Nigeria picks last Olympic basketball ticket

CARACAS Nigeria seized the last men's basketball berth at the London Olympics with an 88-73 victory over the Dominican Republic in a last-chance game at the FIBA qualifying tournament in Caracas, Venezuela on Sunday.

 Nigeria had shocked favorites Greece in the quarter-finals, but were beaten in the semi-finals on Saturday by Russia -- who booked their own place with that win.

Lithuania had also secured a spot on Saturday with a victory over the Dominican Republic, leaving Nigeria and the Dominicans to play one last contest for the third and final berth still up for grabs.

Ike Diogu, a 10-year NBA veteran who was with the San Antonio Spurs last season before a spell with the Chinese Basketball Association's Xinjiang Flying Tigers, led Nigeria with 25 points and 10 rebounds.

"I'm very happy. We did what had to be done," Diogu said. "We knew we were going to face teams that are heavyweights, and we did what we needed to do - win."

Nigeria, ranked 21st in the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) world rankings, had 14 points from Al-Farouq Aminu, who plays for the New Orleans Hornets in the NBA.

Yack Martinez led the Dominican Republic, coached by University of Kentucky coach John Calipari, with 16 points.

Nigeria and Lithuania will play in group A in the preliminary round in London, along with the 2008 gold medalists the United States, Argentina, France and Tunisia.

Russia booked a berth in group B, which includes Spain, Brazil, Australia, China and hosts Great Britain.

OPEC confirms Nigeria as second largest oil producer; Iran objects

Conflicting reports by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)pitched Iran and Nigeria as who should be the second-largest producer of petroleum despite the group’s report that Nigeria has now obtained the rank.

However, the news agency ISNA quoted the country’s OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi as saying Iran remains the second-largest on Saturday.

The Annual Statistical Bulletin has put Nigeria ahead of Iran, adding that Iranian experts were examining the report.

“OPEC rationing is based on production, not export, and Iran still holds the second-largest OPEC producer status and no change has happened in this regard,” said Khatibi.

Khatibi said Iranian experts had found ambiguities in some of the figures in the OPEC report and thus the experts “did not confirm Nigeria’s export increase.”

“In the report Iran’s oil income exceeds that of Nigeria in 2010. Then how would it be possible for Nigeria’s oil income to be less than that of Iran despite having boosted its exports?”

Khatibi said it was predictable that Venezuela would overtake Saudi Arabia since in the past two years it had taken measures to boost its reserves.

OPEC’s growth in oil reserves was mainly due to Venezuela, whose holdings rose to 296.5 billion barrels from 211.2 billion in 2009, as the report said. Top OPEC exporter Saudi Arabia’s reserves were steady at 264.5 billion barrels.

Iran and Iraq also boosted their reserves last year. In October, Iran increased its reserves to 150 billion barrels within a week of an upward revision by Iraq, ensuring that Tehran continued to rank above Baghdad.

Reserves are one of the criteria OPEC has used in setting output targets. Iran and Iraq were rivals in the past over OPEC quotas and OPEC in the next few years is expected to tackle the issue of bringing Iraq back into the quota system. Iraq is exempt at present.