by Michael Renner, Foreign Policy in Focus
February 14th, 2003
We take a look at the geopolitics of oil and the role they play in Washington's war on Iraq.
| US: How Oil Giant Influenced Bush by John Vidal, The Guardian June 8th, 2005 White House sought advice from Exxon on Kyoto stance |
| WORLD: Shell Predicts Two Decades of Rising Energy Prices by Michael Harrison, The Independent June 6th, 2005 Worldwide energy prices are set to rise over the next two decades as individual countries become more concerned about ensuring security of supply and governments take a more pro-active role in dictating energy policy and regulating markets, according to the latest global outlook from the oil giant Shell. |
| EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Stripped of Its Wealth by David Leigh, Guardian June 2nd, 2005 This mini country located under the armpit of the West African coast has immense quantities of oil; it is currently exporting $4.5bn worth (about £2.5bn) a year. Yet such an astonishing bonanza appears to have done most of the country's citizens no good. The IMF reported bluntly in May: "Unfortunately, this wealth has not yet led to measurable improvements in living conditions." |
| US: BP Admits Workers Were Not Root Cause of Blast
by Anne Belli, Houston Chronicle May 31st, 2005 Union officials have said they expressed concerns about the location of the trailer as well as BP's use of the vent stack as opposed to a flare system. Had a flare been in place, the excess liquid and vapors likely would have been burned off and the accident may have been prevented. |
| RUSSIA: Oil Tycoon Convicted and Sentenced to 9 Years in Jail
by C.J. Chivers and Erin Arvedlund , New York Times May 31st, 2005 |
| NIGERIA: Shell Extends Gas Flaring Deadline by Sopuruchi Onwuka, Daily Champion May 31st, 2005 A major hiccup on government's effort to terminate gas flaring by 2008 has occured as oil multinational, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) said the official deadline will no longer be realistic to the firm. |
| UK: Shell fined £900,000 over deaths BBC news May 27th, 2005 The oil firm Shell has been fined £900,000 following the deaths of two workers on a North Sea platform. |
| COLOMBIA: Fighting Energy Companies Over River Pollution by Suzanne Timmons, Catholic News Service May 26th, 2005 Is Spanish electricity giant Endesa responsible for making the Bogota River "the world's largest open sewer?" |
| CENTRAL ASIA: The Pipeline that Will Change the World
by Daniel Howden and Philip Thornton, Independent May 25th, 2005 It is 42 inches wide, 1,090 miles long and is intended to save the West from relying on Middle Eastern oil. Nothing has been allowed to stand in its way - and it finally opens. |
| UK: Climate-Change Prompts Rebellion at Exxon by Terry Macalister, The Guardian May 24th, 2005 A major British institutional investor will tomorrow oppose the re-election ExxonMobil's chief executive on the grounds that the world's biggest stock-listed oil company talks down links between man-made CO2 emissions and climate change. |
| US: Coal Plants Could Be Much Cleaner
by Kenneth J. Stier, New York Times May 23rd, 2005 Even with gas prices following oil prices into the stratosphere and power companies turning back to coal, most new plants - about nine out of 10 on the drawing board - will not use integrated gasification combined-cycle technology. |
| US: Clean-Energy Mega-Mall by Amanda Griscom Little, Grist May 20th, 2005 The developer of a new mall planned for Upstate New York vows that it will be the closest thing to an "Apollo Project" for renewable energy that America has ever seen -- one that grows the economy, strengthens national security by encouraging energy independence, and protects the environment. |
| MEXICO: Pemex Accidents Reveal Troubled Oil Monopoly
by James C. McKinley and Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times May 15th, 2005 The recent spate of accidents highlights the complicated symbiotic relationship between the company and the government that is supposed to regulate it. Pemex provides the government with 40 percent of its income, and the environmental agency charged with policing the oil company is woefully underfinanced. |
| US: Used Cooking Oil Might Be Fuel for Higher Profits at American Biofuels
by Erin Waldner, The Bakersfield Californian May 9th, 2005 American Biofuels LLC is using oils collected from 40 restaurants and other businesses to make biodiesel fuel at its Stockdale Highway plant. |
| BOLIVIA: Approves Hikes on Oil and Gas Companies
by Juan Forero, New York Times May 9th, 2005 |
| US: GE to Unveil Green Initiative
Financial Times May 9th, 2005 GE plans to invent "green technology" that will be safer for the environment than current products and will double its current spending on research to develop new products. |
| US: No New Refineries in 29 Years by Jad Mouawad, New York Times May 9th, 2005 Over the last quarter-century, the number of refineries in the United States dropped to 149, less than half the number in 1981. Because companies have upgraded and expanded their aging operations, refining capacity during that time period shrank only 10 percent from its peak of 18.6 million barrels a day. At the same time, gasoline consumption has risen by 45 percent. |
