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Steve Bloomfield, London Independent:
Oil spills have polluted their rivers and land, making fishing and farming impossible. Flares, burning constantly, have filled their air with soot. Billions of dollars have been pumped out of their land with nothing in return. Even the jobs the oil industry promised have gone elsewhere, to well-paid foreigners and Nigerians from less marginalised parts of the country. For those who live closest to the oil fields, the best they can hope for is casual labour: when there is a spill or a pipeline bursts, locals are employed for pennies to clear it up….
In the past few years, shadowy militant groups like the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) have taken advantage of rising anger towards the oil industry. They kidnap foreign oil workers and attack oil installations. ….
At five cents a barrel, getting oil out of the ground is 10 times cheaper […]

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Britain’s intelligence services are stepping up their counter-espionage activities against foreign agents for the first time since the Cold War.
Amid concerns of growing covert operations by Russian and Chinese foreign spies, MI5 officers have been ordered to boost surveillance and devote more resources to counter them.
Although the security services consider Islamic extremists to be their top priority, tracking hostile agents has also gained prominence in the past few months.
‘We estimate that at least 20 foreign intelligence services are currently operating in the UK. The Russian and Chinese intelligence services are particularly active, and currently present the greatest concern. The number of Russian intelligence officers in London is at the same level as in Soviet times,’ the MI5 website said.”
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GAZA: Two Hamas security officers were killed in fighting between Palestinians from the group and a pro-Fatah clan in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Hamas and hospital officials said.
Hospital officials said five Hamas officers and 30 other people, including members of the Helles clan affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, were wounded in the clashes. Islam Shahwan, a Hamas security spokesman, said one officer was killed by an explosive charge and the other was killed by a rocket propelled grenade during fighting in the Shejaia suburb of Gaza City.
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BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s central government on Friday stressed its opposition to any unilateral move to change the status of an oil-rich city the Kurds want to annex and warned against efforts to stir ethnic tensions in that area.
The warning by government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh came a day after Kurdish members of the Tamim provincial council signed a petition demanding the annexation of the provincial capital of Kirkuk and surrounding areas into the self-ruled Kurdish region in Iraq’s north despite opposition by Arab and Turkomen residents.
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Three Iraqi soldiers died in a roadside bombing Friday in the northern city of Kirkuk, where relations remain frayed among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen after a suicide bombing and ethnic clashes earlier in the week.
The bomb targeted a convoy of Iraqi army vehicles, killing three soldiers and wounding two, the military said.
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BANGALORE: Another explosive device was recovered and defused from the southern city of Bangalore late Friday night, a week after the IT capital was rocked by serial blasts, police said on Saturday.
“It was a small and very low intensity explosive, one without any timer. The material was found late last night from Channapatna, 70 kms from here,” Director General and Inspector General of police R Sri Kumar said.
It was placed in a small tin and was found by one of the locals, who informed police. A bomb squad, which was pressed into service, defused the explosive, he said.
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BELGAUM: The Anti-Terrorist Cell (ATC), attached to Belgaum Police Department, has busted a plot of Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists who wanted to explode major dams in North Karnataka including ‘Hidkal,’ ‘Alamatti’ and ‘Tungabhadra.’
The police on Saturday arrested a 31-year-old Tanveer Abdul Sattar Mulla of Belgaum. He was said to be an active SIMI member. Police have seized a gas cylinder and chemicals used to make bombs.
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Prishtina [Pristina], 31 Jul (KosovaLive) - Nita Vula walked towards her supervisor, arm outstretched, with a smile across her face. A spider bite had just caused her hand to swell to nearly double its normal size, but she was not worried. The bite was nothing compared to the dangers she faces every day at her job. Vula is the only female de-miner that works in the Civil Protection Brigade (CPB) division of the Kosovo Protection Corps (TMK).
Each day they are making progress in clearing Kosova of land mines, cluster bombs, and other unexploded ordinance. Children and farmers can then feel safer to use that land. And officials predict that the country will be free of unexploded mines within 5 years.
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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is on track to provide an additional 200 canine explosive detection teams a year to airports and mass transit systems by 2010, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report sent to Congress.
The expansion in the National Explosives Detection Canine Team Program (NEDCTP) was required by the 9-11 Commission Act.
According to the GAO, TSA has trained or is currently training 104 canine explosives detection teams for 2008. TSA’s goal is to train 204, of which 170 will be used to screen cargo.
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A former British Royal Marine has started legal proceedings against the New Zealand Defence Force, claiming the army left him about $1 million out of pocket after a contract botch-up.
Major Gil Pelly has been battling the army for about three years for compensation after he resigned from the Royal Marines and paid to relocate his family from England to take up a post as head of the military training camp in Waiouru.
He has now hired a lawyer to look at the possibility of suing the defence force for compensation to recoup his losses.
After selling his house and relocating his family to New Zealand, Pelly was told by defence force bosses he was no longer needed to run the camp and was instead offered a lesser post.
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