Jimmy Pan

Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power…

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It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology…

The companies provided free advice and training to the Iraqis. This relationship with the ministry, said company officials and an American diplomat, was a reason the contracts were not opened to competitive bidding.

A total of 46 companies, including the leading oil companies of China, India and Russia, had memorandums of understanding with the Oil Ministry, yet were not awarded contracts….

This same thing happened with British American Tobacco in the former Soviet Union. BAT offered up leaf production and processing advice in an effort to demonstrate good faith to the government. As soon as conditions were ripe though, BAT started developing their own tobacco production centers and buying out existing ones. They aided in “general transit” (smuggling) in order to help tobacco cross borders duty free, thus avoiding paying taxes to the government. Same shit.

Dinh might appreciate this one.

Which of the following assumptions is required for the statements to be true:

SMBC

Hi all, I haven’t been writing much lately, because LSATs are coming up June 15, as well as the usual slew of grading, writing, etc. It’s actually kind of fun to study for them, as opposed to word crunching for the GREs. I feel like LSATs are the test I was born to take.

Here are my goals for the next few weeks:

• Apply for passport - CHECK this morning!
• Catch up on international blogs RSS
• Finish grading, write up practicum report, finish tobacco report
• Do stellar presentation at the MPH symposium
• Get 177+ on LSATs
• Apply to some global health jobs that make my heart thump
• Read ‘the 10 most underreported humanitarian stories of 2007‘ and maybe the archives

There are a million good things to say about Carol Shu. I know most of the readers of this site already know how awesome she is. Last night, however, at the Beirut concert (an awesome band), Carol (an awesome person) sent me a 7 minute voicemail of them playing one of their best songs (an awesome thing to do). I wish I could have been there with you, but it really cheered me up. It’s one of those Carol things.

Happy Birthday Carol Shu!

PS. If any social responsible fashion companies want a exquisitely creative, big hearted, good-taste-in-music having person to join their group, let me know, I know just the person for you.