| US: Green Building Council Helps Builders and Companies Go Green
by Paul Geary, Environmental News Network May 5th, 2005 More companies are beginning to see the benefits of having energy-efficient buildings and physical plants. Cleaner, more efficient office buildings and work spaces not only help the environment but can save a company money, improving that company's -- as well as all of society's -- bottom line. |
| BOLIVIA: Natural Gas a Mixed Blessing by Hal Weitzman, Financial Times May 4th, 2005 Gas has become the focus of debate in Bolivia, bringing widespread social unrest. |
| AMAZON: Victims of 'Toxico'
by Andrew Gumbel, Independent April 27th, 2005 Environmentalists estimate around 2.5 million acres of rainforest were compromised or destroyed in Texaco's search for oil in Ecuador. It is a disaster that has left the jungle ravaged and its people dying of cancer. |
| WORLD: The End of Oil is Closer Than You Think by John Vidal, Guardian (UK) April 21st, 2005 Oil production could peak as soon as next year, meaning the long downward slope that opens on the other side of peak production. |
| RUSSIA: Indigenous People Counter Oil and Gas Development by Mariana Budjeryn, Cultural Survival April 7th, 2005 Indigenous leaders of the island of Sakhalin in the far east of Russia have joined forces as a new wave of oil and gas development on the island is encroaching on their traditional lands. |
| US: Harvard Divests from PetroChina Associated Press April 7th, 2005 Harvard University, after months of pressure from student activists, will sell an estimated $4.4 million (A€3.42 million) stake in PetroChina, whose parent company is closely tied to the Sudanese government, university officials said. |
| BOLIVIA: Political Landscape Shaped by Protests by Monte Reel, The Washington Post April 4th, 2005 "Bolivia has natural gas, water, coca and all kinds of natural resources," said one activist. "But the problem is that they keep stealing it from us." |
| RUSSIA: Shell Moves Sakhalin Pipeline but Faces New Destruction Row by Nick Mathiason, The Guardian April 3rd, 2005 Shell is facing yet more environmental protests over its controversial $12 billion oil and gas pipeline off the east coast of Russia. |
| US: Fumes Delay Blast Probe
by Dina Cappiello, Tom Fowler and Kevin Moran, Houston Chronicle March 30th, 2005 Benzene vapors concern officials a week after the Texas City disaster |
| TURKEY: British Petroleum Pipeline Hit by Fresh Human Rights Storm by Conal Walsh, The Observer March 27th, 2005 BP is facing renewed criticism of its involvement in the construction of a Caspian oil and gas pipeline after campaigners made fresh claims of human rights abuses relating to the controversial project. |
| US: British Petroleum Texas Refinery Blast by Peter Klinger, Times Online March 24th, 2005 British Petroleum said yesterday that it did not have external insurance to cover the damage caused to its Texas City refinery in the US, where an explosion killed 15 people. |
| FRANCE: Campaign Launched to Pressure Total into Leaving Myanmar Turkish Press February 21st, 2005 Some 40 organizations launched an international campaign aimed at pressuring the French oil giant Total to pull out of Myanmar, where they said the company's activities support a military dictatorship, a French activist collective announced. |
| INDIA: In Dabhol Lawyers, Leopards Dare Tread by Braden Reddall, Reuters February 18th, 2005 The $2.9 billion plant that bankrupt U.S. energy giant Enron built was a technological breakthrough and still represents the largest single foreign investment in India. But since shutting down almost four years ago, it has proven more of an embarrassment than a showcase. |
| EU: Leading Kyoto 'Carbon Revolution' by Stephen Mulvey, BBC news February 15th, 2005 The first phase of post-Kyoto emissions trading (2005-2007) may see too many industry allowances for the scheme to drive a major clean-up of European industry. |
| UK: Fraud Office Looks into British Energy Firm's Role in Balkans by David Leigh and Rob Evan, The Guardian February 15th, 2005 EFT Ltd. denies any wrongdoing as investigators follow up special audit report ordered by Bosnian administrator Lord Ashdown |
| CHINA: China had role in Yukos split-up BBC February 2nd, 2005 China lent Russia $6billion to help the Russian government renationalise the key Yuganskneftegas unit of oil group Yukos, it has been revealed. |
| UK: Oil Firms Fund Campaign to Deny Climate Change by David Adam, Guardian (UK) January 27th, 2005 Lobby groups funded by the US oil industry such as ExxonMobil are targeting Britain in a bid to play down the threat of climate change and derail action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, leading scientists have warned. |
| EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Touch of Crude by Peter Maass, Mother Jones Magazine American bankers handled his loot. Oil companies play by his rules. The Bush administration woos him. How the pursuit of oil is propping up the West African dictatorship of Teodoro Obiang. |
| RUSSIA: State Steps in for Yukos Unit by Catherine Belton, The Guardian December 23rd, 2004 Russia's state owned oil firm Rosneft has bought the mystery winner of Yukos' prize production unit in a move that nationalises 11% of the country's oil output even as a legal battle rages in America over the sale. |
