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HMMMM- Sounds Familiar- Another Oil Country!!!!

A

Anonymous

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Oil firms continue to pump support

October 01, 2007
BANGKOK: Despite global outrage over Burma's bloody crackdown on dissent, multinational firms are still vying for the country's rich natural resources, throwing an economic lifeline to the military regime.

Last week, Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was in Burma's capital, Rangoon, for the signing of contracts between state-controlled ONGC Videsh Ltd and Burma's military rulers to explore three offshore blocks.

Companies from China, South Korea, Thailand and elsewhere are also looking to exploit the energy resources of the Southeast Asian country.

US energy giant Chevron, French oil group Total and China's top oil producer, China National Petroleum Corporation, are among companies giving much-needed income to Burma, defying activists' calls to pull out.

France's Total SA and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas, pump gas from fields off Burma's coast through a pipeline to Thailand, which takes 90per cent of Burma's gas output, according to Thailand's PTT Exploration & Production Plc.

But investing in Burma has brought accusations that petroleum corporations offer economic support to the country's repressive junta, and in some cases are complicit in human rights abuses.

"They are funding the dictatorship," said Marco Simons, US legal director at EarthRights International, an environmental and human rights group with offices in Thailand and Washington. "The oil and gas companies have been one of the major industries keeping the regime inpower."

Debbie Stothard, a co-ordinator of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, a regional pro-democracy body, said: "All these profits go to theregime.

"These companies don't care about human rights and what is going on in Yangon (Rangoon)."

full story:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22508771-25837,00.html
 
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