decimated the fish population and now markets must import frozen fish, according to National Geographic.

The election of a new Nigerian government in mid-2007 raised hopes of a deal, with the new vice president meeting directly with Delta militants. But the militant movement has now splintered into competing factions, making it difficult for the government to find a negotiating partner, according to the International Crisis Group.

Adding to the confusion is the rise of armed thuggery, kidnappings for profit, and other criminal opportunism.

The Christian Science Monitor reported in late June that MEND had declared a cease-fire and was "prepared to give dialogue a chance." That olive branch has now proven short-lived.

A commentary in the Vanguard blames the delta's backward status on Nigerian officials who have mimicked the British colonial model of resource extraction.

Sadly, while [the British] were developing their country from resources from the Niger area, the source of their wealth was being under-developed.

More sadly, the Nigerian state under the locals has followed this same path, but in an edited form. Whereas the British developed their tiny island from the resources they stole from their colonies, their Nigerian baton-takers chose, by and large, as they still do, to concentrate on developing their pockets and appetite.

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China "invades" Vietnam?

Vietnam protests hawkish Chinese Web postings

Chinese officials have confirmed that plans posted online for an invasion of Vietnam do not reflect Beijing's official position. But the postings are heightening tensions at a time when China seeks to gain control of oil-rich regions in the South China Sea.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, Terrorism and Security Update
September 10, 2008

The Hanoi government has complained to Beijing about postings on Chinese websites that detail plans for an invasion of Vietnam.

Chinese officials have dismissed the posts as the ramblings of a hypernationalist minority. But the diplomatic flare-up is seen as an indication of rising tensions between the two nations over the potentially oil-rich South China Sea. There, China has been pressuring Western oil firms to cancel joint exploration projects with Vietnam in waters that Beijing also claims.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the invasion plans have been posted on the popular Chinese web portal Sina.com and at least three other websites. Analysts interviewed by the SCMP characterized the posted "invasion plans" as the work of kooks, with little military value.

The supposed plans detail a 31-day invasion, starting with five days of missile strikes from land, sea and air and climaxing in an invasion involving 310,000 troops sweeping into Vietnam from Yunnan, Guangxi and the South China Sea. The electronic jamming of Vietnamese command and communications centers is mentioned, along with the blocking of sea lanes in the South China Sea....

"Vietnam is the strategic hub of the whole of Southeast Asia. Vietnam has to be conquered first if Southeast Asia is to be under [China's] control again," the plans say. "From all perspectives Vietnam is a piece of bone hard to be swallowed."

The SCMP added that Vietnamese officials were baffled that the postings remained online after they registered their complaints, since Beijing can easily block any Web content that has been brought to its attention.

The Straits Times, a Singapore daily, reported that Chinese officials have assured Vietnam that the postings do not reflect Beijing's official position.

The web postings come as China and Vietnam are squaring off over exploration projects in the South China Sea in areas that both claim. In July, Beijing had warned the American oil giant ExxonMobil to scrap an exploration deal with Vietnam, reported the World Tribune. The report suggested that Vietnam had a better case for its claim to potentially oil-rich fields off its coast. But China is flexing its growing political muscle by asserting its claim to nearly the entire South China Sea.

A Hong Kong newspaper says Beijing's diplomats have threatened retaliation if ExxonMobil goes ahead with a preliminary agreement with the Vietnamese state oil firm PetroVietnam. The deal covers exploitation in the South China Sea off Vietnam's south and central coasts, according to the Sunday Morning Post....

The Hong Kong newspaper quoted unidentified sources saying Exxon Mobil was confident of Vietnam's sovereign rights to the blocks it was now seeking to explore. But it is clear that ExxonMobil could not dismiss China's warnings out of hand given the rapidly increasing Chinese market for crude oil and oil products....

Last year, Chinese media targeted an agreement between Vietnam and BP near the Spratlys maintaining that those islands had been an "indisputable part of Chinese territory since ancient times." The Spratlys, like other island groups in the region, are uninhabited rocky outcroppings and coral but are in an area that may contain large oil and gas deposits.

Reuters reported that China and Vietnam are actually cooperating in oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam's north coast. But in waters further south, the two sides are at odds. The territorial dispute in southern waters led British oil giant BP to scotch its plans for exploration there.

Once united by their communist ideology, relations between Vietnam and China cooled in the 1970s, particularly when Vietnam invaded Cambodia in late 1978 to oust the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge regime.

