NINETY-nine oil workers, including 19 foreigners, were released on Monday after being held hostage by unemployed youths for five days on an oil rig offshore Nigeria, a Shell oil company representative said. Among those released by the youths were at least five Britons, five Americans, one South African, three Australians and one Trinidadian, the spokesman said. The incident, the latest in a string of hostage-takings in the troubled Nigerian oil region, began on Thursday when a group of youths seeking employment stormed the rig operated by the company Trident. – AFP