Portside

Twenty years after the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 of his comrades, their work continues to inspire ethnic nationalities across the world, showing that it is possible to stand up against a multinational oil company. In all our struggles the message was simple: take on the devil without losing your moral belief in the tools of nonviolence. Ken Saro-Wiwa’s life is a lasting testament to the power of nonviolence, the power of resistance, the power of people.

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Europeans, in order to lessen their dependence on Russian oil and gas, are plotting to develop European controlled solar energy in the Algerian (or Tunisian Sahara). These projects would be done in such a manner as to maintain the core-peripheral relations between France and Algeria - using neo-liberal economic models that the Europeans should own and control the energy sources while the North Africans would get nothing out of the deal. Before it was oil, now solar.

Europeans, in order to lessen their dependence on Russian oil and gas, are plotting to develop European controlled solar energy in the Algerian (or Tunisian Sahara). These projects would be done in such a manner as to maintain the core-peripheral relations between France and Algeria - using neo-liberal economic models that the Europeans should own and control the energy sources while the North Africans would get nothing out of the deal. Before it was oil, now solar.

The weakness of the petrostate economy could jolt Russia's political elites-or its ordinary citizens-to take action.

Mammoth companies are trying to collect water that all life needs and charge for it as they would for other natural resources.

Under the seething ocean of Sunni discontent lies a factor that is being ignored. The insurgents are not only in a struggle against what they see as oppression by a largely Shiite government in Baghdad and its security forces, but also over who will control and benefit from what Maliki -- speaking for most of his constituents -- told the Wall Street Journal is Iraq’s “national patrimony.”

Islamist militancy in Nigeria is being strengthened by western and regional fossil fuel interests. The roots of the country's security and instability go back to its formation by the British during colonial times: the Muslims in the North, the Christians and animists in the South. The country's Civil War/Biafran War, from 1967 to 1970, was the first rupture because of ethnicity.

As American energy production booms, thousands face pipelines in their backyards. Pipelines carry flammable, toxic materials next to homes, and many experts say they’re poorly monitored by the government. Just 110 federal inspectors supervise the nation’s 2.5 million miles of existing pipelines. Oversight for new pipelines carrying oil and NGL—both classed as “hazardous liquids”—is even laxer, say critics.