Amber McDowell/IndependentUK:
Republican congressional candidate James L Hart has acknowledged that he is an unapologetic supporter of eugenics the fake science that resulted in thousands of people being sterilised in an attempt to purify the white race.
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He believes that if blacks were integrated centuries ago, the automobile would never have been invented.
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Dennis Bertrand, a financial analyst and former military officer who also stood as a candidate. "His idea of ... genetically altering the human race in order to build a super race with super intelligence is appalling."

eugenics: [n] the study of methods of improving genetic qualities by selective breeding (especially as applied to human mating)

Nothing fake there

eugenics:...(used with a sing. verb) The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding....

Nothing fake there. So we have to assume that by "fake" McDowell means "bad". The very real research into the very real genetic alteration of virtually everything is hitting critical mass right now, and this childish whimpering about it being applied to racial groups is aiding and abetting. People eugenicized every crop and domestic animal on the farm, and people have eugenically altered themselves for millenia. It's the intent that's under dispute, and who's going to wield the scalpel. By pretending it's not happening the power to decide is surrendered to the soulless cowards who direct the "progress" we're all supposed to be enjoying. Like cars. The single greatest killer of children in America.
Nature's eugenic hand was thwarted by civilization. The illusion is that it was replaced by human kindness, but that's a lie. People are still being selected out, it's just harder to see.
All the beauty in nature, from the running wolf to the orchid in the jungle, is the result of eugenic process. But not human-controlled. That's where the flaw is, that's what's wrong, it's the arrogance of humanity directing its own progress, like a ten year-old choosing his own education.

The Times/The Australian: Master of the decisive moment [August 06, 2004]:
From 1936 to 1939 Cartier-Bresson was an assistant to Jean Renoir, working on the films Partie de Campagne and La Regle du Jeu. During the German invasion of France in 1940 he was made a prisoner of war, but he escaped in 1943 and began work with the Resistance, assisting others to escape. He photographed the liberation of Paris in 1944 and made Le Retour, a documentary film about the return of prisoners of war.
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The slogan The Decisive Moment suggested that there was only one right frame. Either one photograph is the decisive moment or all photographs are decisive moments. The phrase implies that Cartier-Bresson only took one shot of any situation or, if he took more, only one frame was the decisive one. While this was true of the prints he released, we know a little of his way of working from different frames from the same sequence reproduced 25 years apart in two of his books. The subject is Muslim Women Praying at Dawn and the two frames, so similar yet compositionally quite different, call into question the whole idea of a single critical moment.

One of the wonderful by-products of my life as it is now is that paranoia is about twelfth on the list of explanations for bizarre things that come at me through the TV.
The current "Jack-In-The-Box" commercial that shows the company golem debating a "Frenchman" for example. It may well be that the American airwaves are saturated with this vicious bigoted nonsense, but it could just as easily be that some minimum-wage security wannabe is hitting the switch every time we have the TV on here at home. Who knows?
For those of you in saner lands, it's a simple set, a split-screen, the golum on one side at a plain desk, the "Frenchman" on the other with a picture of the Eiffel Tower in the background. The discussion is about the renaming of "French" fries, how this is appropriate because now they're skin-on nutritious and bigger and golden etc. The Frenchman, who has a suspiciously "English"-looking haircut, isn't given much in the way of lines, but his accent is sure to kick off hate reflexes in the lower circles of the American hellscape. He's testy and incredulous, the golum is all confident and slick.
When something's this bad it has a cause, that's my motto. There's a reason for it. It may have been on for a long time, but my mom watches TV every night while I cook dinner, and I never heard or saw it until a day or so after Chirac told Sharon he wasn't welcome in France. This was after Sharon told all French Jews to immigrate to Israel immediately.

