Royal Dutch Shell has shut down a tenth of Nigeria's oil production, after armed militants kidnapped four foreign oil workers and blew up a major pipeline Jan. 11. The incidents followed attacks on pipelines owned by the Nigerian state-owned oil company in December, disrupting supplies from the world's eighth-largest oil exporter for several days.

New York's Jewish weekly The Forward weighs in on the recent imbroglio over supposed anti-Semitic comments by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela's Jews Defend Leftist President in Flap Over Remarks
By MARC PERELMAN
January 13, 2006

The Venezuelan Jewish community leadership and several major American Jewish groups are accusing the Simon Wiesenthal Center of rushing to judgment by charging Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, with making antisemitic remarks.

Officials of the leading organization of Venezuelan Jewry were preparing a letter this week to the center, complaining that it had misinterpreted Chavez's words and had failed to consult with them before attacking the Venezuelan president.

"You have interfered in the political status, in the security, and in the well-being of our community. You have acted on your own, without consulting us, on issues that you don't know or understand," states a draft of the letter obtained by the Forward. Copies of the letter are also to be sent to the heads of the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee, among other Jewish groups.

From Reuters, Jan. 10:

U.S. soldiers fed up with almost daily bomb attacks on their patrols near Iraq's main oil refinery are taking drastic measures to fight their shadowy enemy -- they're walling in an entire town.

Army bulldozers have begun building giant sand embankments around Siniya, a town of 50,000 close to the northern oil refining city of Baiji. When finished it will be 10 km (6 miles) long and more than 2 meters (nearly 8 feet) high.

From Newsday, Jan. 10:

The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city on Tuesday, challenging restrictions on people's right to photograph public places after an award-winning filmmaker from India was blocked from videotaping near the MetLife building.

From Newsday, Jan. 11:

A criminal court judge in Manhattan has held that the city's main weapon in its campaign against the Critical Mass bicycle ride is unconstitutional.

From The Scotsman, Jan. 12:

A man armed with a knife wounded several people, including a rabbi, at a synagogue in Moscow yesterday. One Jewish official said the man called out as he burst into the building: "I will kill people, I will kill Jews."

Naga separatist guerillas in India's remote northeast are once again being hunted down by the authorities in neighboring Burma (Myanmar), where they had previously been granted refuge. This appears to be leading to a two-front insurgency in which the Naga separatists are seeking an independent state straddling the current Burma-India border. On Jan. 10, Naga guerilla leaders claimed to have killed seven Burmese soldiers while losing three rebel fighters in a heavy gun battle in Burmese territory.

From AP, via the New York Times, Jan. 10:

President-elect Evo Morales of Bolivia met with President Hu Jintao of China in Beijing and called China an "ideological ally," a day after he invited it to develop Bolivia's vast gas reserves. China has been developing links with Latin American nations as sources of fuel and raw materials and as markets for its exports. Mr. Hu promised to encourage "strong and prestigious" Chinese companies to invest in Bolivia, the official New China News Agency reported. On Sunday, Mr. Morales met with Tang Jiaxuan, the Chinese state councilor, and invited China to help with his country's gas industry after he carries out plans to nationalize its reserves.