By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: November 19, 2007http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/world/americas/19braziloil.html?ref=world 

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov. 17 — With the price of oil hovering near $100 a barrel, the discovery of the biggest deep-water oil field off the southeastern coast has the potential to transform Brazil into a global energy powerhouse and to reshape the politics of this energy-starved continent.

While Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras, has known of the field for more than a year, it only finished assessing its full potential in recent months. It announced on Nov. 8 that the field held some five billion to eight billion barrels of crude oil and natural gas.

The announcement has everyone in the region, and beyond, taking notice. A field that size — the biggest in the world since a discovery in Kazakhstan in 2000 — is a potential political game-changer for Brazil.

...

Mr. da Silva basked in the sudden possibilities, declaring that "Brazil would obviously participate in OPEC," the global oil cartel, and already felt free enough to weigh in on its politics, saying that the organization should reduce oil prices.

He also insisted that Brazil would not "pull back even one millimeter" from its push into biofuels. Brazil is sitting on the most abundant farmland in the world, which it has been using a part of to produce sugar cane for ethanol.

By ANTHEE CARASSAVA

Published: November 19, 2007 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/world/europe/19greece.html?ref=world ATHENS

Nov. 18 — Greeceand Turkey opened a $300 million pipeline on Sunday, creating an energy corridor that connects the rich natural gas fields in the Caspian Sea region to Europe, bypassing Russia and the volatile Middle East.

...

"This project will bring significant benefits both for Greece and Turkey," said Kostas Karamanlis, the Greek prime minister, who inaugurated the project with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It shows "we can live in harmony and both gain from it," Mr. Karamanlis said, shaking hands with Mr. Erdogan in a symbolic meeting on a bridge over the Evros River, which divides the countries.

The pipeline, which will use natural gas pumped into Turkey from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan, will initially carry 250 million cubic meters of gas a year to Komotini, in northeastern Greece, from Karacabey, in western Turkey. Its capacity is expected to triple by 2012, when Poseidon, a 132-mile undersea Greece-Italy pipeline begins operation, forming the Southern Europe Gas Ring project.

"The project is extremely significant — and fundamentally political," said Julian Lee, a senior analyst with the Center for Global Energy Studies, a London-based research group. "It offers diversified supplies of energy to Europe without going through Russia — an objective encouraged by the United States."

Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)

19 November 2007
Posted to the web 19 November 2007
Kigali

http://allafrica.com/stories/200711190450.html

Rwanda estimates that by the end of this year, it will have garnered some 60 million dollars from mineral exports which represents a 57% jump from last year, a senior official has revealed.

Last year, according to the Director General of the newly established Rwanda Geological Authority - Dr. Biryabarema Michael, $38 millions entered government coffers that had also risen from the previous years.

IRIN
November 19, 2007
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=75383

CALABAR, 19 November 2007 (IRIN) - The government of President Umaru Yar'Adua says it is serious about tackling the root causes of violence and poverty in Nigeria's troubled Niger Delta with a 'master plan' to develop the region and provide basic services.

Yar'Adua's new budget proposal for 2008 commits 69 billion naira (US $566 million) to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for 2008, more than twice last year's federal budget allotment for the commission. 

By JIM YARDLEY

Published: November 19, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/world/asia/19dam.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
JIANMIN VILLAGE, China — Last year, Chinese officials celebrated the completion of the Three Gorges Dam by releasing a list of 10 world records. As in: The Three Gorges is the world's biggest dam, biggest power plant and biggest consumer of dirt, stone, concrete and steel. Ever. Even the project's official tally of 1.13 million displaced people made the list as record No. 10.

Today, the Communist Party is hoping the dam does not become China's biggest folly. In recent weeks, Chinese officials have admitted that the dam was spawning environmental problems like water pollution and landslides that could become severe. Equally startling, officials want to begin a new relocation program that would be bigger than the first.

From: Reuters
Published November 19, 2007 01:03 PM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/25264

By Anis Ahmed

DHAKA (Reuters) - Four days after super cyclone Sidr killed more than 3,000 people in Bangladesh, rescuers struggled on Monday to reach isolated areas along the country's devastated coast to give aid to millions of survivors.

"The tragedy unfolds as we walk through one after another devastated village," said relief worker Mohammad Selim in Bagerhat, one of the worst-hit areas. "Often it looks like we are in a valley of death."

The confirmed death toll from the cyclone reached 3,113 by Monday, while 3,322 are injured and 1,063 missing, Lieutenant-Colonel Main Ullah Chowdhury told reporters in Dhaka.

...

Aid workers fear inadequate supplies of food, drinking water and medicine could lead to outbreaks of disease.

"Food, shelter and medicine are badly needed for the survivors," Renata Lok Dessallien, United Nations Resident Representative in Bangladesh told Reuters after visiting cyclone-hit areas.

Grieving families begged for clothes to wrap around the bodies of dead relatives for burial. In some areas, they put corpses in mass graves.

Reuters reporters said bodies were being discovered by the hour in the rivers and paddy fields and under piles of debris.