| UN: Board Cites U.S. Contractor in Iraq by Colum Lynch, Washington Post December 15th, 2004 |
| MYANMAR: Unocal to Settle Rights Claims
by Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times December 14th, 2004 The El Segundo firm agrees to pay to end a landmark case brought by villagers claiming abuses by troops along a Myanmar pipeline. |
| CHINA: Jet Fuel Scandal Deals Nation a Body Blow by Kosuke Takahashi, Asia Times Online December 6th, 2004 China's jet fuel import monopoly, Singapore-listed China Aviation Oil (CAO), reported whopping losses to the tune of US$550 million, raising serious questions about the way Chinese firms are managed, their lack of transparency, accountability and fairness, as well as the efficiency of Singaporean financial authorities. |
| NIGERIA: Nigerian Villagers Seize Shell Oil Platforms by Agencies and Mark Milner , The Guardian December 6th, 2004 Hundreds of unarmed Nigerian villagers, including women and children, seized three oil platforms operated by Shell and ChevronTexaco, shutting 90,000 barrels a day of production in a jobs dispute. |
| NIGERIA: Are Human Rights in the Pipeline? by Amnesty International, http://www.amnestyusa.org/regions/africa/document.do?id=743138DA382E8EBF85256F47005F728E November 10th, 2004 |
| CAMEROON: Activists accuse World Bank of double standards over pipeline project by Michael Peel, Financial Times November 6th, 2004 Cameroon activists accuse World Bank of double standards over pipeline project: Critics say government remains unaccountable despite the country's reputation for corruption |
| NIGERIA: Five convicted in Enron barge case Agence France-Presse November 4th, 2004 A JURY in Houston, Texas, today delivered criminal convictions against four bankers and an Enron executive in a case stemming from a money-losing project of electricity-generating barges off the coast of Nigeria. The trial stems from an investigation of the energy trader's collapse three years ago. |
| SUDAN: Divestment Movement Gains Steam by EC desk, Ethical Corporation Newsletter October 20th, 2004 UN oil sanctions against Sudan seem unlikely. Could a divestment campaign fill the gap? |
| NORWAY: Former Statoil executive to pay fine over Iran deal Wall Street Journal October 19th, 2004 The former head of international operations for Statoil ASA, Richard Hubbard, will follow his former employer's lead and pay a fine handed down by Norwegian police for his role in a business deal with an Iranian consulting company. |
| NIGERIA: Fuel Price Strike Suspended by Staff Writers, afrol News October 14th, 2004 Nigeria's trade union now gives the government two weeks to reduce fuel prices while temporarily calling off the nation-wide strike. Negotiations between trade union leaders and the federal government started today, after trade unions during four days have demonstrated their power to cause an almost complete stand-still throughout the country. |
| NIGERIA:Peace talks on Nigeria's oil delta rebellion Afrol News September 29th, 2004 |
| NIGERIA: Oil majors undeterred as rebels threaten to attack facilities in Niger Delta AFP September 28th, 2004 |
| INDONESIA: Spurred by Illness, Indonesians Lash Out at Newmont Mining by Jane Perlez and Evelyn Rusli, New York Times September 8th, 2004 |
| US: U.S., Britain Fine Shell $150 Million for Lying on Oil Reserves by Justin Blum, Washington Post August 25th, 2004 |
| US: Greenwashing Leaves a Stain of Distortion; Ford's Hybrid Electric SUV by Geoffrey Johnson, Los Angeles Times August 22nd, 2004 |
| RUSSIA: Oil Executive Enters Not Guilty Plea in Fraud Case by Erin E. Arvedlund , New York Times July 16th, 2004 |
| NIGERIA: Bilfinger Paid Tesler Regarding Nigeria Plant
Wall Street Journal July 6th, 2004 |
| USA: Court OKs Foreign-Abuse Suits by Lisa Girion, L A Times June 30th, 2004 |
| ENGLAND: Shareholders Vent Anger Over Shell Scandal by Mark Tran, Guardian June 28th, 2004 |
| AFRICA: African Oil Leaders Promise To Open the Books On Oil Deals, Answering Demands For Transparency Associated Press June 27th, 2004 |
| IRAQ: Iraq Oil-For-Food Probe Spreads
BBC June 21st, 2004 |
| USA: Halliburton Cuts Off KBR Ex-Boss
BBC June 19th, 2004 |
| UK: Oil Chief: My Fears For Planet by David Adam, The Guardian June 17th, 2004 |
| Iraq: Oil-Slick James Baker by Greg Palast, AlterNet April 28th, 2004 There's nothing in the Iraq Strategy about democracy or voting. But there's plenty of detail about creating a free-market Disneyland in Mesopotamia, with "all" state assets and that's just about everything in that nation to be sold off to corporate powers. The Bush team secret program ordered: "... asset sales, concessions, leases and management contracts, especially those in the oil and supporting industries." |
| WORLD: Shell Outsourcing by Mark Tran, Guardian (London) April 28th, 2004 Royal Dutch Shell, the embattled oil giant, said today it will cut up to 2,800 jobs as it relocates its global technology division. IT operations, now concentrated in the UK, the Netherlands and the US, are to be shifted to India or Malaysia, where Shell already employs about 1,000 people in a technology support centre. |
