Current Events 2 West Africa!

Foreign Relations

Nigeria has been facing recent problems from three foreign suspects being accused of spying acts of esponage and terrorism. The tree people, one a Us aid worker and two German companions were caught filming youths in the Ijaw in the Niger Delta. This is a place of much controversy because it is a place rich in oil, still it is incredibly poverty ridden. They were arrested on account of having no permission to be filming the people of the Niger Delta and that they were going to be using the film to exploit the situation there and try to do damage to Nigeria by showing the embarrassing footage. The damage of the footage taken by the foreigners would be considered terrorism. Nigeria has also been facing trouble with the Netherlands. The Ivory Coast is just now receiving 200 millions dollars from an oil trading company based in the Netherlands who owe this large sum of money for illegally dumping toxic waste in Abidjan last year. The company, Trafigura, dumped toxin on the coast of heavily populated areas causing the deaths of ten people and for many thousands to become sick. It has become quite contraversal that somehow toxic waste ended up dumped on the shores of poorer countries. Geography has also played an important part in West Africa's relation with foreign Aid. Because of a drastic climate change in West Africa over the last 40 years or so, it has forced many nomads who travel all over the region to settle down. This change in geography had a dramatic effect on West Africa's foreign affairs because now that these people need to settle down, they no longer can live of the supplies that they had received from the land and now mush live off foreign aid and charity coming in from other countries. Liberia is also facing another contraversal problem with trading with the united nations, that have now renewed its ban on exporting diamonds from Liberia. This act was reinstated to try and stop blood diamonds from making there way it to mainstream marketplaces. The decision to stop exporting diamonds from Liberia is a heavily debated one because selling the diamonds would generate large sums of much needed money.