Partly in retaliation, China invaded Vietnam a few months later, as detailed by Global Security. The two sides fought a nasty one-month border war that left tens of thousands dead before Beijing retreated. Border clashes continued throughout the 1980s.

That history helps explain Vietnam's sensitivity to public "invasion plans" on Chinese websites, no matter how bogus they might be.

In the past two decades, relations have warmed as both countries moved ahead with pragmatic market reforms, despite several ongoing territorial disputes. In addition to the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, the countries are also battling for influence over neighboring, resource-rich Laos.

A commentary in the Asia Times argued that Laos is likely to increasingly tilt toward China, despite the landlocked country's historically close ties to Vietnam.

Laos is of increasing strategic importance to both China and Vietnam, two of Asia's fastest growing countries. Vietnam's interests lie primarily in securing its long land border with Laos and developing greater access to markets in Thailand. For China, Laos provides a growing avenue to export products to wider Southeast Asia, particularly from its remote and less-developed, landlocked southwestern regions....

Some analysts here predict that the balance of influence inside the ruling Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) could soon shift in Beijing's favor, as senior Lao leaders fade from the political scene and younger, more market-savvy cadre lacking experience in the communist revolutionary period assume positions of power.

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Kashmir riots rage

Violent protests in Kashmir threaten India-Pakistan peace process

Riots sparked by a controversial land-transfer deal have widened to become pro-independence rallies.

by Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, August 14, 2008

Escalating unrest in Indian-controlled Kashmir threatens to derail a peace process between India and Pakistan that has extended over more than four years.

Riots, sparked by a land-transfer dispute, have also cast a shadow over local elections planned for this fall that were seen as a possible turning point toward greater stability.

Reports differed on the number of casualties from the violence. Bloomberg put the death toll at 27, after police on Tuesday fired on and killed 11 protesters who had defied a curfew.

Authorities cracked down on demonstrators a day after more than 50,000 took to the streets.... India's government accused its nuclear-armed neighbor of interference after Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi condemned what he described as "excessive and unwarranted use of force."

"The situation is tense," police official Kailash Kumar said. "The army has been called out and they are patrolling the streets."

The BBC explained that the current unrest began in May, when the state government in Indian Kashmir – also called Jammu and Kashmir State – decided to transfer some land to a Hindu trust that runs the Amarnath shrine, which is frequented by Hindu pilgrims. That deal sparked protests by the state's Muslim majority, which fears losing land rights.

The protests in the valley only subsided when the government dropped the plans - but that in turn triggered equally large protests in the Jammu region in the south of the state, where the majority Hindu population was outraged.

Now it is no exaggeration to say that the state could be heading towards a communal meltdown.

Angry Hindu extremists blocked roads between the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley in the north and the Hindu-dominated area around Jammu City in the south. That led to mass protests this week by Muslims, who said the blockade was preventing their fruit farmers from getting their produce to markets in the south. Agence France-Presse quoted observers saying that the unrest reflected a failure to increase basic security and economic conditions for Kashmiris.

They hope the massive protests will force New Delhi to admit it has not won "hearts and minds" in its part of the disputed Himalayan territory – despite claims it has – and accept the root causes of the conflict must be addressed.

"The protests are the manifestation of an anger that the peace process doesn't seem to have achieved anything," said Noor Ahmed Baba, a political science professor in Indian Kashmir's main university.

An editorial in the Indian daily newspaper The Hindu pointed out that the unrest had cast doubt on local elections planned for this fall in the Indian-controlled state.

Less than two months ago, politicians ... were discussing strategies for winning elections to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, which are scheduled to be held in October. But poor political judgment — and an apparently catatonic administration — precipitated a crisis, which have made even the prospect of an election appear somewhat surreal.

The Pakistani daily Dawn published an editorial stating that the unrest was "threatening a wider conflagration" and has undone progress in revitalizing the region.

Indeed violence was on the decline, tourists had returned to the Kashmir valley and there was hope that the elections would be a turning point for stability in the region. But those gains have quickly evaporated and the Muslim protests, some of the largest seen in two decades, have widened to become pro-independence rallies.

The unrest in Kashmir comes on the heels of bombings in Indian cities that had already heightened India-Pakistan tensions. The Christian Science Monitor reported that the July 26 bombings in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad killed 45. Those attacks came a day after bombings in Bangalore and in the wake of May bombings in Jaipur that killed 60.

Security analysts suspect that Pakistan and Bangladesh-based Islamic militant groups were behind those attacks. Indian officials routinely claim that such groups are backed by the Pakistani government, but Pakistan denies this.