| IRAQ: US Unearths Iraqi Front Companies BBC April 16th, 2004 Eight firms and five people have been named by US and UK investigators as fronts used to finance the activities of the former Iraqi regime. |
| US: Nuclear Industry Powers Back Into Life by David Teather, The Guardian April 13th, 2004 Twenty-five years after the United States suffered its worst nuclear accident, the moribund atomic energy industry has begun to show signs of life. A consortium of seven of the biggest companies in the business, including a division of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), now says it intends to apply for the first licence to build a commercial nuclear plant in the US since the near disaster at Three Mile Island. |
| US: Domestic Oil Companies, Not OPEC, Mostly to Blame for High Gas Prices Consumers Union April 7th, 2004 Domestic Oil Companies' Consolidation, Restricting Supplies Biggest Cause of Soaring Gas Prices OPEC Actions Only Part of the Reason For Record Pump Prices In testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee, two leading consumer groups placed much of the blame for higher gasoline prices on domestic oil companies. The groups noted that consolidation in the refining industry has enabled large oil companies to restrict the supplies that make it to the pump, sending gas prices higher and leading to windfall profits. |
| World: Lenders Urge World Bank to Reject Oil, Mining Pullout by Emad Mekay, Inter Press Service News Agency April 5th, 2004 International investment banks are lobbying the World Bank to rebuff the recommendations of an independent study that urged the global lender to bail out of gas, oil and mining projects. |
| Nigeria: Shell Revamp to Cost Jobs BBC News March 22nd, 2004 The oil company Royal Dutch Shell has said it plans to cut jobs in Nigeria, so it can invest more money in better production methods. The aim is to raise output by 500,000 barrels a day within two years, says the head of Shell's Nigeria operations, Chris Finlayson. |
| Saudi Arabia: Foreign Concerns Make Deals to Search for Gas by Simon Romero, New York Times March 7th, 2004 Saudi Arabian officials said on Sunday that they were seeking to strengthen ties with China and Russia after allowing energy companies from those countries to be among the first foreign businesses to explore Saudi natural gas reserves in more than three decades. |
| UK: Shell's Top Executive Is Forced to Step Down by Heather Timmons, New York Times March 4th, 2004 The top executive of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the world's third-largest oil company, was forced to resign on Wednesday after an internal investigation into the company's surprise disclosure in January that it had overstated its oil and natural gas reserves by 20 percent. |
| Libya: US Allows Oil Groups In by Edward Alden and Salamander Davoudi, Financial Times February 27th, 2004 The US on Thursday said it would let US oil companies reopen negotiations with the Libyan government over potentially lucrative oil leases that have been off- limits since Washington imposed sanctions on the government of Muammer Gadaffi in 1986. |
| US: FERC Claims Jurisdiction on Gas Plant by Deborah Schoch, Los Angeles Times February 27th, 2004 The federal position on a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Beach sets up a possible conflict with state regulators. |
| Kazakhstan: Oil Majors Agree to Develop Field by Heather Timmons, The New York Times February 26th, 2004 A consortium of international oil companies formally agreed on Wednesday to proceed with a $29 billion development of the Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan, the largest oil discovery since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska more than 30 years ago. |
| World: WB to Work on Oil, Gas and Mining Projects Financial Times February 26th, 2004 The president of the World Bank and his management colleagues will reject several of the crucial recommendations of a review about the extractive industries - oil, gas and mining - they themselves instituted. In particular, they will oppose the idea that the Bank should phase out all oil projects within five years. |
| Congressional Inquiry Necessary for War Profiteering Campaign to Stop the War Profiteerers February 25th, 2004 The Pentagon and State Department criminal fraud investigations of Halliburton concerning their handling of a fuel contract in Iraq are an important first step - but point to the need for bold action on the part of the President and Congress to ensure accountability of military contractors, according to the Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers. |
| Iraq: Pentagon Opens Criminal Inquiry of Halliburton by Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times February 24th, 2004 Pentagon officials said Monday night that they have opened a criminal fraud investigation of Halliburton, the giant Texas oil-services concern, in an inquiry that will examine "potential overpricing" of fuel taken into Iraq by one of the company's subcontractors. |
| US: Ex-Enron Boss Charged with Fraud by Mark Tran, Guardian (London) February 19th, 2004 Jeff Skilling, the former chief executive of Enron, has been charged with 42 counts of fraud, insider trading and giving false statements to auditors in a federal indictment released today. The indictment also includes new charges against former Enron chief accounting officer, Rick Causey, who pleaded not guilty to six fraud counts last month. |
