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Brazil moves to boost control over new oil wealth
Brian Ellsworth and Denise Luna, Reuters
Brazil's president proposed on Monday giving the state more control over one of the world's biggest recent oil finds in a high-stakes move that could drive the country's development for decades to come.

The long-awaited proposal for offshore "subsalt" fields thought to contain at least 50 billion barrels of light crude could usher in a new round of investment in Brazil's oil industry if energy companies find the terms acceptable...

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a charismatic and hugely popular former union leader who has steered Brazil through an economic boom with a mix of market-friendly policies and social spending, hailed the oil reform as a "new independence day" for South America's largest nation...

..Presenting the plan, Lula and his chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, stressed that Brazil would not fall victim to the so-called "resource curse" that has soured oil bonanzas in countries from Iraq to Nigeria to Venezuela.

The government's oil revenues will go into a "social fund" aimed at channeling money into poverty reduction, science and technology, the environment and improving an education system that lags much of the world...

...Critics say the changes inject too much political influence into Brazil's oil industry. The oil wealth is likely to be used as a major plank in Lula's campaign to get Rousseff elected as his successor in elections scheduled for October 2010...
(31 August 2009)

Millions more Russians shunted into poverty
Luke Harding, The Guardian
The stark social cost of Russia's economic crisis was exposed today when new statistics revealed a 30% increase in the number of people living in poverty.

According to Russia's state committee on statistics, the figure for Russians living below the poverty line went up to 24.5 million during the first three months of this year – a steep increase from 18.5 million by the end of 2008.

The rise follows years in which Russians saw their living standards improve under the former president Vladimir Putin (now prime minister), largely thanks to a buoyant oil price, and Russia's status as the world's largest gas exporter. This improvement has now come to a juddering halt.

Instead, more Russian families than ever before are sliding into poverty – defined as an adult income of less than 5,497 roubles, or £110, a month...
(31 August 2009)

Oil find sparks new hope for Uganda's people
Xan Rice, The Guardian
On the remote western edge of Uganda the land suddenly drops down into the western arm of the Great Rift Valley to reveal the vast expanse of Lake Albert and the blue mountains of Congo beyond. Hippos and marabou storks wander the shoreline near the tiny fishing villages whose hauls of Nile perch, tilapia, catfish and white herring sustain the local economy. But now there are new, less natural features marking the landscape, ones that could change the course of the country.

"We never knew we were sitting on oil here," said James Ocham, a 27-year-old fisherman outside the Classic Inn Lodge and Bar as he gazed towards an oilrig erected alongside a nearby lagoon. "In time we are all going to benefit – there will be jobs, even for the unemployed."

The discovery of vast oil reserves in Uganda has caused excitement across the country, and more than a touch of anxiety too. Energy companies have recently found more than 700m barrels of commercially viable oil in the pristine Albertine Graben region, representing the first major petroleum strike in east Africa. Tullow Oil, the FTSE 100 company leading the exploration, believes the exploitable deposits could exceed 1.5bn barrels, reserves comparable to Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Chad.

If managed well, the petrodollars could transform the economy of the landlocked country, potentially doubling the state's revenues, creating thousands of jobs and help realise President Yoweri Museveni's dream of industrialising the country...
(31 August 2009)