Tensions between the two nations also escalated last month over a series of skirmishes along the India-Pakistan border in Kashmir. The repeated exchange of fire was seen by both sides as a violation of a five-year-old cease-fire and sparked a mutual blame game, reported Reuters.

Both India and Pakistan claim the entire state of Kashmir, but control only part of the territory. The two nuclear powers have repeatedly come to blows over the region, most recently between 2001 and 2003, when tensions nearly led to all-out war.

A cease-fire in 2003 began a peace process that included talks and increased transport links across the so-called Line of Control separating Indian- and Pakistani-controlled areas of Kashmir. But analysts say New Delhi and Islamabad cling to irreconcilable claims that make a permanent solution of the territorial dispute unlikely anytime soon.

The International Crisis Group said in its latest report on Kashmir in 2006 that Muslim unrest within Indian-controlled Kashmir was fueled by frustration with the slow pace of the peace process and by the strong Indian security presence.

Observers in Srinagar and Jammu [Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority cities in Indian Kashmir] blame militancy on Pakistan but also warn that frustrated and alienated young Kashmiris, regardless of political affiliation, could join militants unless New Delhi changes its approach.

They attribute Kashmiri alienation to the overwhelming presence of Indian security forces, which, they say, create a sense of humiliation and loss of dignity and feed local perceptions that India is a colonial state.

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Eating China's treasures

Exterior of Silks Palace restaurant, Taipei, Taiwan

A Palette for the Palate

A restaurant near Taipei's National Palace Museum serves works of art that are more than metaphorical.

Jonathan Adams
NEWSWEEK magazine, Aug 2, 2008

Imagine if the greatest works from the Chinese imperial collection of art became ... edible.

That's the basic concept behind the new Silks Palace restaurant in Taipei. It opened in late June next to the National Palace Museum, which holds what is widely regarded as the world's finest collection of traditional Chinese art. The museum's prized sculpture, ceramics and artifacts come from the imperial collection of Beijing's Forbidden City, the best of which the Kuomintang took with them to Taiwan when the communists drove them off the mainland in 1949.

Silks Palace pays homage to that collection, but with a decidedly contemporary twist. Taiwan's Formosa International Hotels Corp. won the bid to run the government-owned restaurant until at least 2030, with a concept designed by Taiwan's Yao Ren-shi and Japan's Yukie Hashimoto. Then Formosa's army of chefs let their imaginations run wild. The result is a $14.8 million epicure's delight whose design and dishes offer a whimsical take on famous Chinese art and artifacts.

The exterior of the five-floor building is a boldly modern counterpoint to the imperial-style museum next door. It is covered in glass with a webbed pattern meant to evoke the cracks in Song-dynasty-era (A.D. 960–1279) ceramics. At night, the building is illuminated like a futuristic Chinese lantern. Interior designer Hashimoto continues the cracked-ceramics theme, and gives Chinese artifacts a hip but restrained twist.

Four glass-enclosed pillars inspired by the Tsung tubes used in Neolithic-era Chinese religious rituals extend the height of the two-story atrium. The first floor features an à la carte dining area with soft illumination from lamps shaped like Tsung-chou bells of the late Western Chou period (about 1100–771 B.C.). The 10 VIP rooms on the second floor are named after Chinese artists, and decorated with backlit paper prints of classic works from the museum collection. A banquet area on the third floor features sci-fi chandeliers with crystal bulbs illuminated by LEDs.

The cuisine is mostly Cantonese style, with flavors from other Chinese regions. Diners can order à la carte, or choose from wildly creative set menus inspired by the museum collection.

Three signature dishes imitate the most famous of the museum's masterpieces—two of which are actually renditions of food. A small, poached bok choy with mustard is presented to look exactly like the famed "Jadeite Cabbage With Insects," a piece of carved jade that was the dowry of a Qing-dynasty concubine. On the plate, a tiny shrimp takes the place of the carefully sculpted katydid on the original. A lovingly marinated chunk of pork mimics another masterpiece, the museum's carved agate imitation pork slice, "Meat-Shaped Stone."

And a tiered rack with a sampling of desserts—one of the restaurant's best-selling items—is inspired by a Qing-era emperor's curio box.

There are plenty of other delights. The goose comes in a wrap with a single swipe of Peking duck sauce, representing a broad stroke from Chinese calligraphy. The museum's take on the classic Fujian stew "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall" comes in a white bowl shaped like a classic three-legged "ding" cauldron from the Warring States period (about 475–221 B.C.). And the chefs carve a larger ding from ice to hold the fruit course at the end.