| Chad: The Making Of An African Petrostate by Somini Sengupta, New York Times February 18th, 2004 Oil is bringing big changes to Chad, some cultural, like the one Mr. Elie worries about, others practical, like the way the World Bank will be overseeing how Chad manages its new wealth. Chad, among the poorest countries in the world, is now Africa's newest petrostate. |
| Kuwait: Halliburton Deal Brings Probe CNN February 11th, 2004 Kuwait's parliament agreed Wednesday to investigate whether the government misused public funds when it signed a contract with Halliburton Corp. to supply fuel to U.S. troops in Iraq. |
| US: What Did the Vice-President Do for Halliburton? by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker February 10th, 2004 Halliburton blamed the high costs on an obscure Kuwaiti firm, Altanmia Commercial Marketing, which it subcontracted to deliver the fuel. In Kuwait, the oil business is controlled by the state, and Halliburton has claimed that government officials there pressured it into hiring Altanmia, which had no experience in fuel transport. Yet a previously undisclosed letter, dated May 4, 2003, and sent from an American contracting officer to Kuwait's oil minister, plainly describes the decision to use Altanmia as Halliburton's own "recommendation." |
| Iraq: Occupation, Inc. by Pratap Chatterjee and Herbert Docena, Southern Exposure February 4th, 2004 Bechtel's projects are examined by freelance journalists. Locals complain of shoddy work, problems with schools, sewage, electricity, gas lines, and low wages. |
| IRAQ: Life More Difficult Now? by Pratap Chatterjee and Herbert Docena, Southern Exposure February 4th, 2004 Bechtel's projects are examined by freelance journalists. Locals complain of shoddy work, problems with schools, sewage, electricity, gas lines, and low wages. |
| Nigeria: Halliburton Faces US Probe for Bribes by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenrball, Newsweek February 4th, 2004 The Justice Department has opened up an inquiry into whether Halliburton Co. was involved in the payment of $180 million in possible kickbacks to obtain contracts to build a natural gas plant in Nigeria during a period in the late 1990's when Vice President Dick Cheney was chairman of the company. |
| US: Halliburton Acknowledges Kickbacks in Iraq Contract by Matt Kelley, San Francisco Chronicle January 23rd, 2004 Halliburton has fired employees who allegedly took kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor helping to supply U.S. troops in Iraq, the company said. The kickback allegations involve KBR's contract to supply U.S. Army troops in Iraq, not its separate contract to rebuild Iraqi oil facilities and deliver gasoline to civilians. |
| US: Kellogg Brown & Root Wins New US Army Contract BBC News January 16th, 2004 Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) has won a new US army contract to help repair Iraq's dilapidated oil industry. The appointment is likely to raise eyebrows as KBR has been accused of overcharging the US military for fuel. |
| Iraq: Army Allows Halliburton to Supply Iraq Fuel Without Disclosure by Matt Kelley, Associated Press January 6th, 2004 The Army has allowed Halliburton to increase the supplies of fuel delivered to Iraq without giving the usual data to justify its cost, a spokesman said Tuesday. The December action by the Army Corps of Engineers does not exonerate Vice President Dick Cheney's former company in a dispute with the Pentagon over fuel prices, Army corps spokesman Ross Adkins said Tuesday. |
| Libya: Move May Pave Way for Return of US Oil Groups by Kevin Morrison, Financial Times December 29th, 2003 Libya's pledge to dismantle its programme to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could pave the way for the return of US oil companies that left the North African country in 1986 when then President Ronald Reagan imposed sanctions on the country. |
| Japan: Consortium To Bid For Iraq Gas Project by Bayan Rahman and Carola Hoyos, Financial Times December 18th, 2003 A consortium led by Mitsubishi, the Japanese trading company, is preparing to bid for a gas development project in Iraq. The consortium is made up of nine Japanese trading and plant engineering companies and KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton, the US energy services group formerly led by US vice-president Dick Cheney. |
| Iraq: Halliburton Accused of Overcharging $61m by Julian Borger, Guardian (London) December 13th, 2003 A Pentagon audit has found that Halliburton, the company formerly run by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, overcharged the government by $61m (about 35m) for delivering petrol to Iraq. |
| Caucasus: World Bank, ABN Amro Back BTC Pipeline by Oliver Balch, Guardian (London) December 8th, 2003 Later this week, the Dutch bank is expected to lend its weight officially to the 1,760km Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which even in Mr Burrett's own words is "seen as highly controversial". Campaigners have taken issue with the idea to run a pipeline through Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Turkish coast ever since it was first mooted in the early 1990s. |
