Family Gold Mining Poisons Children in Nigeria. Large numbers of infants and toddlers have died from lead poisoning in Nigerian villages where their parents process gold ore inside their family compounds, according to a report published Tuesday by an international team of researchers. In two Nigerian communities, 118 children under the age of 5 died in a single year – 25 percent of the children in that age group. For the first time, the researchers uncovered strong evidence that points to lead as the likely cause for nearly all of those deaths. In addition, all of the surviving children who were tested suffered from lead poisoning, too. “To our knowledge, this is the first documentation of an outbreak of childhood lead poisoning associated with artisanal gold mining,” the team, directed by lead experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote in the online edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
All the results were extreme. Even the surviving children aren’t unscathed. The Nigerian Crucible - Ike Okonta. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space LAGOS – Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, who was elected only eight months ago, is already swimming in a sea of troubles. On January 1, New Year celebrations were abruptly cut short when Nigerians woke up to learn that the government gasoline subsidy had been withdrawn. The country’s poor immediately hit the streets, already angry because their corrupt and incompetent government has been unable to repair state-owned refineries, thereby forcing Africa’s largest oil producer to import petroleum products.
To ordinary Nigerians, the fuel subsidy was the only advantage that they derived from the petrodollars that pour into the national treasury. Suddenly, politicians, civil servants, and their cronies were embezzling even that benefit. First, he announced a 25% salary cut for all political appointees. The government responded by declaring a state of emergency in several of Nigeria’s northern states. The End of Nigeria's Strike May Not Calm Oil Markets | Foreign Affairs - Stage. On New Year's Day, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan ended the country's decades-old federal petroleum subsidy, which had kept gasoline and other petroleum products available to Nigerians at substantially below market price.
In days, a liter of gas more than doubled to 93 cents. Despite the country's abundance of crude oil (it extracts more than 2 million barrels a day), Nigeria lacks refining capacity and has to spend billions (in the first quarter of last year, $1.34 billion, to be exact) importing fuel not only for transportation, but also to power the diesel generators that provide much of the country's electricity. Economists and much of the international banking community argue the costs of the fuel subsidy impede development and lay an unsustainable burden on Nigeria's finances. The Jonathan administration says the subsidy costs his government more than $8 billion annually. To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Register for free to continue reading.
To Battle Nigeria's Boko Haram, Put Down Your Guns. On August 26, a suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden Honda into the United Nations headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, killing 23 people and injuring 81 more. Boko Haram, a shadowy radical Islamic movement that has been waging daily attacks in the north of the country, claimed responsibility. Some have argued that the sophisticated tactics are evidence of Boko Haram establishing links with international terrorist networks, most likely al Qaeda in the Maghreb or al Shabab in Somalia. Even before this attack, the United States, Britain, and Israel had publicly supported providing counterterrorism assistance to the Nigerian government. Now, momentum for such a solution is growing. But such an approach could do more harm than good -- for Nigeria but also for Washington, which cannot afford to alienate Africa's largest Muslim population.
To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Register now to get three articles each month. Register for free to continue reading. What Boko Haram Wants. I recently learned that a friend of mine from northern Nigeria had gone into hiding late last year. An activist, he was targeted by the Islamist group Boko Haram for trying to broker peace talks. The militants were apparently not ready to do much talking. The story crystallizes the reason that Boko Haram really, viscerally terrifies me: neither I nor anyone as far as I have been able to discover can put a finger on anything concrete that they actually want. CNN has begun describing Boko Haram as “fighting to install Sharia law in Northern Nigeria.” That’s patently not correct, given that Sharia law was already imposed in Northern Nigeria a decade ago. But I’d argue that what the Islamists are looking for is clearly something less de jure and more de facto.