My guess is most Americans have no idea that that exchange took place, just as most Americans don't know, or have forgotten, that France gave us the Statue of Liberty, in addition to providing vital support for our insurgency against the British Empire in the late 1700's.
The Statue of Liberty. From France.
Bon jour, mes amis.

the arrest of Muthana al-Dhari, editor-in-chief of the Iraqi weekly al-Basaer, a publication of the Association of Muslim Scholars

At a solidarity meeting held in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Tuesday, Lebanese, Palestinian, Jordanian and Moroccan parties and associations issued a statement condemning his detention as well as the bombing of Iraqi churches.
Al-Dhari was detained on Monday in Iraq when a US patrol stopped his motorcade en route to the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) headquarters after he had participated in a live TV discussion on the proposed Iraqi national conference.
US forces said they carried out a body scan on al-Dhari and his companions and found TNT traces on his fingers.
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Maan Bashour, chairman of the Pan-Arab Forum, said the arrest was proof of the occupiers' fear of the truth.
"His [al-Dhari's] arrest came after he participated in a live TV talk show. The US occupation is afraid of people like Dr al-Dhari who speak the truth, which the occupation is so keen to hide," Bashour told Aljazeera.net.
Bashour said many of the incidents happening in Iraq are being orchestrated by US and Israel to discredit the "honourable Iraqi resistance".
"Al-Dhari's arrest serves US-Zionist plans. The US occupation is keen to keep Iraqis unaware of who is targeting their infrastructure, civilians and places of worship. Al-Dhari and like-minded people have dedicated themselves to tell the truth, so keeping them free would not be in the interest of US and its allies in Iraq," he said.

Ahmed Janabi/AlJazeera 04.Aug.04

It is unclear what personal consequences...

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's own September 11 whistleblower has done it again, this time taking aim at the 9-11 Commission itself.

Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who has in effect been silenced by the bureau and the US Justice Department, said in an open letter to commission chairman Thomas Kean that the FBI had suffered from a litany of errors and cover-ups of those errors, which had been reported to the 9-11 Commission by Edmonds and others, yet the commission report "contains zero information regarding these systemic problems that led us to our failure in preventing the [September 11, 2001] terrorist attacks".

"In your report, there are no references to individuals responsible for hindering past and current investigations, or those who are willing to compromise our security and our lives for their career advancement and security," wrote Edmonds, a 33-year-old Turkish-American whose services as a translator were terminated by the FBI after she claimed vast wrongdoing within the bureau's translation unit.

Edmonds' open letter, while skirting around certain issues that she is prohibited by gag orders from revealing, is chilling in its revelations that, contrary to public claims by the administration of President George W Bush, the FBI was in possession months before September 2001 of intelligence that Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization was planning a major attack on the United States, using airplanes as a weapon.

These revelations are not new, though the open letter is remarkable in its specificity and naming of names. Previously, while being careful not to violate the legal silencing measures imposed on her by the FBI, the courts and the Justice Department, she has leveled damning criticisms in the media of her former employers and what she has termed the Bush administration's "anti-transparency, anti-accountability and their corrupt attitudes".

"But that aside," she told radio interviewer Jim Hogue in April, "we are not made of only one branch of government. We are supposed to have a system of checks and balances. And I am saying, how about the other two branches? And putting the pressure on our representatives in the Senate and the Congress, and the court system? They should be counteracting this corruption, but they are sitting there silent. And they are just an audience, just watching it happen."

Ritt Goldstein/Asia Times 05.Aug.04

the World Bank explains emissions trading to journalists

The World Bank's Charles Cormier then gave a short presentation. Cormier accepted that carbon trade �is a very strange concept. It's a trade in emissions that won't be emitted in the future.� He added that �In itself it' s a little bit of an experiment at the global level.�
The fastest growing contributor of greenhouse gases, the airline industry, �was a little bit left out of Kyoto�, according to Cormier.
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Later on, I met Cormier at the World Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) stall in the Carbon Expo. I asked him for an interview about Plantar, an industrial tree plantation project in Brazil funded by the PCF. Plantar is by far the largest PCF project in terms of the amount of carbon emissions the project is supposed to save. �I don't know anything about Plantar�, he replied.
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Among the protesters were two Brazilians from Minas Gerais where Plantar's plantations are. Juarez Teixera Santana of the Rural Workers Trade Union in Minas Gerais said, �We have been fighting against the destruction caused by industrial tree plantations in our country for years. Yet now we are being told that these destructive projects are �clean development� projects that protect the climate. They are neither.�

Chris Lang World Rainforest Movement July 2004

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World Bank Carbon Finance in Brazil: New funding source for industrial tree plantations
The World Bank Prototype Carbon Fund�s (PCF) Plantar project has been heavily criticized by NGOs and civil society movements ever since it first emerged as the first industrial eucalyptus tree plantation to claim carbon sink credits from the Kyoto Protocol�s Clean Development Mechanism. The Plantar project involves 23,100 hectares of monoculture eucalyptus plantations for the production of charcoal, which will be used in pig iron production. The project is one of the largest in the PCF, claiming 12.8 million credits over 21 years, more than the total amount being claimed by all 13 renewable energy projects currently listed on the PCF website. Plantar argues that without additional income from carbon credits charcoal production would be uneconomical and the company would have to switch to using imported coal. In addition to this �avoided fuel-switch� component, the project also claims credits for the carbon that will be taken up by the new plantations. According to the project documents, the revenue from these carbon sink credits are essential to securing the necessary bank loans to finance replanting.

