Oil company Royal Dutch Shell will pay $15.5 million to settle a lawsuit against its Nigerian subsidiary by the family of executed Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other dissidents, the plaintiffs announced yesterday. The lawsuit accused Shell of complicity in the 1995 hanging of Saro-Wiwa and the murders or persecution of other environmental activists [...]
In an era of geopolitical tumultuousness and a future deemed uncertain with regard to investor confidence in political and economic risks, Norway has much to crow about. With international investors looking to re-enter the global market, the corporate foreign policies of Norway promote autonomous free enterprise and the security of low political risk for integration [...]
Africa is the world’s second largest and second most populous continent after Asia, covering 20% of the world’s total land area, and home to 14% of the world’s human population, yet remains the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continent. Innovative investment has not only attempted to curb this situation, but has bore fruit for those [...]
Resource Nationalism by its nature can be perceived as a government’s implementation of economic stability during lows in industry. The action is generally indicative of dire fiscal straights, and almost always an action mired in controversy. No greater is that the case than what has been reported today from the Associated Press. For a leader [...]
Venezuelan Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs to Africa, Reinaldo Bolivar, today concluded an official visit to Angola. The Angolan news agency, ANGOP, reported that the Venezuelan diplomat stated, on arriving back in Venezuela, that the visit had the objective of strengthening the two nations’ cooperative ties in the fields of energy, diplomacy, politics, and indeed in [...]
Political and social instability in countries and regions affects the operations of enterprises near and far. Corporations everywhere must carefully consider their business risks in an era of uncoordinated international counter-combat against coordinated piracy. Keeping workers and workplaces safe in politically sensitive areas can be difficult and expensive. Colombia and the Philippines have storied histories [...]
Nigeria is an underdog at the geo-political roundtable. It baffles me that the nation doesn’t receive as much international coverage as it should. The Niger delta has one of the largest reserves of oil in the world. The Nigerian economy is heavily dependent on the sector, as it accounts for 95 percent of the country’s [...]
A power shift from New York to Washington, from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, from Shanghai to Beijing. The fall of globalization and the rise of state capitalism. President Obama shifting global opinion of the US back out of the red, but its a shift that is blown far out of proportion. These were but a [...]
“If a continent is divided in to a patchwork of tiny countries, countries too small to have internalized key externalities, vital public goods will be missing.” - Paul Collier, Wars Guns and Votes Infrastructure Reform – a critical platform for one running for elected office in Africa against the incumbent. Roads, schools, houses and yes, [...]
It’s a familiar story, and I won’t be the first one to tell you. As documented widely, the rapid industrial rise of the BRIC economies has created an unexpected demand crush on natural resource commodities, generating all sorts of anomalies for foreign investors in extractive industries. We have seen resource nationalism issues pop up in [...]
