Fuel prices go up in Tanzania

DAR ES SALAAM, April 16 -- Prices at filling stations in Dar es Salaam have gone up over the weekend, after the price of crude hit 67 U.S. dollars a barrel on the international market.

    Unleaded petrol is now selling at 1,260 Tanzanian shillings (1.024 dollars) per liter while diesel is selling at 1,256 shillings (1.021 dollars) per liter.

...Local analysts attributed the fuel price hike to threats posed by Iran's nuclear standoff with the United States and the violence in the African oil-producing country of Nigeria.

    They also predicted that the country's inflation was set to rise further in that fuel prices would affect the transportation and distribution of food in the country and fuel prices themselves,just like the food prices, also weigh heavily on the inflation scale.

Thxs for responding.  Never been to Africa, just googling whatever info I can.  Everybody will be affected by Peakoil to some degree.  True, many Africans use none to very little detritus, but eventually they won't even be able to afford metal for hoes, shovels, or machetes.  The inevitable decline of complexity will reach every societal level.

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

As with the Zionist Right generally, he makes the mistake of racializing the Sudan problems, using anti-Semitic language accusing "Arabs" of killing thousands of "black Africans."

But the "Arabs" of the Sudan are black (some are brown or lighter shades of black, but not by any means all, and anyway so are e.g. Eritreans just to the south). The Sudanese "Arabs" just speak Arabic or identify with the Arabs. It isn't a matter of US-style race, which is based on color. Moreover, the people of Darfur are Muslims and many know Arabic. So the massacres in Darfur are not about "Arabs" versus "black Africans." They are between two groups of Muslim black Africans.

He shows pictures of two Sudanese and defies «anyone to tell me which is the "black African" and which the "Arab" Janjawid in these pictures.»

No, I actually said what I meant to say. The following is just an outline. I don't think it's necessary to go into enormous detail about Sudan and it's history, problems and ethnic and social complexity, but I'm going to give an outline, so please forgive me if it's a bit superficial. If any of you are really interested, go and read some stuff about Sudan!

First, I am not denying that violence, ethinic strife, something close to civil war and massacres have occured in and are occuring in Sudan. It's the scale and nature of the violence that concerns me. I don't believe there is strong evidence of 'genocide' in Sudan.

I know what the word 'genocide' means. What concerns me, is that it's being misused here, and I don't believe this helps the situation at all. I think we in the West increasingly misuse the word to bran regimes we do not approve of as 'outlaws.' I remember before we started bombing Serbia and Kosovo, I heard the word used a lot to debcribe the fighting. Supposedly, hundreds of thousands of Albanians were 'missing' presumed dead, and the Serbs were accused of genocide, and their soldiers were Nazis and Milosovic was this year's Hitler. This was nearly all propaganda used to justify bombing Serbia. This pattern repeats itself over and over again in relation to our enemies. There was no 'genocide' in Kosovo. This has been documented. There were no massacres. More people were killed in Serbia by the NATO bombing campaign than in Kosovo. It was the whole WMD story all over again. I know this is a controversial area, as 'history' has already been established, but that doesn't make it 'true.'

Saddam was also called Hitler and Iraq was supposed to be full of mass graves, like the weapons of mass detruction, they were never actually found. Sure one found what appeared to be war graves with dead Iranian soldiers, but not the mass graves we were told about. It was war propaganda.

I'll give rough definition of the term 'genocide.' The systematic and centrally co-ordinated, racial motivated, attempt by one ethnic group to irradicate, wipe out, or actually exterminate another ethnic group. Thankfully, this doesn't actually happen very often.

Even the mass killings in Rwanda, may not really be definable as 'genocide' because it's debatable whether these ethnic differences really have a proper foundation in Rwanda. Supposedly during the colonial period the Belgians casually devided people into two groups, based on their relative heights!

I'm not sure how much I really want to get into this kind of argument about what's happening in Sudan and whether or not 'genocide' is actually taking place or not. I think what's happening there is bad enough. I just don't think it qulifies as 'genocide.' Why can't we keep the word genocide for genocide. I think the word loses value if we use it to describe ethnic violence which isn't really genocide. If we accept this broad definition of 'genocide' then I think one can argue with equal force that the United States has been guilty of 'genocide' in Iraq, indeed some people do argue this and forcefully.

What you write about 'Arabs killing Blacks' is also very problematic in relation to Sudan. But it serves another purpose entirely. I'm not really sure if your aware of this though. Maybe your just pissed at me for some reason?

