Something is happening in the oil industry. The oil companies are under fire everywhere! Whether it is for environmental degradation in Nigeria's Niger Delta, or price gouging in the United States, or incurring re-nationalisation wrath in Latin America, the "culprit" is the same: OIL COMPANIES!

For decades, activists have complained and no-one listened. Now that oil prices are pinching their pockets, everyone is threatening! About time.

Question: Can't the oil companies see that the game is up?

Question: Don't they know the meaning of remission, or do they adamantly seek retribution?

Question: Why are they so "manipulative", using politicians and bureaucrats around the world??

Question: Why imperil the Planet and its Peoples for the benefit of mere shareholders?

Question: Will these hitherto indifferent shareholders now rise up for Global Equity? Or....

I have never really understood the sheer arrogance and insensitivity of the oil companies and their backers. Many parliaments and presidents in their home countries never listened to crusaders before now. Some, especially in the US, are only posturing - largely because of their mid-term elections! How can it be more important to worry about gasoline prices than the cost to human lives of the trecherous exploration-exploitation-corruption by these transnationls in the oil fields, especially in the Third World???

This is the time for the most comprehensive review, and intervention, by all concerned. If not, the stage has been set for nationalisation/re-nationalisation of these businesses in a strident band-wagon self-determination reaction, following the emerging trend in Latin American. These Western companies are doing their home countries grave disservice with their current bad practices. In due course, the oil-locales will most certainly find the right models in Chinese and Indian companies - eroding one more frontier of Western domination. It is a fair forecast, isn't it?

My Advice: Shell and Cheveron should be called to order in Nigeria's Niger Delta. No-one is benefiting from their gross insensitivity to the plights of the oil-bearing zones. No excuses are acceptable. None.