Maybe she was too used to Ze Autobahn?

It appears that life is imitating art yet again, only in a much less violent and more sexy-time fashion. From DailyMail:

A uniformed police officer was caught on CCTV having sex with a woman on the hood of a car.

The bizarre scene, which was witnessed by a nearby chihuahua, was filmed by a hidden camera set up by New Mexico police to catch vandalism at a nearby property.

Who wants a mustache ride?

This Year's Pigeongate

This past Friday in Dallas KoL experienced another meltdown on stage. Initial complaints from the band indicated that Caleb was suffering from some health problems, but later statements indicate that the story is probably a little bigger than that. The band has since cancelled the rest of their U.S. tour.

Naturally, several fans shot video of Caleb's performance and have uploaded them on YouTube. Almost immediately thereafter, KoL management has removed several of those videos based on copyright claims. So far, this one remains.

More from Techdirt.

What does Marsellus Wallace look like?!

From Daily Mail:

Viktor Jasinski, 32, admitted to police that he had gone to the salon in Meshchovsk, Russia, with the intention of robbing it.

But the tables were turned dramatically when he found himself overcome by owner Olga Zajac, 28, who happened to be a black belt in karate. She allegedly floored the would-be robber with a single kick.

Then, in a scene reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, police say Zajac dragged the semi-conscious Jasinski to a back room of the salon and tied him up with a hair dryer cable.

She allegedly stripped him naked and, for the next three days, used him as a sex slave to 'teach him a lesson' - force feeding him Viagra to keep the lesson going.

NSFW, but that shouldn't stop anybody

The FTC aren't the only ones getting busted porn-ing things on the job. Recently, an Australian banker was caught peeking at near nude pics of Miranda Kerr while at work on national TV. The video has become an instant hit on YouTube:

Not be a broken record or anything, just saying. It happens to everybody.

Rolling Stone - 100 Best Albums of the Decade

As the 00's head to a close, Rolling Stone takes a look at the past decade and attempts to identify the "most important music" as chosen by artists, critics and industry insiders. The number one most important album of the decade?

Other notable winners include:

3. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

4. Jay-Z - The Blueprint (haters)

8. Bob Dylan - Modern Times

11. Bob Dylan - Love and Theft

15. Bruce Springsteen - The Rising

17. Beck - Sea Change

18. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

19. Bruce Springsteen - Magic

27. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (their shows still suck)

29. Sigur Ros - Ageatis Byrjun

30. Radiohead - In Rainbows

31. My Morning Jacket - Z

33. Daft Punk - Discovery (as performed by Kanye West)

38. Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker

39. Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak

40. Elliot Smith - Figure 8

47. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (not bad for a debut album)

48. TV On the Radio - Dear Science

50. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning (don't hate, Paul)

53. Kings of Leon - Only By the Night

55. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (still not groundbreaking)

56. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

57. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism

62. Johnny Cash - American III: Solitary Man

64. Gillian Welch - Time the Revelator

66. Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now

71. Bright Eyes - Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep your Ear to the Ground (maybe hate a little bit)

75. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

76. Sigur Ros - ()

77. Yo La Tango - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

78. Sufjan Stevens - Come On, Feel the Illinoise

80. Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood

81. Ryan Adams - Gold

83. The Black Keys - Attack and Release

87. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere (for Scott)

89. Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

92. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (again, not bad for a debut album)

93. Johnny Cash - Unearthed

97. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

98. TV On the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

100. Leonard Cohen - 10 New Songs

Also, bands like U2 and Coldplay were way over represented. And what the fuck happened to Phish? And I know that Sigur Ros was represented, but what about their critically acclaimed best album ever, Takk?

Read the feature for more information, including a take on each album to make the top 100.

No cigar.

You guys remember when all those kids were getting sued because of stuff they downloaded from networks like Napster? One of the kids ended up pushing back with the help of a supposedly crack legal team, including Charles Nesson from Harvard Law. After several missteps from the defense, the Massachusetts District Court finally issued an opinion in favor the of Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA, p/k/a The Dark Side). However, the opinion appears to offer some advice to those file sharers looking forward to their bite at the Apple (ha!). One of those "Good News, Bad News" moments for Tenenbaum, I'm sure.

