Who is stealing Nigeria's oil?
Nigeria, Africa's richest economy faces its worst oil crisis in years as criminal gangs make off with billions in stolen crude.
Nigeria, Africa's richest economy faces its worst oil crisis in years as criminal gangs make off with billions in stolen crude.
Nigeria, Africa's richest economy, has always been dogged by claims of oil-related corruption, transparency, and environmental damage. But theft of oil is taking it to another level.
The country faces its worst oil crisis in years as criminal gangs make off with billions in stolen crude. Theft is no small matter for a country which gets almost two-thirds of its revenue from the oil industry.
Nigeria produced 2.25m barrels of oil per day, but around 400,000 barrels of those are stolen - meaning the government lost $8bn in revenue last year. And worse yet, independent think-tank Chatham House believes money is even being laundered through international banks.
With stolen oil, onsold to Asia, Latin America and the US, as well as dirty profits for the criminals and, some would say, corrupt figures within government and industry, the process is troubling.
Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, who joined the Nigerian taskforce trying to police the theft of oil, presents a special report. And we discuss the economic impact of all this with Mutiu Sunmonu, the chairman of Shell Nigeria.
Armed against IS
With the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq, the country is now trying to fight back against this new threat. But who is arming the Iraqis, and in particular the Kurds?
To attempt to stave off IS, some nations have pledged to arm the Kurds's Peshmerga forces. Surprisingly, Iran jumped in first, with light arms and ammunitions. Germany pledged $91m worth of weapons to the Kurdish fighters; Italy's $2.5m contribution includes 200 machine guns, 2,000 rocket propelled grenades, almost a million rounds of ammunition - similar to what Britain is providing; and Canada has gone down the non-lethal route: $15m worth of equipment, two-thirds of that being helmets, body armour and logistical support.
Then there is what Iraq's army has been given - or not given, as the case may be. Iran and Russia have handed over SU-25 FrogFoot attack jets. Iraq needs those because there is a delay in receiving war planes and helicopters from the United States.
To discuss the latest developments related to IS and the international community, Iraqi political and oil consultant Shwan Zulal joins us from London.
Tech wars
'Destiny', the video game which looks like a movie, is attracting Hollywood-like money. It is a science-fiction tale set 700 years in the future, in which armed protectors must defend the last civilised place on our precious earth.
Destiny attracted name-actors like Peter Dinklage and Bill Nighy as character voices. Sir Paul McCartney wrote some of the music, and on its first day, $500m worth of the game was shipped out to retailers, making it the biggest game launch in history.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, is a game called Minecraft. It is blocky, pixelated, and nothing like the fancy graphics of Destiny, yet Microsoft wants to pay $2bn for it. It has already been a success for its current Swedish owners Mojang, which had revenues of $360m last year. What Microsoft wants is to get what is a very popular game operating on its Windows 8 platform, as well as Windows phones and Surface tablets.
And then there is Apple, which finally got into the wearables game with the Apple Watch, and launched two new bigger versions of the iPhone. Apple fans all over the world were impressed, but Samsung Galaxy, HTC, and Huwei have all been making large-screen smartphones for years, and were keen to ram that point home after the Apple event.
What was perhaps more significant was Apple's move into mobile payment. Again, not new, but Apple's size and reach can quite possibly turn it into something much bigger than it already is. Al Jazeera's Jake Ward explains more.