I have real problems with this whole 'race' question. I think it's a very dangerous and questionable and controversial area. For example, 'everyone' in Sudan is 'Black'. There is only one 'racial group in Sudan and their all 'Black'. The term 'Arab' is also interesting. Are there really 'Arabs' in Sudan? There are Muslims who are 'Black' and 'Blacks' who are Christians and 'Blacks' who worship nature, so what? How relevant are these social divisons in reality? It gives the impression that the 'Arabs' are killing the 'Blacks' because they are 'Black' and that the socalled 'Arabs' are rascists, and therefore genocide is taking place. This 'loose' use of terminology is tendentious. It's a form of spin. You, Don, or I, wouldn't be able to see the difference between the main ethnic groups in Sudan.

The situation in Sudan is more complex than we learn from most Western media. The 'problem' with Sudan is not the killing. In the Congo somewhere around two to three million people have been killed during the last five or six years, and we hear very little about this far bigger civil war. The 'problem' with Sudan is their oil, they may have a lot of it, the Chinese are there and we are not, and it's country with a Muslim regime which is anti-western.

I know this sounds cynical and sceptical. I think given the documented history of Western 'humanitarian interventions' we should be very sceptical of everything we hear about foreign countries who've got a bit of oil and who aren't in our pockets. Just start from the premise that most of what one hears is over-simplified and grossly distorted propaganda. Then one can very slowly let oneself be convinced by cogent arguments and documentation. I think cynicism and scepticism are reasonable attitudes to adopt. Lying, double-standards, and hypocracy are about par for the course in our part of the world.

No, I actually said what I meant to say. The following is just an outline. I don't think it's necessary to go into enormous detail about Sudan and it's history, problems and ethnic and social complexity, but I'm going to give an outline, so please forgive me if it's a bit superficial. If any of you are really interested, go and read some stuff about Sudan!

First, I am not denying that violence, ethinic strife, something close to civil war and massacres have occured in and are occuring in Sudan. It's the scale and nature of the violence that concerns me. I don't believe there is strong evidence of 'genocide' in Sudan.

I know what the word 'genocide' means. What concerns me, is that it's being misused here, and I don't believe this helps the situation at all. I think we in the West increasingly misuse the word to bran regimes we do not approve of as 'outlaws.' I remember before we started bombing Serbia and Kosovo, I heard the word used a lot to debcribe the fighting. Supposedly, hundreds of thousands of Albanians were 'missing' presumed dead, and the Serbs were accused of genocide, and their soldiers were Nazis and Milosovic was this year's Hitler. This was nearly all propaganda used to justify bombing Serbia. This pattern repeats itself over and over again in relation to our enemies. There was no 'genocide' in Kosovo. This has been documented. There were no massacres. More people were killed in Serbia by the NATO bombing campaign than in Kosovo. It was the whole WMD story all over again. I know this is a controversial area, as 'history' has already been established, but that doesn't make it 'true.'

Saddam was also called Hitler and Iraq was supposed to be full of mass graves, like the weapons of mass detruction, they were never actually found. Sure one found what appeared to be war graves with dead Iranian soldiers, but not the mass graves we were told about. It was war propaganda.

I'll give rough definition of the term 'genocide.' The systematic and centrally co-ordinated, racial motivated, attempt by one ethnic group to irradicate, wipe out, or actually exterminate another ethnic group. Thankfully, this doesn't actually happen very often.

Even the mass killings in Rwanda, may not really be definable as 'genocide' because it's debatable whether these ethnic differences really have a proper foundation in Rwanda. Supposedly during the colonial period the Belgians casually devided people into two groups, based on their relative heights!

I'm not sure how much I really want to get into this kind of argument about what's happening in Sudan and whether or not 'genocide' is actually taking place or not. I think what's happening there is bad enough. I just don't think it qulifies as 'genocide.' Why can't we keep the word genocide for genocide. I think the word loses value if we use it to describe ethnic violence which isn't really genocide. If we accept this broad definition of 'genocide' then I think one can argue with equal force that the United States has been guilty of 'genocide' in Iraq, indeed some people do argue this and forcefully.

What you write about 'Arabs killing Blacks' is also very problematic in relation to Sudan. But it serves another purpose entirely. I'm not really sure if your aware of this though. Maybe your just pissed at me for some reason?