From Sony BMG Music Entertainment et. al. v. Tenenbaum:

"As it made clear previously, the Court was prepared to consider a more expansive fair use argument than other courts have credited -- perhaps one supported by facts specific to this individual and this unique period of rapid technological change. For example, file sharing for the purposes of sampling music prior to purchase or space-shifting to store purchased music more efficiently might offer a compelling case for fair use. Likewise, a defendant who used the new file-sharing networks in the technological interregnum before digital media could be purchased legally, but who later shifted to paid outlets, might also be able to rely on the defense."

Tenenbaum's defense would have none of that and instead went for the more radical, "Aw, come on. Come on! It's not like he was selling it or anything!" defense.

So, good news for folks in the future (but still within that "unique period"). Bad news for Tenenbaum. Meltdown for Tenenbaum.

Heavy drinking can cut risk of heart disease, says study

"Drinking a bottle of wine a day, or half a dozen beers, cuts the risk of heart disease by more than half in men, an extraordinary study reports."

My attention grabbed, I kept reading...

"Moderate drinkers, consuming up to a couple of glasses of wine a day or a couple of pints of ordinary bitter, had a 54 per cent lower risk.

The surprise was that heavy drinkers consuming up to a bottle of wine or six pints of ordinary bitter had a similar 50 per cent reduction in risk of a heart attack to moderate drinkers."

Read the rest at NZ Herald.

Here's to healthy hearts on Thanksgiving!

What a cool/douchey idea!

Man makes over $80k this year by wearing tee shirts. And posting pics of himself wearing tee shirts.


And posting movies of himself wearing tee shirts.

And blogging about himself wearing tee shirts. And tweeting about it. And facebooking it. What a douche. What a damned smart douche.

UPDATE: Barbie Girl

The power of advertising.

If you can't beat 'em, exploit 'em. Full story at NYT Media Decoder.

In somewhat related news, BMI has dropped its lawsuit against Grooveshark.

Man Fatally Shoots Self While Teaching Girlfriend Lesson on Gun Safety

The RFT provides the latest installment of our ongoing Irony Series, continuously trying to accurately identify that which is ironic (and that which isn't). I submit to you The Curious Case of Mr. Looney.

"According to witnesses, Looney was going to take his girlfriend to the shooting range the next day, but insisted on firearm safety the day prior."

What Children Think of The Beatles

From the mouths of babes...

There’s one last thing to find out: what these children think about the Beatles after such extended exposure to them. Unfortunately, the panel’s powers of speech have been exhausted. The most I can get out of them is that The Beatles are “very good”. But the following day Otto’s friend Willard, an articulate nine-year-old, comes over. I play Norwegian Wood, A Day in the Life, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and Helter Skelter to the boys. After careful consideration, Willard explains the Beatles’ place in society today.

“Now it’s all about the pop and the urban,” he tells me. “This is the time for Lady Gaga and Beyoncé. The age of rock has gone, but you can still put on Helter Skelter for the old geezers and enjoy it. Actually, The Beatles’ songs are much better than the modern songs.”

“The Beatles are great,” concludes Otto, with the conviction of someone who knows about these things. “The modern songs are a pile of dog c**p.”

Pearl Jam - The Fixer

Reuters writes of the new Pearl Jam:

NEW YORK (Billboard) - "Super poppy." "Just plain fun." "Surprisingly optimistic." "Catchy as hell." These are not phrases often used to describe Pearl Jam, the 30 million-selling purveyor of angst-ridden guitar rock now approaching its 19th year of existence.

And yet these are the words being used on blogs to describe "The Fixer," the first song from the Seattle rock band's ninth album, "Backspacer."

Yea? Is Pearl Jam going the way of MMJ? Have they caught the "pop bug?"

Dylan To Voice GPS System

Jokes abound.

Pretty soon, with the help of the one and only Bob Dylan, you can find your direction home. No longer a complete unknown, no longer a rolling stone. You can find a dog that'll buy you tobacco and clean your bath. You can find a place to bathe your bird. But more than likely, you'll find yourself lost. Telegraph writes:

Motorists who follow Dylan’s directions, however, may take some time to reach their destination. “I think it would be good if you are looking for directions and you heard my voice saying something like, ‘Left at the next street.... No, right... You know what? Just go straight." He added: "I probably shouldn’t do it because whichever way I go, I always end up at one place - Lonely Avenue.”