Jutta Kill/ SinksWatch World Rainforest Movement November 2003

Excerpts from a statement to the Agen Court
Rene Riesel, 3 February 1998

The techniques of domination are developing so rapidly -- even more rapidly than the increases in profits and unemployment -- that anyone who doesn't happen to be in the ruling circles is confronted with the question: Is it still possible to make the truth heard when so many political and economic powers are in league to cover it up? How, amid a population that has been turned into deaf-mute spectators, can we thawrt the schemes that the merchants and their lackeys feel free to hatch in broad daylight, knowing that, whether they are right or wrong, no one is in a position to contradict them? Under such conditions, how can we deal with emergencies?

Faced with Novartis's bio-engineered corn and the disgusting irresponsibility with which the French government authorized its sale and cultivation while lying about its own Safety Commission's warning against it . . . my comrades and I felt it was urgent to act before it was too late. . . .

In joining us at this first ever public trial of a bio-engineered plant, the joyous and resolute crowd of demonstrators outside, whose shouts could be heard even here in the courtroom this afternoon, clearly aims at the same time to put on trial a social order that doesn't shrink from announcing that it considers it acceptable to risk poisoning humanity and the entire planet in the name of economic balances and free trade.

Ghana: Opposition party wants US to pay for 1966 coup

The EGLE (Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere) Party has asked the US government to make amends for derailing Ghana's progress through the sponsorship of the 1966 coup d'etat that overthrew the government of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
According to Mr Danny Ofori-Atta, chairman of the party, the Central Intelligence Agency's recent declassified files clearly admit the role of the United States played and it was only fair that it made up for causing Ghana's economy to stagnate ever since.
He has, therefore, called for a total cancellation of Ghana's 5bn-external debt and the setting up of "credit guarantee for a private company capitalized with 5bn which will be in the form of a 30-year US Treasury insurance guarantee to back the capital of the private company to be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange".

link FAS________________

Ghana Fact File

Disputes - international: none
Illicit drugs: illicit producer of cannabis for the international drug trade; transit hub for Southwest and Southeast Asian heroin and South American cocaine destined for Europe and the US.

BTR________________

Rawlings is not the threat
The greatest threat to Ghana�s stability is not Rawlings, as many perceive the former president to be, but rather the huge amounts of cocaine and heroin that pass through the country as a transit point, according to a Research Fellow at the African Security Dialogue and Research [Dr. Emmanuel Anning].

GhanaHomePage

China struggles to satisfy thirst for water
John Hill/Jane's 03.Aug.04

China is facing increasing shortfalls in the water resources it needs to sustain economic growth. Despite infrastructure projects to address the problem, the consequences of the shortages are already being felt internationally.
The growing scarcity of water resources is becoming so critical to China's economic well-being that minister of water resources Wang Shucheng admitted in March that the issue is now "challenging national security".
China's phenomenal economic growth is largely responsible for the emerging crisis and questions are already being asked about whether the current pace of development can be sustained. Wu Xiaoling, the Vice-Governor of China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, said in April 2004 that "if measured by the sustainability against the availability of resources", then China's economy is already overheated. He noted that none of the nation's energy, water and land resources can support the current rate of growth. For Chinese leaders, the fear is that an economic downturn could lead to social unrest.

Darfur Map Centre
Sudan Information Gateway (Office of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sudan)

US backs out of nuclear inspections treaty

US officials, who have demonstrated scepticism in the past about the effectiveness of international weapons inspections, said they made the decision after concluding such a system would cost too much, require overly intrusive inspections and would not guarantee compliance with the treaty.
However, they declined to explain in detail how they believed US security would be undermined by creating a plan to monitor the treaty.
Arms control specialists said the change in the US position would greatly weaken any treaty and make it harder to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. They said the US move virtually killed a 10-year international effort to persuade countries such as India, Israel and Pakistan to accept some oversight of their nuclear production programs.