I have real problems with this whole 'race' question. I think it's a very dangerous and questionable and controversial area. For example, 'everyone' in Sudan is 'Black'. There is only one 'racial group in Sudan and their all 'Black'. The term 'Arab' is also interesting. Are there really 'Arabs' in Sudan? There are Muslims who are 'Black' and 'Blacks' who are Christians and 'Blacks' who worship nature, so what? How relevant are these social divisons in reality? It gives the impression that the 'Arabs' are killing the 'Blacks' because they are 'Black' and that the socalled 'Arabs' are rascists, and therefore genocide is taking place. This 'loose' use of terminology is tendentious. It's a form of spin. You, Don, or I, wouldn't be able to see the difference between the main ethnic groups in Sudan.

The situation in Sudan is more complex than we learn from most Western media. The 'problem' with Sudan is not the killing. In the Congo somewhere around two to three million people have been killed during the last five or six years, and we hear very little about this far bigger civil war. The 'problem' with Sudan is their oil, they may have a lot of it, the Chinese are there and we are not, and it's country with a Muslim regime which is anti-western.

I know this sounds cynical and sceptical. I think given the documented history of Western 'humanitarian interventions' we should be very sceptical of everything we hear about foreign countries who've got a bit of oil and who aren't in our pockets. Just start from the premise that most of what one hears is over-simplified and grossly distorted propaganda. Then one can very slowly let oneself be convinced by cogent arguments and documentation. I think cynicism and scepticism are reasonable attitudes to adopt. Lying, double-standards, and hypocracy are about par for the course in our part of the world.

But back to genocide:
Article II of the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide states the following:
1)    In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
(a)    killing members of the group;
(b)    causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c)    deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d)    imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e)    forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

When a government targets people, not for what they have done, but because of who they are, it viloates international law.  Under the current circumstances, what is occuring in Darfur is genocide.

I don't have anything against what you wrote about Sudan. However, I do think that we have to be careful about using very emotive words like 'genocide.' I think it does matter that we use important words properly, or at the very least consider how we use them, what are our motives, who exactly uses certain words to describe the actions of others, often people we are in conflict with.

The essence of propaganda is to bypass our critical senses and appeal to our emotions. Often our emotions are 'irrational' and 'illogical' and that's what makes them dangerous in many situations.

Here on TOD when oil executives spout-off about how much oil is left we are sceptical and critical, and rightly so. When we look at a graph or numbers we are a very precise and look at everything in detail. I just think we need to use these same critical faculties in relation to everything else connected with countries who have oil.

I think how we use words is important. Language can hide as much as it can reveal. Language can illuminate and mystify. I can think of one example I was thinking of today. It's very contoversial, but illustrative of how different people use words to suit their purposes.

President Bush and Condi Rice and others in the administration deny that the United States uses torture on terrorist suspects. They not only deny it, they say it is wrong to use torture, America doesn't torture, they say. Now this sounds fine and can be understood by anyone, until one begins to look at how precisely these people define the concept of torture. Here the problems start. It appears they define torture very narrowly indeed. A sadistic guard who enjoys inflicting pain and boils someone in oil or puts them on the rack, is involved in torture. This kind of 'classic torture' down in the old-fashioned torture chamber, really seems to be how they define torture. It's a pretty narrow definition and there has to be intent, or the desire to inflict pain, for its own sake too.

Outside this narrow, clinical definition of Un-American torture, there exists another world. Here everything else one does to a prisoner both physically and mentally, is not defined as 'real torture' and is therefore permisable, lawful and necessary, in the fight against terrror. In this dark, hidden, world, one can break bones, starve people, smash hands, burn them with cigarettes, strangle them, beat them with iron bars and rifle butts, set dogs on them, drown them alive, and kick and beat prisoners to death, almost as sport, but none of this falls within the Bush administration,s deliberately narrow definition of 'torture'. It's truly amazing to think how much time the present administration has spent writing memos and papers dealing in incredible detail with something which isn't supposed to be happening! This is why words and what they mean are important. Otherwise words begin to lose all meaning and reality is turned into something else, it becomes 'unreal.' And beastial torture doesn't really happen, and Americans don't do it, and anyway we don't like the word 'torture' we prefer instead to call it 'intrusive human information retrieval techniques.'

If the regime in Sudan is guilty of genocide, then I believe one could argue that the Bush and Clinton administrations are equally guilty of 'genocide' in Iraq. Surely we there can't be one law for 'them' and another for 'us'? Let's agree on an independent, international investigation into the 'genocide' in Iraq and Sudan. Let Sweden or Switerland conduct the investigation and have the power to question all those involved.