Phish's new album "Joy" available for presale

Well no shit, Sherlock. We've only known about that since they went ahead and announced in on their website like 3 weeks ago. And even before that, when we were all spreading rumors about it. What a newbie. Pre-order the disc here.

Hey newbie, I'll bet you didn't even know that you could check out two of their new tracks, available for full streaming at their MySpace and Facebook sites, huh?

World's first cocaine bar

The world's first cocaine bar Route 36 has turned La Paz, Bolivia into a hotspot for drug tourism, tempting backpackers from all over the world


"Tonight we have two types of cocaine; normal for 100 Bolivianos a gram, and strong cocaine for 150 [Bolivianos] a gram." The waiter has just finished taking our drink order of two rum-and-Cokes here in La Paz, Bolivia, and as everybody in this bar knows, he is now offering the main course. The bottled water is on the house.

The waiter arrives at the table, lowers the tray and places an empty black CD case in the middle of the table. Next to the CD case are two straws and two little black packets. He is so casual he might as well be delivering a sandwich and fries. And he has seen it all. "We had some Australians; they stayed here for four days. They would take turns sleeping and the only time they left was to go to the ATM," says Roberto, who has worked at Route 36 (in its various locations) for the last six months. Behind the bar, he goes back to casually slicing straws into neat 8cm lengths.

La Paz, Bolivia, at 3,900m above sea level – an altitude where even two flights of stairs makes your heart race like a hummingbird – is home to the most celebrated bar in all of South America: Route 36, the world's first cocaine lounge. I sit back to take in the scene – table after table of chatty young backpackers, many of whom are taking a gap year, awaiting a new job or simply escaping the northern hemisphere for the delights of South America, which, for many it seems, include cocaine.

"Since they are an after-hours club and serve cocaine the neighbours tend to complain pretty fast. So they move all the time. Maybe if they are lucky they last three months in the same place, but often it is just two weeks. Route 36 is a movable feast," says a Bolivian newspaper editor who asked not to be named. "One day it is in one zone and then it pops up in another area. Certainly it is the most famous among the backpacker crowd but there are several other places that are offering cocaine as well. Because Route 36 changes addresses so much there is a lot of confusion about how many cocaine bars are out there."

This new trend of 'cocaine tourism' can be put down to a combination of Bolivia's notoriously corrupt public officials, the chaotic "anything goes" attitude of La Paz, and the national example of President Evo Morales, himself a coca grower. (Coca is the leaf, and cocaine is the highly manufactured and refined powder.) Morales has diligently fought for the rights of coca growers and tossed the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) out of Bolivia. While he has said he will crack down on cocaine production, he appears to be swimming against the current. In early July, the largest ever cocaine factory was discovered in eastern Bolivia. Capable of producing 100kg a day, the lab was run by Colombians and provided the latest evidence that Bolivia is now home to sophisticated cocaine laboratories. The lab was the fourth large facility to be found in Bolivia this year.

Nowhere in South America is cocaine production growing faster than Bolivia. Reports by the UN show that in Colombia, production dropped 28% last year [2008], while in Bolivia it rose nearly 10%. "There is more interest and and investment in purifying coca paste here and exporting it, rather than sending it to Colombia for purification," Oscar Nina, Bolivia's top anti-drug official, said recently.

As the US and Colombian military put pressure on drug traffickers, operations are migrating into nearby countries, especially Bolivia, where the turf for illegal operations is as fertile as the valleys where the locals have grown coca for the last five centuries. Stopping cocaine tourism in La Paz could be as difficult as keeping Americans from drinking during prohibition.

Down in Route 36's main room, the scene is chilled. A half-hearted disco ball sporadically bathes the room in red and green light. Each table has candles and a stash of bottled water, plus whatever mixers one cares to add to your drink. In the corner, a pile of board games includes chess, backgammon, and Jenga, the game in which a steady hand pulls out bricks from a tower of blocks until the whole pile collapses. If it weren't for the heads bobbing down like birds scouring the seashore for food, you would never know that huge amounts of cocaine were being casually ingested. There's a lot of mingling from table to table. Everyone here has stories – the latest adventures from Ecuador, the best bus to Peru – and even the most wired "why-won't-he-shut-up?" traveller is given a generous welcome before being sent back to his table, where he can repeat those stories another 10 times.