| Myanmar: Unocal Faces Landmark Trial Over Slavery by Kathy George, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter December 1st, 2003 The Unocal oil company is about to become the first corporation in history to stand trial in the United States over human rights violations abroad. And two Seattle law professors are helping to make history in the shocking case, in which corporate partners used Myanmar's notoriously brutal military regime to provide "security" for a natural gas pipeline project in the remote Yadana region near the Thai border. |
| Ecuador: Texaco Leaves Trail of Destruction by T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times November 30th, 2003 Torres is one of thousands of Ecuadoreans who stand to benefit from a multibillion-dollar lawsuit alleging that Texaco's operations between 1972 and 1992 destroyed land, sickened residents and contributed to the demise of indigenous tribes. Oil company officials deny the charges, saying the operations had minimal impact. |
| US: Liquidation of the Commons by Adam Werbach, In These Times November 21st, 2003 There has not been such a wholesale giveaway of our common assets to corporate interests since the presidency of William McKinley. In the 1896 presidential election, McKinley was aided in his battle against the great American populist, William Jennings Bryan, by coal and oil magnate Mark Hanna. Hanna has been cited by Karl Rove, President Bushs key political adviser, as a major influence and inspiration. |
| USA: Deadline Set for $19bn in Iraq Contracts by Joshua Chaffin, Financial Times November 19th, 2003 US authorities on Wednesday laid out an ambitious timetable to rebuild Iraq, saying they planned to award $18.7bn in contracts for reconstruction projects by the beginning of February. |
| WORLD: Forest Carbon Projects Under Scrutiny by Vanessa Houlder, Financial Times November 13th, 2003 An agreement allowing companies to grow trees as an alternative to curbing their use of fossil fuels is becoming one of the most contentious issues in the run-up to next month's Milan conference on climate change. |
| France: Sleaze Scandal Winds Up as Oil Chiefs are Jailed by Jon Henley, The Guardian November 13th, 2003 France's mammoth Elf corruption case, probably the biggest political and corporate sleaze scandal to hit a western democracy since the second world war, drew to a close yesterday as three key former executives of the oil giant were jailed for up to five years. |
| Cuba: Havana's Black Gold by Tom Fawthrop, BBC November 13th, 2003 Cuba's fast-improving energy sector - with domestic oil production now at 4.1m tons a year and accounting for 80% of the country's energy needs - is expected to eventually ease the country's current economic woes. |
| Caspian Sea: Oil Pipeline Wins World Bank Loan by Peter Behr, Washington Post November 4th, 2003 A planned 1,100-mile pipeline to carry oil from the Caspian Sea toward world markets won a $125 million loan commitment from a World Bank funding unit today. The International Finance Corp. approved the loan after the Azerbaijan government agreed to audited international reviews on how it spends $29 billion in future revenue from oil projects. |
| Russia: State Freezes Shares of Oil Giant by Andrew Jack, Arkady Ostrovsky and Lina Saigol, Financial Times October 30th, 2003 Russian prosecutors on Thursday froze a 44 per cent block of shares in Yukos, the country's largest oil group, in a sharp escalation of the crisis surrounding the company and its owners. The move, which was immediately denounced as illegal by the company, followed the arrest on Saturday of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the chief executive and largest shareholder, on criminal charges of fraud and tax evasion totalling $1bn. |
| Iraq: Contract Extended for Halliburton by Larry Margasak, The Associated Press October 29th, 2003 Vice President Dick Cheney's former company will retain a no-bid contract in Iraq longer than expected, the Bush administration said Wednesday, blaming sabotage of oil facilities for delays in replacement contracts. |
| Caspian: Plan for World's Biggest Pipeline by Philip Thornton and Charles Arthur, The Independent (London) October 28th, 2003 The answer is the world's longest export pipeline, a 1,090-mile, 42-inch wide pipe snaking its way within a 500-metre corridor from the Caspian Sea port of Baku, in Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan, in Turkey, via some of the world's most unstable and conflict-ridden nations. The project will cost up to $4 billion (2.4bn) and is being built by a consortium of 11 companies led by BP. Almost three quarters of the funding will come in the form of bank loans including some $600 million of taxpayers' money. |
| Ecuador: Peasants Sue ChevronTexaco by Jim Lobe, OneWorld.net October 23rd, 2003 A landmark class-action lawsuit by 30,000 Ecuadoran peasants and Indians against ChevronTexaco, which bounced around U.S. federal courts for nearly a decade, finally got underway this week in a small courthouse in a remote area of Ecuador. |
| Iraq: Halliburton Accused of Overbilling by Sue Pleming, Reuters October 15th, 2003 A U.S. Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday accused Halliburton , the Texas oil services company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, of overcharging the U.S. government for gasoline the firm imports into Iraq. |
