Output issues loom as Opec meets

Iran is leading the calls from those nations demanding an output cut

The United Arab Emirates'(UAE) delegation to Tuesday’s Opec oil meeting says the cartel will continue to keep the world “well supplied”.

Minister of Energy Mohammed Bin Dhaen Al-Hamli also said crude stockpiles in major oil consuming nations were within recent average levels.

It came as Iran led calls for Opec to cut output.

Analysts say the cartel may scale back production as prices have fallen from $147 a barrel in July to about $107.

Light, sweet crude rose 53 cents to $106.67 during trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday.

‘Market requirements’

The price hit a five-month low just above $105 on Friday, under pressure from economic weakness and lower fuel consumption.

However the Kuwaiti oil minister, Mohammad Olaim, backed the views of the UEA’s delegate Al-Hamli.

“We don’t think there is a requirement to decrease production,” he said before leaving for the meeting in Vienna.

“If the market requires anything to do, we will.”

Al-Hamli added in his remarks that decisions on production levels are based on whether the market is well supplied.

He also said the recent fall in prices showed that the earlier steep rise in prices from $100 a barrel at the turn of the year was “too high, too fast”.

But Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on Monday that there was “oversupply” as he arrived for the 13-nation conference.

Increased output

On Sunday, Libya also called for a reduction in Opec output. Opec is currently thought to be producing about a million barrels per day (bpd) more than its official ceiling of 29.67 million bpd.

In May and June Saudi Arabia agreed to increase production by 500,000 bpd to help calm markets.

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi has yet to state an opinion on output and prices ahead of the meeting.

Opec produces about 40% of world crude. In July, the exporters’ group said world demand for oil will grow by 50% between now and 2030 as people in developing countries drive more cars.

US troops ‘to quit Iraq by 2011’

US troops’ immunity from Iraqi law has been a controversial issue

US combat troops could leave Iraq by 2011 under the terms of a deal awaiting approval by Iraq’s parliament and presidency, an Iraqi official has said.

The draft security agreement also calls for US forces to withdraw from all Iraqi urban areas by June 2009.

The 27-point agreement reportedly includes a compromise allowing US soldiers some immunity under Iraqi law.

The final date when US troops leave will depend largely on security.

The decision will be taken by a joint committee, which could reduce or extend the amount of time US troops spend in the country.

Mohammed al-Haj Hammoud, the top Iraqi official negotiating with the US on the status of US forces in Iraq, said a deal had been agreed that envisaged all US combat troops leaving Iraq by 2011.

Some US troops could remain beyond 2011 “to train Iraqi security forces”, the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.

“The combat troops will withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 2009,” Mr Hammoud said.

“Both the parties have agreed on this… The negotiators’ job is done. Now it is up to the leaders.”

Handover aim

A deal also appears to have been struck on the controversial issue of granting US troops immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law.

Mr Hammoud said the deal allowed US troops to remain immune from prosecution on military bases and while on operation.

All other cases would be considered by a joint judicial committee.

The draft deal still needs to be approved by the Iraqi Presidential Council, and critically, by the parliament.

The deal marks the end of 10 months of difficult negotiations.

Speaking on a visit to Baghdad on Thursday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the final deal would be in line with Iraqi laws and sovereignty.

Ms Rice said the aim remained to hand over responsibility for security to Iraqi forces.

There are currently around 147,000 US troops in Iraq.

Nigerian advises against 86 wives

Mr Bello Abubakar says he does not go and find women, they come to him

Nigerian Mohammed Bello Abubakar, 84, has advised other men not to follow his example and marry 86 women.

The former teacher and Muslim preacher, who lives in Niger State with his wives and at least 170 children, says he is able to cope only with the help of God.

“A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them,” he told the BBC.

He says his wives have sought him out because of his reputation as a healer.

“I don’t go looking for them, they come to me. I will consider the fact that God has asked me to do it and I will just marry them.”

But such claims have alienated the Islamic authorities in Nigeria, who have branded his family a cult.

When you marry a man with 86 wives you know he knows how to look after them Wife Ganiat Bello Abubakar

Most Muslim scholars agree that a man is allowed to have four wives, as long as he can treat them equally.

But Mr Bello Abubakar says there is no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives.

“To my understanding the Koran does not place a limit and it is up to what your own power, your own endowment and ability allows,” he says.

“God did not say what the punishment should be for a man who has more than four wives, but he was specific about the punishment for fornication and adultery.”

‘Order from God’

As Mr Bello Abubakar emerged from his compound to speak to the BBC, his wives and children broke out into a praise song.

Some of Mr Bello Abubakar’s wives are younger than some of his children

Most of his wives are less than a quarter of his age – and many are younger than some of his own children.

The wives the BBC spoke to say they met Mr Bello Abubakar when they went to him to seek help for various illnesses, which they say he cured.

“As soon as I met him the headache was gone,” says Sharifat Bello Abubakar, who was 25 at the time and Mr Bello Abubakar 74.

“God told me it was time to be his wife. Praise be to God I am his wife now.”

Ganiat Mohammed Bello has been married to the man everyone calls “Baba” for 20 years.

When she was in secondary school her mother took her for a consultation with Mr Bello Abubakar and he proposed afterwards.

“I said I couldn’t marry an older man, but he said it was directly an order from God,” she says.

She married another man but they divorced and she returned to Mr Bello Abubakar.

“I am now the happiest woman on earth. When you marry a man with 86 wives you know he knows how to look after them,” she said.

No work

Mr Bello Abubakar and his wives do not work and he has no visible means of supporting such a large family.

Many of the wives live three to a room, some have seven children

He refuses to say how he makes enough money to pay for the huge cost of feeding and clothing so many people.

Every mealtime they cook three 12kg bags of rice which all adds up to $915 (£457) every day.

“It’s all from God,” he says.

Other residents of Bida, the village where he lives in the northern Nigerian state, say they do not know how he supports the family.

According to one of his wives, Mr Bello Abubakar sometimes asks his children to go and beg for 200 naira ($1.69, £0.87), which if they all did so would bring in about $290 (£149).

Most of his wives live in a squalid, unfinished house in Bida; others live in his house in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.

He refuses to allow any of his family or other devotees to take medicine and says he does not believe that malaria exists.

They were sick and we told God and God said their time has come Wife Hafsat Bello Abubakar

“As you sit here if you have any illness I can see it and just remove it,” he says.

But not everyone can be cured and one of his wives, Hafsat Bello Mohammed, says two of her children have died.

“They were sick and we told God and God said their time has come.”

She says that most of the wives see Mr Bello Abubakar as next in line from the Prophet Muhammad.

Indeed, he claims the Prophet Muhammad speaks to him personally and gives detailed descriptions of his experiences.

It is a serious claim for a Muslim to make.

“This is heresy, he is a heretic,” says Ustaz Abubakar Siddique, an imam of Abuja’s Central Mosque.