Ctrl.Alt.Shift’s Richard Lemmer scopes across this week’s headlines from around the world: Pzifer uses dirty tricks in Nigeria, Shell accused of atrocities, student protests in UK and Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo misses Nobel ceremony.

US Company Used Dirty Tricks In Nigeria

Wikileaks has revealed that Pfizer, a billion dollar US drug company, hired investigators to find evidence of corruption on the former Nigerian Attorney General, to persuade him to drop legal action against the company.

Last year, Pfizer came to a £47 million settlement with Nigeria after the country sued the company for harming children during a clinical trial in 1996. The leaked cable reveals a meeting between Pfizer’s country manager, Enrico Liggeri, and US officials. Liggeri suggested that the company did not want to pay the settlement and was leaking allegations to the media that Michael Aondoakaa, Nigeria’s former Attorney General, was corrupt.

“The team were shocked that Pfizer continued the so-called scientific work in the middle of hell.”

Pfizer’s clinical trial, which took place in the middle of a widespread meningitis epidemic, killed 11 children. Five children died from a drug that would later be banned in the EU and used only in emergencies in the US.

Jean Herve Bradol, former president of Medecins sans Frontieres, told the Guardian, “it was not a time for a drug trial at all… the team were shocked that Pfizer continued the so-called scientific work in the middle of hell.”

Nigeria’s meningitis epidemic in 1996 affected over 100,000 people and killed more than 10,000. 

Find out more on: 
The Guardian website
The BBC website
Aljazeera's website
 

Activists Demand Prosecution Of Shell

Environmental Rights Action (ERA) and Friends of the Earth Nigeria (FOEN), two Nigerian environmental activist groups, have demanded the prosecution of Shell, the USA oil company, for ecological devastation, human rights violations and other atrocities.

This follows Wikileaks revelation of the extent of Shell’s power in Nigeria. A leaked cable reveals that Shell’s vice president, Ann Pickard, admitted to a US envoy to Nigeria that Shell had “access to everything that is being done” in certain ministries due to infiltration by the company.

Despite generating billions of dollars in oil revenues, more than 70% of Nigeria’s population live below the poverty line

ERA/FOEN said the company had become “a pseudo-political organisation bent on taking political power and undermining our national interest, national security and our sovereignty… no wonder Shell has been able to evade justice for ecological devastation, complicity in cases of human rights violation and other atrocities linked to its operations.”

Shell denies the allegations.

Find out more:
The Telegraph website
 

Students Protest Against Tuition Fees

Thousands of students once again took to the streets in the UK to protest the government’s proposed higher education reforms.

More than 20,000 students protested in London as the government voted in favour of reforms that will allow universities to charge up to £9,000 a year for courses - triple the current amount. More than 40 students were injured in the riots, as well six police officers. Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, required emergency brain surgery after he was struck by police.

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla found their royal car attacked as it travelled through the protesting students.

Colleges and sixth forms across the country are also planning demonstrations against the removal of Education Maintenance Allowance.

Nikki Crowley, a protester whose children are studying at university, told the BBC, “I was marching as a public sector worker under threat of redundancy. The two issues go hand in hand. The students do not stand alone. This affects everyone in society. I saw an 80-year-old grandfather with a sign saying that his grandchildren deserved an education.”

Find out more:
Urban 75 blog's photogallery

Video from the Guardian:

Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo Not Present To Receive Nobel Prize

At this year’s Nobel Prize Ceremony, an empty chair represented this year’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner, jailed Liu Xiaobo. Liu.

The artist and human rights campaigner is serving an 11-year prison sentence for co-authoring pro-democracy Charter 08. He was nominated for his “long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”.

Ahead of the ceremony, the UN had reported that China detained at least 20 activists, and there were reports of 120 cases of house arrests, travel restrictions and forced relocations. At the ceremony, Nobel Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland pointed out that Articles 35 and 41 of China’s constitution allows citizens “freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, as well as the right to criticise and make suggestions regarding any state organ or functionary.”

Words: Richard Lemmer 
Photo: Michael Aondoakaa by Flickr user Manifesto360