Paradoxical as it seems, seeking chaos has often been a strategy to gain control for rebel groups in West Africa, where Nigeria is the regional giant. Photo Credit: Zouzou Wizman. Boko Haram – more complicated than you think – By Richard Dowden. Mobilisation of the Nigerian army against Boko Haram provides both a challenge and an opportunity... Nothing in Nigeria is what it seems. Beneath a confusing, disorderly surface lie networks of association and obligation of which outsiders, and sometimes insiders, are unaware. Money is chopped (stolen), people paid off, budgets looted and shared.
Power, political and financial, is never transparent. This, rather than Islamic fundamentalism, is the context of the tragic deaths of Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara in a bungled rescue bid in Sokoto on Thursday. What do we know about Boko Haram? Boko Haram was a peaceful, if fundamentalist, Islamic movement from its beginnings in 2002 until its leader, Mohamed Yusuf, was brutally tortured to death by the police in 2009. However, in the months following the UN bombing, all sorts of attacks were claimed by Boko Haram. And it is not just Boko Haram which benefits from the global fear of terrorism.
And the ordinary people of Nigeria? Is it Sectarian Strife in Nigeria? When I lived in Nigeria just a few short years ago, the term "sectarian violence" was not really something that came up. Inter-religious conflicts had plagued the country's middle belt on and off for the better part of a decade. But these were less religious conflicts than they were communities butting heads over scarce land, insecure resources, and really poor opportunities for justice when wrong was done. I never felt animosity between religions, even when I spoke with some of the less-savory members of a given side. The feeling was more of a competition—a sort of frantic scramble to control the scarce, whether that meant grazing and farming land or converts to the faithful.
So in recent weeks, as headlines proclaiming Nigerian sectarian strife have splashed across the papers, I've had to look twice. It's an incredibly painful and dangerous turn of events, as is already obvious from the hundreds left dead by the violence of Boko Haram, and retaliatory clashes. Is Nigeria the Next Front in the War on Terror? - By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. Violence between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria is drawing the country ever closer to a religious war. The instigator of this conflict is Boko Haram, an Islamist movement whose very name means "Western education is forbidden. " If the Nigerian government can't stop this conflict from spiraling out of control, expect the United States to step in -- albeit with a relatively light hand -- to tip the scales against Boko Haram.
The situation in Nigeria hit a crisis point on June 17, when Boko Haram attacked three churches in Nigeria's north-central Kaduna state -- killing 21 people during services. Christians were quick to respond, and sectarian clashes ignited almost immediately. Terrorist violence is nothing new for Boko Haram, a group that U.S. officials suspect of having links to al Qaeda. Recent events show that Boko Haram's attacks are only becoming more deadly. The Nigerian government has had some successes. Such attacks have provoked a response from Nigeria's Christian community. The World Factbook. ShowIntroduction :: NIGERIA Panel - Collapsed British influence and control over what would become Nigeria and Africa's most populous country grew through the 19th century. A series of constitutions after World War II granted Nigeria greater autonomy.
After independence in 1960, politics were marked by coups and mostly military rule, until the death of a military head of state in 1998 allowed for a political transition. In 1999, a new constitution was adopted and a peaceful transition to civilian government was completed. The government continues to face the daunting task of institutionalizing democracy and reforming a petroleum-based economy, whose revenues have been squandered through corruption and mismanagement. In addition, Nigeria continues to experience longstanding ethnic and religious tensions. Nigeria. Skip to main content World Malaria 2014 Access Search Advanced search Navigation Language عربي 中文 English Français Русский Español WHO African Region: Nigeria Menu Countries Nigeria Map This map is an approximation of actual country borders.
Statistics Contact information The WHO Representative Vaz, Dr Rui 2851 Abuja, Nigeria Telephone: +234 9461 8596 Facsimile: +234 9461 8725 afwcongregistrystaff@who.int Country Office web site Regional Office web site Health profile WHO collaboration Mortality and burden of disease Nutrition Risk factors Outbreaks and emergencies Features Down to zero: Nigeria stops guinea-worm disease in its tracks 28 March 2014 News Bulletin articles You are here: Quick Links Sitemap Help and Services WHO Regional Offices loading.