Lagos, Nigeria
Striking Nigerian oil workers have been holding nearly 100 foreign oil workers, including 21 Americans, hostage for more than 10 days, the Texas-based drilling company Transocean said this week. The strikers are holding their captives on four offshore oil rigs that drill for the oil multinationals Royal/Dutch Shell and TotalFinaElf. They are protesting a decision by Transocean to use boats instead of helicopters to ferry them from the rigs, about 25 miles offshore, to the mainland. Some of the hostages have been able to e-mail their families and their labor unions. One of them reported that the captors had threatened to blow up the rigs if anyone tried to storm them, a union official said.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
'From his election as pope in 2013, Francis sought to reform'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Israel blames 'failures' for killing of medicsspeed read 14 Gaza medics and 1 U.N. employee were killed by IDF special forces
-
Hegseth reportedly shared war plans in 2nd group textSpeed Read The defense secretary sent information about an attack in Yemen to a Signal group chat that included his wife and brother
