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 LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Foreign oil workers are known in Nigeria's oil-rich south as "white gold" among the gangs that kidnap them.
They have seized more than 150 foreigners this year, including a just freed 3-year-old British girl. That's nearly as many abductions as all of 2006, a kidnapping epidemic that has helped cut output in Africa's largest oil nation by a quarter, driving up prices worldwide.
"Ah, the whites are coming," one young gang member — sipping beer in a ramshackle, roadside bar — told a reporter with a chuckle as a heavily guarded oil company convoy sped through the oil city of Port Harcourt, sirens blaring. "It's like the vans for ice creams in your country."
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