"Everyone knows about this place," says Jonas, a backpacker who arrived two days earlier. "My mate came to Bolivia last year and he said, 'Route 36 is the best lounge in all of South America.'" It is certainly the most bizarre and brazen. Though cocaine is illegal in Bolivia, Route 36 is fast becoming an essential stop for thousands of tourists who come here every year and happily sample the country's cocaine, which is famous for both its availability, price (around €15 a gram) and purity.

The scene here is peaceful; there seems no fear that anyone will be caught. ("The owner has paid off all the right people," one waiter says with a smile.) A female backpacker from Newcastle slips on to one of the four couches arranged around the table. "We've brought some [cocaine] virgins here. This will be their first time, so we are just rubbing it on their lips. But they are lucky – you could never get such pure coke back home. In London you pay 50 quid for a gram that's been cut so much, all it does it make your lips numb and sends you to the bathroom."

Travellers' blogs also give the place a good writeup. "I travelled the world for nine months, and for sure La Paz was the craziest city and Route 36 the best bar of my entire trip," writes one, while another says, "Like to burn the candle at both ends? Well, here you can bloody well torch the whole candle."

And torch your brain as well. Cocaine, as everybody knows, is highly addictive, destructive and easy to abuse. The rationale for outlawing cocaine was to protect public health – but instead the now 40-year experiment in prohibition has done little to protect the lives of millions of users worldwide who will snort whatever white substance is placed before them. The billions in annual profits have corrupted governments worldwide, and La Paz, without intending it, seems to have mutated into the front line of this failed drug war.

Some Good News from YouTube

"Search and Delete," the traditional approach to the unauthorized upload of copyrighted material such as songs and video, has recently been substituted by a more practical monetizing approach. You can read the full story at Wired.com.

Basically, YouTube keeps a database of all of its music and video uploads, separating the audio and visual files. These files have something of a fingerprint which enables ContentID to identify duplicates in its database, even though duplicate files may be coded differently. When a duplicate is identified, like Chris Brown's "Forever" appearing in that stupid catchy wedding video...

...YouTube has the option to either remove the infringing material or divert some of the ad revenue generated by the infringing material to the copyright holder. In the event that YouTube diverts a portion of the ad revenue to the copyright holder, it may also provide links on the video to purchase copyrighted material from services like Amazon or iTunes. The option to delete or monetize is decided by information uploaded in those same databases from the copyright holders. Many major and independent labels have decided to monetize with YouTube using this technology. In this way, Chris Brown "doubled his fun" (f'in sell out).

In a way, it's good news for folks like you an me. Publishing videos with copyrighted tracks may not be such a liability anymore. Assuming such activity exposes you to suit (and isn't protected by fair use or transformative doctrines), you can avoid a lot of legal hassle this way. But you can't help but ask whether the pendulum has swung too far in favor of the copyright holder. I mean, Chris Brown's track had laid pretty dormant for about a year before its reappearance in JK' Wedding. After it's reappearance, it shot up to #4 on iTunes' and #3 on Amazon's best-selling mp3 lists.

And through no effort of his own.

In any case, the approach represents a practical appreciation on the part of larger scale music producers for the value that online service providers (ahem, and content providers) can provide. An appreciation not entirely new in American thought.

"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."

Thomas Jefferson, in Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 6, H.A. Washington, Ed.,1854, pp. 180-181.

Nightman cometh...

It’s Always Sunny Play The Beacon Theater! Crazy!
—by Patrick Slevin, August 5, 2009

Okay, it’s not exactly music news, but it’s news. The cast of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia will be performing their play, The Nightman Cometh (the subject of season 4’s finale) on Sept. 16 at the Beacon Theatre. The Beacon? I remember twiddling my thumbs nervously for a good few months wondering if they’d renew for a fourth season, and now they’re playing the Beacon?

No word yet as to whether they’ll be performing at a similarly sized room in Philadelphia for the more “authentic” experience, even though they film primarily in L.A. Would that they perform “The Gang Solves The Energy Crisis” as well. One can dream.

