Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Bulletin homepage

Gambia: Biofuel - A Ploy, Says President Jammeh
Pa Malick Faye, The Daily Observer
"Biofuel is a strategy to starve the third world, especially the poor countries, so that they [the West] would be able to infiltrate the poor people, who are hungry and give them money in order to bring puppets to power, to serve the West," says President Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh.

Speaking to newsmen at his Bunabore Farm in the outskirts of Kanilai, Saturday evening, the Gambian leader rejected the idea of biofuel, simply because the world is yet to grow enough crops to feed its people, let alone vehicles...

...The Gambian leader said the present needs of the African continent are food and energy and not fuel, in the face a surge in global food prices.

They [the West], he went on, have the technology to turn sunlight to energy, but because they know sunlight is guaranteed in Africa and Asia, they [West] said it is expensive to produce solar power. "This is because Africa is a market for their generators, so such an undertaking is not to their desire," the president noted...

...The president used the opportunity to urge Gambians to consume local produce in order to avert the growing strange ailments in society. He recalled his school days, when there were few health facilities, but yet people had longer lives, because they survived on local food...
(8 July 2008)

Yar'Adua Seeks Concerted Efforts Against Trade in Stolen Oil
Damilola Oyedele Abuja, This Day
The Federal Government would soon send a proposal to the United Nations for decisive action to be taken by the international community to clampdown on illicit trade in stolen crude oil.

In a press statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Communications, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, the President made this disclosure while holding talks with the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Yasuo Fukuda and the President of the World Bank, Mr. Robert B. Zoellick, at the Summit of the group of eight industrialised nations (G-8, yesterday in Hokkaido, Japan.

The President appealed to the international community to treat stolen crude oil just the way it treats stolen diamonds because they are both natural resources...

...He said that in concert with ongoing efforts to holistically address the developmental challenges of the Niger Delta, his administration was taking steps to "dismantle the criminal dimension" of the problem in the region, which, he said, was now being aggravated by some international cartels.
(8 July 2008)

Nationwide blackout: PHCN begins power rationing today
Obinna Ezeobi, E-Punch
As the parlous state of power supply across the country worsened in the last few days, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria announced on Thursday that it will from Friday, (today) begin zonal power rationing.

In a statement Thursday night, the utility company said the rationing will be done nationwide on a 12-hourly basis.

According to the statement, “There will be a nationwide 12-hourly zonal power rotational rationing from 6am – 6pm and 6pm – 6am starting from Friday, July 4, 2008.”...

...Although PHCN claimed that it was working hard to ensure improvement in power supply, the statement was silent on when this should be expected or the current generation capacity, which is believed to be embarrassing.
(4 July 2008)