| Bolivia: Unrest Over Natural Gas Project by Mark Mulligan, Financial Times October 1st, 2003 Trade unionists, indigenous groups and farmers have joined forces in recent weeks to protest against government economic policies and private sector plans to export the country's abundant natural gas supplies from a port in Chile, a historic enemy of the landlocked country. |
| Kazakhstan: ChevronTexaco Quizzed in Bribery Probe by Joshua Chaffin, Financial Times September 11th, 2003 ChevronTexaco is being questioned by the Justice Department as prosecutors broaden an investigation into alleged bribery in Kazakhstan's oil industry. The US oil company received a subpoena from federal prosecutors in New York asking it to testify before a federal grand jury about a Kazakh oil and gas project in which the company was participating. |
| Tanzania: Oil Companies to Drill Off East African Coast by Giles Foden, Guardian September 11th, 2003 The Dutch arm of Shell is in negotiations with the Tanzanian government for licences to prospect four deep-sea areas or "blocks" in the Rufiji delta and another four off Zanzibar. Petrobras of Brazil is bidding for a block about 15 miles (24km) off Mafia, while the French company Maurel & Prom hopes to drill on Mafia itself and areas of Mkuranga district on the coastal mainland. In time, the whole western flank of the Rift Valley inland may be drilled, as seismic and hydrocarbon tests have shown that this too has potential for oil. |
| World: Murky Business in Oil by Miren Gutierrez, Inter Press Service August 20th, 2003 A key factor is how a country makes its money. Oil hurts. Countries that make their money from oil have usually neglected to develop a middle class and solid political institutions. |
| Peru: Bush, the Rainforest and a Gas Pipeline to Enrich his Friends by Andrew Gumbel, Independent/UK July 30th, 2003 President George Bush is seeking funds for a controversial project to drive gas pipelines from pristine rainforests in the Peruvian Amazon to the coast. |
| Nigeria: Women Activists In Peaceful Takeover of Oil Site by Dulue Mbachu, Associated Press July 29th, 2003 WARRI, Nigeria -- village women are occupying a Shell Oil installation in a peaceful demonstration amid surging ethnic violence in Nigeria's restive oil delta. At least 20 people have been killed in the Niger Delta since mid-July in attacks allegedly linked to tribal competition for oil revenues. |
| Ecuador: Oil, Indigenous Peoples and the Environment InterPress Service June 20th, 2003 The Superior Justice Court of the northern city of Nueva Loja, on the Colombian border, accepted May 14 a lawsuit against the US transnational oil company Texaco. Representatives of 30,000 indigenous people and campesinos affected by oil exploration and extraction in the northeastern provinces of Sucumbos and Orellana have been working on the case for almost a decade. |
| RUSSIA: CIS countries must not to raise prices of gas and electricity as condition for entry into WTO Caspian News Agency June 17th, 2003 The member-countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) cannot agree to raise their internal prices on gas and electric energy to the level of the West European ones as a condition to enter the World Trade Organisation (WTO) |
| USA: Interior Department Investigates Official's Role as Oil Lobbyist by Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times May 12th, 2003 Responding to a request from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut and a candidate for president, the inspector general of the Interior Department is investigating possible conflicts of interest involving a top Interior official who used to be a lobbyist for the oil, gas and mining interests he now regulates. |
| Venezuela: The Fight to Regain Position in Oil Market by Humberto Marquez, Inter Press Service April 7th, 2003 Venezuela's state oil monopoly, PDVSA, one of the biggest companies in the Southern Hemisphere, is facing the challenge of holding onto its status as one of the world's leading oil firms after a two-month lockout that crippled output and the dismissal of nearly half of the company's executives. |
| WORLD: Internal Review Criticizes World Bank Mining, Oil and Gas Projects by By Emad Mekay, Inter Press Service April 2nd, 2003 The World Bank should revamp its lending policies for mining, oil and gas projects to avoid corruption, mismanagement and poor economic performance spreading in countries that rely on such industries, says a confidential study by the Bank's internal review body. |
| Russia: Moscow Eyes Oil Markets in Asia by Sergei Blagov, Inter Press Service April 1st, 2003 MOSCOW, Apr. 1 (IPS) -- Moscow is planning to develop new markets in Asia for its crude oil and become an alternative to the volatile Middle East. In the blueprint are big pipeline projects to boost its oil exports to countries such as Japan -- the second biggest importer of oil in the world after the United States -- and China, the world's third largest oil consumer. |