Tickets run from $39.50 – $59.50. beacontheatre.com. Read more for some crappy YouTube video of the live show.

Harvard Primatologist Says Joys of Barbecue Sparked Evolution

May have looked more like...

At least that's what Professor Richard Wrangham claims in his book Catching Fire.  In an interview with the folks at Bloomberg, Wrangham states:

You have these two big effects -- you get more energy out of your food, so humans could survive and reproduce faster. Cooking also made the food softer, which changed the activity budgets: It reduced chewing time enormously, so suddenly you have individuals who have several extra hours a day to reorganize their lives.

Initially, I resisted his second point. It's very clear that when anybody lights up a grill today, others in the area have to stand around it. They don't even have to talk. Beer helps.

Wrangham makes a few claims with regard to the several extra hours a day to reorganize. Specifically, the advent of cooking permitted more time to fool with tools, roam the land as well as...

Smaller guts (What's that Bill Dauterive?)

Obesity (Ahh, I hear ya.)

Patriarchy, and

Dangerous Behaviors

Obesity? Patriarchy? Dangerous behaviors? Are we really better off? I mean, Bonobos have it pretty good, and they don't cook at all. I'm sure Prometheus has something to say on the matter...

Oh, never mind. 

"Blood and Honour" is not "Blut und Ehre"

Recently, the German Federal Court of Justice overturned a lower court's decision to convict an unnamed defendant under a German statute prohibiting the display of Nazi symbols and slogans. The defendant was caught trying to transport a shipment of 100 t-shirts bearing the phrase "Blood and Honour," a direct translation of the German "Blut und Ehre," the motto of Hitler Youth. Factoring into the Court's decision to overturn the conviction was the fact that the t-shirts were in English and not in German.

"By translation into another language, the Nazi slogan, which is characterized not just by its meaning but also by the German language, is fundamentally transformed," it said.

The decision would appear to set a dangerous precedent for copyright owners, specifically musicians. I hope you remember Korean Boy singing "Tuts my Barreh." For words like "ice cream," the importation into another language and culture doesn't seem to be much of a problem. But for material protected by copyright or trademark, the situation gets sticky. The German Court's decision seems to say that by translating a phrase out of the forum court's language, the phrase is taken out of that forum's regulatory framework. In this case, the relevant regulatory framework apparently concerns hate speech associated with a country's lamentable political and military history.

The name of the defendant has not been released, which makes finding the text of the actual decision rather difficult. Any inference made with regards to international intellectual property regulation would be strictly hypothetical without any real bearing in actual case law. Without the text of the actual decision, I'm left spinning my head around the decision by myself. Which is fine by me. Head spinning is one of my favorite past times. My guess is that the mere fact of translation is insufficient to promote the type of restraint exercised by the German Court. Rather, "Blood and Honour" must have obtained a significance that is independent of the original Nazi promotional material prohibited by the German statute. I'll betcha the white power punk scene bore that independent significance.

In July of 1926, Hitler Jugend (or Hitler Youth) became the Nazi party's official youth organization in Germany. It appears that one objective of HJ was to foster membership and support for the Third Reich. Later, they were reformed to perform actual war duties during World War II.

The organization was disbanded by Allied forces after World War II. Though some of it's adult leadership were later tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity, its youth membership were never prosecuted. In fact, membership in the organization was compulsory after 1936. Many of its members resisted HJ's ideological indoctrination successfully and went on to live compassionate and charitably significant lives.

Unfortunately, the message of the Third Reich found fertile ground among other young recruits and later generations outside of post-war Germany. The group's motto, "Blut und Ehre" has since made several appearances in youth and young adult culture. After WWII, world powers competed for allegiance on the global economic, political and social stages during The Cold War. The youth of Europe reacted in a variety of ways, one of which was the resurgence of the Nazi ideology of self-preservation and the development of neo-nazi and white power hate groups. In 1985, the newly reformed British punk rock band Skrewdriver recorded "Blood and Honour," the lyrics of the title track appear as follows:

To dream of freedom in this world
Our banners flying proudly are unfurled
Even if we stand alone we must never hide
For in our hearts there is a sense of pride
Chorus:
For the blood and honor
For the blood and for the pride
For the blood and honor
We must never let our Europe be taken for a ride
We look with caution to the east
We can see the red flag of the beast
Countless millions have died at the Marxists' hands
We would fight and die to keep our land
(Repeat Chorus)
solo
(Repeat Chorus)
Marxists' greedy hands around our throats
Bankers buying up your lives and sitting back to gloat
We should fight to control our people's fate
Europe never was no puppet state

(Repeat Chorus) x3 

Later in 1986, Skrewdriver's frontman Ian Stuart Donaldson helped create a music promotions network for neo-nazi and white power punk bands under the same name, "Blood and Honour."  