Even the serving plates—which evoke ancient Chinese coins from the collection—are an inspired nod to China's heritage. It gives a whole new meaning to the concept of a museum restaurant.

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US delays Taiwan arms sales

F-16 Fighting Falcons

Delay in U.S. arms sale to Taiwan stirs concerns

Taiwanese officials maintain the postponement is motivated by a US desire to secure China's cooperation in tackling North Korea and Iran.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, July 24, 2008

A delay in the approval of an $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan has fueled concerns about the United States' commitment to help defend the island from Chinese attack. Speculation on the reasons for the freeze has mounted in the absence of a clear explanation from the US government. Taiwanese officials believe the sale has been postponed so that the US can secure China's cooperation and that it may yet go through after the Olympics.

At issue is a package of arms, including Patriot antimissile systems and attack helicopters, that was offered to Taiwan by the Bush administration in 2001 as part of the president's pledge to do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan.

Taiwan's legislature approved the purchase of the weapons after a long delay last December. But the Bush administration has yet to notify Congress of the sale – a necessary formality before the weapon systems can be released.

The US is also ignoring Taiwan's request for more than 60 F-16 fighter jets to boost its air power.

But the Taiwanese government continues to urge the US to move forward, and some pro-Taiwan commentators have criticized the Bush administration for shirking obligations to the island.

China sees self-governing Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened force to back up its claim. Beijing has long pressed the US to phase out arms sales to Taiwan, but the US government is bound by law to make defensive arms available to the island.

Reuters reported last week that the top US military commander in the Pacific, Adm. Timothy Keating, confirmed the current freeze on major arms sales to the island. He noted that improved cross-strait relations had sharply reduced the potential for conflict.

U.S. decision-makers "have reconciled Taiwan's current military posture, China's current military posture and strategy that indicates there is no pressing, compelling need for at this moment arms sales to Taiwan of the systems that we're talking about," the Hawaii-based commander said at the Heritage Foundation in Washington....

"I'm more comfortable today ... than I was 15 months ago, that my belief is well founded that it is very, very, very unlikely that there will be conflict across the strait," Keating said.

But other current and former US officials appeared to contradict Keating's remarks. Asked whether US policy on arms sales to Taiwan had changed, a State Department spokesman said, "The short answer is no," according to the transcript of a US State Department daily press briefing. The spokesman continued:

"Let me reiterate for you what our policy is. The Administration faithfully implements the Taiwan Relations Act, under which the United States makes available items necessary for Taiwan to maintain a sufficient defense."

Speaking in Taipei on Wednesday, Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy defense secretary in the Bush administration and current chairman of the board of the US-Taiwan Business Council, said that he thought President Bush was committed to selling arms to Taiwan and would do so before he left office, according to the Associated Press.

Patriot anti-missile battery in action

But The Wall Street Journal reported that the US could be delaying the sales until after the Olympic Games.

Some analysts say Mr. Bush may only be delaying the sale until after he travels to China next month for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. "The best chance [for the sales] is right after the Olympics," said Randall Schriver, a former senior Asia official at the State Department under Mr. Bush.

US foot-dragging on arms sales to the island comes amid a thaw in Taiwan-China relations under Taiwan's new, China-friendly president, Ma Ying-jeou. The Christian Science Monitor reported last month that since Mr. Ma took power on May 20, the two sides have moved rapidly to expand cross-strait links.

But Ma said that Taiwan still needs US help to defend itself against China, despite recently improved cross-strait relations, the Associated Press reports. He called recently for the US to remove the freeze.

The Financial Times cited top Taiwanese national security officials as saying that Taiwan was dropping its push for F-16s for now in order to focus on getting the other weapon systems approved. The report adds that Taipei officials believe the delay is motivated by the US's attempt to secure China's cooperation.

Taipei officials said they believed that the US had temporarily put off arms sales in order to secure Beijing's co-operation in tackling trouble in Iran and North Korea....

Taipei is concerned that Washington may have created a precedent that could prove difficult to reverse, since the communist-ruled mainland has long demanded the US phase out its arms sales to the island.

Pro-Taiwan commentators in the US have blasted the Bush administration for being soft on China. Writing in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the Heritage Foundation's John Tkacik and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy's Gary Schmitt said the US was shirking its obligation to defend Taiwan's democracy against the Chinese threat.

Such an approach will only fuel Beijing's own ambitions and sense of entitlement when it comes to Taiwan and, equally important, do nothing to reassure our democratic allies in the region that we have a balanced but firm approach when it comes to a rising China.

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