1 Oil fall threatens future of North Sea fields
(Terry Macalister & Jill Treanor in The Guardian) The potential impact of
the oil price slump on Scotland was underlined as a leading energy expert
warned that North Sea oilfields could be shut down if the oil price fell by
just a few more dollars. The rising sense of crisis about the plummeting price prompted
the Scottish government to promise an emergency taskforce to try to preserve
jobs in the offshore energy sector.
Meanwhile, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of
England warned that the Scottish economy was heading for a “negative shock”. The
oil industry consultancy Wood Mackenzie said that at the current price for
Brent blend, of $46 a barrel, some UK production was already failing to break even,
and further falls could endanger output.
Robert Plummer, a research analyst with the firm,
said that at $50 a barrel oil production was costing more than its value in 17
countries, including the US and UK. Concern about cutbacks was heightened when
Shell announced it was scrapping a $6.4bn (£4.2bn) energy project in the Middle
East because it was no longer commercial, with oil prices falling to six-year
lows.
Large companies such as Shell, BP and Chevron, have
already spoken of hundreds of job cuts in Aberdeen amid expectations that
overall spending across the industry will be slashed by anywhere up to 30% for
the coming year. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, outlined plans to
set up a new energy jobs taskforce with the aim of maintaining jobs and mitigating
the impact of losses. Scottish Labour’s finance spokeswoman, Jackie Baillie,
said: “The falling oil price is the biggest threat to jobs in Scotland since
[the close of the steel plant at] Ravenscraig, and the Scottish government has
been silent on the issue.”
2 Rural slowdown dampens India PM’s promise of ‘better
days’ (Khaleej Times) Many Indian farmers have been hit by erratic weather and
sliding prices for the cotton, soybean and rubber they produce. Tougher times
in rural communities spell bad news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who swept
to power last May with a promise of “better days” - new jobs and development to
lift hundreds of millions of Indians out of poverty.
It’s not just the weather gods and capricious
markets that are to blame for the hardship. A shift in government spending
ordered by Modi is also hitting rural consumers and the industries that serve
them. “Rural consumption was one of the pillars holding up growth,” said Aditi
Nayar, senior economist at ICRA, the Indian arm of ratings agency Moody’s. She
expects weak demand in India’s rural areas to have contributed to a slowdown in
economic growth in October-December from 5.3 per cent in the previous quarter.
Tractor maker Mahindra & Mahindra is idling its
factories for a few days a month after sales slid by nearly a third towards the
end of last year. Consumer goods firms and auto makers have also reported weak
sales. More than 800 million of India’s 1.25 billion people live in the
countryside, accounting for 35 percent of the economy.
To cap inflation and state borrowing, Modi has
limited rises in farm support prices to below the inflation rate and scaled
back the rural jobs scheme. He wants to invest savings in infrastructure and
skills to boost India’s long-term growth. While inflation has eased with these
policies, firms that profited from booming rural demand are struggling due to
the sudden slowdown.
Modi’s shift from policies that support demand to
ones boosting investment and productivity have also coincided with a steep fall
in global prices of farm commodities, making imports cheaper and hitting Indian
exports. The government’s ability to ramp up spending on roads, railways and
irrigation projects that would benefit rural India is, meanwhile, hobbled by
budget constraints.
3 What price an African life? (S’Thembiso Msomi in
Johannesburg Times) Six years before he co-founded what we now know as the ANC,
a young Pixley kaIsaka Seme delivered a memorable speech at Columbia
University, where he was studying. In this 1906 speech, the then 25-year-old
Seme articulated a vision of a great future for the continent, one in which the
continent would take its rightful place as an equal among the nations of the
world.
At a time when Africa was dubbed "the dark
continent", he opened by proudly declaring: "I am an African and I
set my pride in my race against a hostile public opinion. Men have tried to
compare races on the basis of some equality. An attempt to compare them on the
basis of equality can never be finally satisfactory. Each is self. My thesis
stands on this truth; time has proved it. In all races, genius is like a spark,
which concealed in the bosom of a flint, bursts forth at the summoning stroke.
It may arise anywhere in any race."
To Seme, the "regeneration of Africa"
meant "a new and unique civilisation is soon to be added to the
world". Some 109 years later, with all of Africa - except Western Sahara -
now politically free, one wonders what Seme would say of the continent were he
to rise from the dead.
He would be proud, no doubt, to know that colonial
rule and racial oppression, among other injustices of his era, are now things
of the past. But Seme would be disappointed, one suspects, to learn that some
50-odd years since most countries on the continent gained their independence
life is still not valued enough - especially by Africans themselves.
Much has been made of the different kinds of attention
the West has paid to the brutal slaughter of 17 people in Paris and the
massacre of about 2000 villagers in Nigeria this week. The fact that the Paris
attack dominated world news and very little was being said about Boko Haram's
massacre of scores of families and villages in one go has led to accusations of
"racism" against Western countries and their media, which are said to
care little about Africa and her people.
The less said about the African Union the better. All
of this points to one sad reality - African life generally does not matter, not
even to Africans themselves. Instead of wasting our energies blaming others,
Africans must make African lives matter. Leaders like Nigerian president
Goodluck Jonathan, who has been too occupied with his bid for re-election to
worry about Boko Haram, should have no business running our countries.
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