With T Shirts to boot.

And it was for a shirt much like this one (well, 100 shirts to be precise) that our unnamed German defendant was originally convicted. For this reason, the Court's focus (or at least the focus of the press) on the fact of translation may be misleading. I believe the Court's restraint, it's decision to keep "Blood and Honour" out of the statutory framework prohibiting Nazi slogans and symbols was informed by Germany's own free speech jurisprudence. 

Freedom of speech is perceived as a fundamental right in most if not all liberal-democratic states. Government intrusion into that right is illegitimate if it's only purpose is to prohibit or preclude certain types of speech. Rather, such an intrusion needs an independently legitimate basis, like the preservation and promotion of a different set of fundamental rights such as those protecting personal and bodily integrity, and should be narrowly tailored. Given Germany's past with anti-semitism and racial persecution focused in the Nazi movement, it would seem perfectly reasonable to prohibit speech promoting Nazi values and agendas. The mere translation of such speech into a different language, by itself, wouldn't seem to dilute the anti-Nazi concerns. The Court can't suppose that nobody in Germany would understand the English translation.

"Blood and Honour," then, must carry more significance than a mere English translation of the German "Blut und Ehre." More than a translation, the phrase's life in European white power punk gives it just as much a Cold War significance as it does WWII. As much of a European (and perhaps American) significance as it does a German significance. In this way, the Court's restraint reflects just as much an internationalist perspective as it does a liberal-democratic perspective. This is a good sign for Korean Boy, assuming "Tuts my Barreh" has obtained a comparable independent significance (at least with regard to American courts).

This isn't to say that the t-shirts aren't otherwise sufficiently offensive to warrant prosecution. It appears that the German Court remanded the case to the lower court to decide two additional issues. The first was whether the use of the Nazi symbols in the phrase "Blood and Honour," aside from the phrase itself, was prohibited by the same anti-Nazi statute. The other issue was whether use of the phrase is sufficient to convict the defendant under a different statute which bans a far right organization of the same name. It's unclear whether that organization is the same as the promotions network. Stay tuned.

Russia was never very PR savvy and it shows....

Gazprom seals $2.5bn Nigeria deal

Gazprom could increase its power over European supplies Russia's energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria's state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture. The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria. Analysts say the move could further strengthen Russia's role in supplying natural gas to Europe. The agreement comes during a four-day African tour by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. As well as forming Nigaz, Russia is keen on developing a trans-African pipeline to transport Nigerian gas to Europe. This could further reinforce Gazprom's already-strong influence over Europe's energy supplies. 'Commodity-rich' "Russia has a number of goals [in Africa], one of which would be to take part in a growing competition for resources and markets on the continent - mainly with China," said Yaroslav Lissovolik, head economist with Deutsche Bank in Moscow. Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Rosatom, Russia's state-run civil nuclear energy agency, said the Nigaz deal would lay the foundations for building nuclear power reactors in Nigeria. Nigeria has previously said it would like to develop a nuclear power plant to address its energy shortages. Before visiting Nigeria, Mr Medvedev spent time in Egypt. He is also visiting Namibia and Angola - which are rich in natural resources - during his trip, as he seeks to promote Russian business interests. "Part of the agenda is to push Russia's credentials as a representative of commodity-rich developing countries with such forums as the G8 and the G20," said Ural Sib bank's chief strategist Chris Weafer in a note to investors. Chinese deal Russia is not alone in seeking to secure energy deals overseas with commodity-rich nations. Separately on Thursday, Chinese oil refiner Sinopec has made a $7.2bn bid to acquire oil exploration and producing firm Addax, which focuses on Africa and the Middle East. If the deal is approved by regulators it would be the biggest foreign takeover by a Chinese firm.