A message of hope

SOUTH AFRICA's President Thabo Mbeki inaugurated September's World Petroleum Congress with a speech entreating the oil industry to deliver a "message of hope" to the world at a time when there is precious little to feel optimistic about. Addressing thousands of delegates in Johannesburg's vast Coca-Cola dome, Mbeki went through a depressing list of world problems – war, terrorism, poverty, third-world debt and the apparent inability of the United Nations to deal with many of them. In the context of such a catalogue of grimness, it seemed doubtful that there would be much oil executives could say to the world in the way of meaningful encouragement. Yet some of the Congress' headline acts – in