Cameroon Echoes {Echos Camerounais}

Patrick Awuh on Educating Leaders

Iraq oil contract goes to Angola's Sonangol

Angola is the second biggest producer of oil in Africa The Angolan state-owned oil company, Sonangol, has signed two initial oilfield deals in Iraq. The two, the Qayara and Najmah oilfields, are in Nineveh province, known as one of the most dangerous regions of the country. There are frequent insurgencies there, as Sunni Islamic militants and al-Qaeda are both active. Sonangol will be paid between $5 and $6 a barrel, one of the highest fees awarded in Iraq's oil deals. The two fields combined contain an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of oil.

Dear America:You still Need Us,don't be Crude!Why Obama's energy-dependence talk is just demagoguery.

BY PRINCE TURKI AL-FAISAL

"Energy independence" has become a byword on the American political scene, and invoking it is now as essential as baby-kissing. All the recent U.S. presidential candidates employed it, and to this day, the White House Web site lists as a guiding principle the need to "curb our dependence on fossil fuels and make America energy independent." Expect a whole new round of such rhetoric when the global economic recovery begins, and with it, higher oil prices return.

The impacts of the digitization of land records in poor countries

Among the many solutions to address the aches which plague developing nations and its people, competent and caring leadership and therefore the perpetual conception and implementation of productive initiatives is likely on the forefront of the list of antidotes. One such solution that I believe would have multiple benefits in terms of increasing the government coffer, employment, the extention of credit, economic activities and helping to reduce fraud and corruption in the real estate sector is to make the current archaic land records of poor nations accessible via the internet.

It's well established that the poor countries of the world are in fact not so poor considering that a greater number of its population owns a piece of real estate, but this asset is not given the full measure of its value mainly due to the lack of reliable and easily accessible data which can help to determine the specific location of the asset, its description and dimensions, its past sale information and present ownership. The availability and easy access to such data via the internet would as it can be well deduced and further elaborated bring fort