Dafna Linzer/SydneyMorningHerald 02.Aug.04
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link newsinsider

US armoured vehicles, backed by Iraqi security forces, cordoned off the Al-Zahra neighbourhood, where Sadr's home is located in the eastern part of the city.

Smoke was seen rising from the area amid the sound of heavy gunfire, mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenade explosions.

No further details of the US occupation military action are immediately available and it's not clear if al-Sadr is at home.

No one asked me about the "security" drama in Boston.

I think it is the great overlooked story in all the reporting done from the DNC-- and for the obvious reason. It was in your face, nonstop, in thousands of ways inside what was called, in military terms, The Perimeter. Who could "see" it? It came lunging at you as you approached the site and enveloped all when you were on site. You could have your credentials checked twenty times on a single trip from the ground floor to your seats.
Security. It was all about insecurity, really. It was telling us that we live in a different world than the last time there was a poltiical convention. If there needed to be something "new" to report, it was not, by god, the bloggers. It was this: the reason we needed all this security. This subject not only spoke of politics, but world politics, and not in any abstract way, but in every way a person can experience life. What was all this security about? And who authored it? Ultimately, Al Queda did. So things had to stop short of ultimately.

Jay Rosen
PressThink

Commerciogenic Malnutrition

Concerns about the gradual replacement of breastmilk with commercial infant foods in industrialised and developing countries were first voiced in the late 1930s. By the 1960s, breastfeeding was in rapid decline in many parts of the world. By 1967, just one-quarter of babies born in US hospitals were breastfed when their mothers took them home.

The infant food industry used a wide range of promotional methods to increase demand for its products: it stressed that infant formula was equivalent or superior to breastmilk; it played on women's concerns that they did not have enough breastmilk; it depicted healthy-looking babies on its products and promotions; it dressed its salespersons as nurses; it sent large quantities of free supplies of formula to maternity wards; and it worked through the medical profession.

Judith Richter
Briefing No.26
Corner House

"Hippies" so-called, pot-smoking counter-culturalists, the scorned and ridiculed "flower children", were responsible for the turn-around on that. Entirely. Not Christians, not conservatives, not any of the anti-drug pro-Prozac weirdos so powerfully vocal in America today. Hippies did that, bucking the entire society, getting reviled, publicly laughed at, arrested, and beaten up for their troubles. And there isn't a trace of recognition in mainstream America today. No one else did that.

letters between Prof. Daniel Amit and an American scientific journal

Dear Dr Blume

Thank you for you letter of April 8 [2003]. I would have liked to be able to share the honorable sentiments you express in your letter as well as your optimism in the future role of science and the scientific community. To be frank, and with much sadness and pain, after 40 years of activity and collaboration, I find very little reason for such optimism.
What we are watching today, I believe, is a culmination of 10-15 years of mounting barbarism of the American culture the world over, crowned by the achievements of science and technology as a major weapon of mass destruction. We are witnessing man hunt and wanton killing of the type and scale not seen since the raids on American Indian populations, by a superior technological power of inferior culture and values. We see no corrective force to restore the insanity, the self-righteousness and the lack of respect for human life (civilian and military) of another race.
Science cannot stay neutral, especially after it has been so cynically used in the hands of the inspectors to disarm a country and prepare it for decimation by laser guided cluster bombs. No, science of the American variety has no recourse. I, personally, cannot see myself anymore sharing a common human community with American science. Unfortunately, I also belong to a culture of a similar spiritual deviation (Israel), and which seems to be equally incorrigible.
In desperation I cannot but turn my attention to other tragic periods in which major societies, some with claims to fundamental contributions to culture and science, have deviated so far as to be relegated to ostracism and quarantine. At this point I think American society should be considered in this category. I have no illusions of power, as to the scope and prospect of my attitude.
But, the minor role of my act and statement is a simple way of affirming that in the face of a growing enormity which I consider intolerable, I will exercise my own tiny act of disobedience to be able to look straight into the eyes of my grandchildren and my students and say that I did know.

With regard

Daniel Amit

PS: I intend to distribute our exchange as much as possible. I authorize and pray that you do the same

Growth in the worldwide demand for natural gas is outpacing the demand for any other hydrocarbon fuel

Record high oil prices have encouraged many governments to look at other energy sources. LNG is an attractive option: it is environmentally friendly, costs are relatively stable compared to oil and a number of producers are eager to export their supplies.
Growth in the worldwide demand for natural gas is outpacing the demand for any other hydrocarbon fuel. LNG is natural gas that has been refrigerated to -260�F (-162�C) to convert it to a more easily transportable liquid. There are over 40 existing and proposed natural gas liquefaction plants around the world, with many of them looking to help feed the USA's growing need for fuel.
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On 28 November 2001, attorney general John Ashcroft said that the Bush administration received information on a possible terror attack on the US natural gas sector, but did not say if the threat was made against a specific natural gas pipeline, storage site or LNG plant. LNG tankers bound for the Massachusetts port - which has specialised docking facilities costing more than US$1bn - now require the escort of USCG vessels within 200 miles of the coast.
While the USA currently has four LNG port facilities (Massachusetts, Louisiana, Georgia and Maryland), it is the Boston facility that has generated the greatest concern because the tankers transit through the centre of the city, passing within a few hundred yards of downtown Boston and Logan International Airport. Each tanker is now escorted with a helicopter, police divers, a marine patrol, environmental police, firefighting tugs, city police boats and USCG vessels.

Dr. J.C.K.Daly/Jane's 06.Jul.04

It is all perfectly legal

After the US government, who is the biggest single military contributor to the occupation of Iraq? Not Britain - as official figures claim - but private military companies. Over 10,000 men and women perform various jobs under contract to the military in Iraq we have been told. Furthermore, official US government figures indicate that out of a total US$85bn allocated by the USA for military operations in the Middle East this year, over a third will go to private contractors. A reality check: this figure is greater than the defence budgets of most countries.

The transfer of jobs performed by the military to private companies has a long history and is justifiable. Governments have a duty to get value for their taxpayers' money and many support jobs, such as providing logistical back-up in the form of transport, catering or housing, is best left to the private sector. Furthermore, a great deal of the military expenditure in purchasing new weapons actually goes on maintenance and technological upgrades.
How does this work in Iraq? When the USA launched its invasion last March, its battleships included civilians, operating some of the world's most sophisticated weapons systems. Unmanned Predator drones, the Global Hawks, and the B-2 stealth bombers went into action with weapons not only maintained, but actually operated by civilians.
The private sector became even more deeply involved in the war's aftermath. A US company has the lucrative contract to train the new Iraqi army; another to recruit and train an Iraqi police force. And even the life of the USA's chief civilian administration in Iraq, Paul Bremer, is usually protected by a private company, rather than conventional US troops.

Jane's 09.Jun.04

The collapse of the state would have global political, economic and security ramifications.

Growing sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians, a conflict that shows all the signs of erupting into an all-out religious war, is ravaging Nigeria.

Western intelligence services believe that Islamic extremists are making a determined effort to penetrate West Africa, an emerging world-class oil giant, amid signs that Osama bin Laden has singled out Nigeria for jihad.
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the continent's leading oil producer. It has the largest Muslim population in Africa after Egypt. In recent years, there has been mounting Islamic militancy and growing anti-Western hostility in Nigeria that makes it fertile ground for extremist recruiters. The unrest is apparently being stoked by radical Arab Islamic preachers and agents of Al-Qaeda.
The USA is already deploying small groups of special forces throughout the impoverished Sahel region states of Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to counter infiltration by Islamic militants moving south from Algeria. With West Africa in danger of becoming the new battleground between the USA and Al-Qaeda, heavier oil-driven US intervention may become unavoidable - a path fraught with pitfalls and one that could have a dramatic impact on US policy in Africa.

Ed Blanche /Jane's Information Group Jun.29.04

Creating economic progress for black Africans

Shell Oil and Nigeria's military dictatorship are using a black-against-black "divide and confuse" PR strategy to deflect criticism following Nigeria's executions of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other environmental and human rights activists.
Their approach resembles the "Neptune Strategy" developed a decade ago by Jack Mongoven's former PR firm to defend Shell's dealings in South Africa.
Following the hanging of Saro-Wiwa in November of last year, Shell and Nigeria each launched separate massive PR campaigns claiming that they are participating in a "transition to democracy" in Nigeria.
Nigeria's $10.7 million campaign employed eight U.S. PR firms whose work included production of a 297-page book and a three-part TV documentary, plus advertisements targeting Washington policymakers. The regime funded a "fact-finding" junket of black journalists who visited Nigeria and reported back with accolades for Nigeria's ruler, General Sani Abacha. Abacha's government also bought glossy, multi-page color insert ads in black newspapers, claiming that criticisms of Nigeria are racist, "double standard treatment of Black African Nations by the United States government. If Jewish Americans can stand up for Israel we can stand up for Africa."

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton/PR Watch 1996

FROM BARRISTER MELFORD OKILO (ESQ).
(OKILO SOLICITORS&CHAMBERS)
PLOT 552,MARYLAND,
LAGOS ,NIGERIA.

I am Barr Melford Okilo, a solicitor at law. I am the personal attorney to Eng. John Arthur, a nationality of your country United States, who used to work with shell-development company in Nigeria. Here in after shall be referred to as my client.

On November 10, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were hanged in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The executions ended a 17 month stay in police custody, which followed a trial that was universally condemned as a fraud. Their crimes? Asking for the protection of their basic human rights, voicing their right to self-determination, and exposing the Shell Petroleum Development Company's (SPDC) role in destroying their homeland, dismantling their communities and killing their people.

Saro-Wiwa knew it was coming. In May of 1994 he was given a copy of a Nigerian military memo that outlined the imminent imposition of martial law in his homeland. "This is it" he said, "They are going to arrest us all and execute us all for Shell"

On the 21st of April 2002, my client, his wife And their three children were involved in a car accident along Ibadan express road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost there lives. Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives this has also proved unsuccessful.After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.

Ogoniland, the center of oil production in Nigeria, has suffered deteriorating social and environmental conditions, in great part because it is a center of the country's oil production, generating 80% of government revenues in Nigeria.
Shell Oil controls most of the country's resources, having extracted an estimated $30 billion worth of oil from Ogoniland since 1958. Shell has never used its considerable influence either to moderate the anti-democratic actions of General Abacha and previous authoritarian governments, or to help the Ogoni People and Ken Saro-Wiwa, from whose homeland, Ogoniland, Shell Oil has reaped enormous profits over the past 37 years.
Since Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution, Shell has announced plans to build a liquefied natural gas pipeline from the Niger Delta on Nigeria's coast through Ogoniland. The Niger Delta is home to coastal rain forest, mangrove habitats, and wetlands. It has been identified by the United Nations as the most endangered river delta in the world, the result of nearly four decades of oil exploitation. From 1982 to 1992 alone, more than 6.4 million liters of oil were spilled in Nigeria, an amount more than 40% higher than that released by the Exxon Valdez.

I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank . Particularly Oceanic Bank where the deceased had an account valued at about $9.6 million dollars, Has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confisicated within the next ten official working days.

Since Royal Dutch Shell struck oil on Ogoni lands in 1958, an estimated $30 billion worth of oil has been extracted. In return the Ogoni, a group of 550,000 farmers and fishermen inhabiting this coastal land, have received little except a ravaged environment. Once fertile farmland has been laid waste by oil spills and acid rain. Uncontrolled oil spills dotted the landscape with puddles of ooze the size of football fields. Virtually all fish and wildlife have vanished. Meanwhile, out of Shell's Nigerian workforce of 5,000, less than 100 are Ogoni.
In January 1993 Saro-Wiwa gathered 300,000 Ogoni to march peacefully to demand a share in oil revenues and some form of political autonomy. MOSOP also asked the oil companies to begin environmental remediation and pay compensation for past damage.
In May 1994 Saro-Wiwa, who had been briefly imprisoned several times before, was abducted from his home and jailed along with other MOSOP leaders in connection with the murder of four Ogoni leaders. Amnesty International adopted Saro-Wiwa, a staunch advocate of non-violence, as a prisoner of conscience. Meanwhile, the Nigerian military took control of Ogoniland subjecting people to mass arrest, rape, execution and the burning and looting of their villages.
In October 1995 a military tribunal tried and convicted Saro-Wiwa of murder. Governments and citizens' organizations worldwide condemned the trial as fraudulent, and urged the Nigerian dictator to spare Saro-Wiwa's life. They also called upon Shell to intervene.

On November 10, 1995 Saro-Wiwa and his eight co-defendants were hanged.

Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the the relatives for over 2 years now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last name so that the proceeds of this account valued at $9.6 million dollars can be paid to you and then you and me can share the money.