| Iraq: US Army Depots Named After Oil Giants by Neela Banerjee, New York Times March 27th, 2003 The subtleties surrounding the sensitive role oil plays in the Iraqi war may have eluded the United States Army. Deep in some newspaper coverage yesterday was a report that the 101st Airborne Division had named one central Iraq outpost Forward Operating Base Shell and another Forward Operating Base Exxon. |
| LIBYA: Shell Signs $200m Deal by Mark Tran, Guardian (London) March 25th, 2003 Shell today marked its return to Libya after an absence of more than a decade by signing a $200m (110.6m) gas exploration deal with the former pariah state. The agreement - described by the oil giant as a landmark deal - was signed in Tripoli, coinciding with the groundbreaking visit to Libya by the prime minister, Tony Blair. |
| Nigeria: Oil Production Shut Down Due to Local Violence by Toye Olori, Inter Press Service March 22nd, 2003 Nigeria's petroleum industry may not benefit from the bombardment of Iraq by the United Stated-led coalition after ethnic clashes last week forced multi-national companies to shut down of operations in Warri, one of the major oil-producing cities in the Niger Delta region. |
| USA: Cheney is Still Paid by Pentagon Contractor by Robert Bryce in Austin, Texas and Julian Borger in Washington, The Guardian March 12th, 2003 Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney. |
| USA: Firms Set for Postwar Contracts by Danny Penman and agencies, The Guardian March 11th, 2003 The American government is on the verge of awarding construction contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq once Saddam Hussein is deposed. |
| Canada: War May Be Hell But It's Profitable by Rick Westhead, Toronto Star March 10th, 2003 The invasion of Iraq hasn't even begun and already Rubar Sandi is drawing up post-war plans to repair decrepit oil wells, overhaul the financial services sector and revamp its economy. |
| The New Oil Order by Michael Renner, Foreign Policy in Focus February 14th, 2003 We take a look at the geopolitics of oil and the role they play in Washington's war on Iraq. |
| USA: Corporations, War, You by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation February 6th, 2003 One thing is clear about the Bush administration's current rush to war: It has nothing to do with protecting U.S. security. |
| USA: The Kyoto Protocol and Iraq War by Michael Renner, United Press International February 5th, 2003 WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- As discussion about the looming war in Iraq intensifies in the wake of George Bush's State of the Union address, one item conspicuously absent from news bulletins and pundits' pontifications is the Kyoto protocol. |
| VENEZUELA: Resumed Oil Production Marks Opposition's Defeat EFE News Service February 3rd, 2003 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez confirmed Sunday that petroleum production in the country had risen to 1.8 million barrels a day, which represents the "defeat" of the opposition's strike in this economic sector. |
| South Africa: Mandela Condemns US Stance on Iraq BBC January 30th, 2003 Former South African president Nelson Mandela has criticised US President George W Bush over Iraq, saying the sole reason for a possible US-led attack would be to gain control of Iraqi oil. |
| USA: US Begins Secret Talks to Secure Iraq's Oilfields by Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Julian Borger in Washington, Terry Macalister and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian/UK January 23rd, 2003 The US military has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze. |
| US: Bush Proposal May Cut Tax on S.U.V.'s for Business by Danny Hakim, New York Times January 21st, 2003 The Bush administration's economic plan would increase by 50 percent or more the deductions that small-business owners can take right away on the biggest sport utility vehicles and pickups. |
| Venezuela: World Bank Freezes Oil Loans BBC News January 10th, 2003 The World Bank has frozen the distribution of $225m in loans to Venezuela's oil industry until the country ''normalises''. |
| Russia: While Washington Waits, Chechnya Threatens to Explode by William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service January 8th, 2003 The Republic of Chechnya is poised to explode, and the reverberations are likely to send shock waves throughout the world. Washington has chosen to do nothing about this, to the detriment of the United States and the globe. |
| Russia: Oil Giants Try to Beat US to Iraqi Reserves by Nick Paton Walsh, The Guardian December 11th, 2002 Russian oil companies are trying to secure new contracts with Baghdad in an attempt to dominate Iraq's huge reserves and hold Washington to its promise of respecting Moscow's economic interests in the event of a regime change. |
| Canada: Parliament Backs Kyoto Ratification Plan by David Ljunggren, Reuters December 11th, 2002 OTTAWA -- The Canadian Parliament voted Tuesday to support government plans to ratify the Kyoto protocol on cutting greenhouse gases, overriding opponents who say the treaty will hurt Canada's economy. |
| Kazakhstan: Oil Money Threatens to Make Killing Fields by Paul Brown, The Guardian December 4th, 2002 ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN December 4, 2002 -- The largest oil find for more than 20 years -- almost the size of the world's biggest, the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia -- is being developed in the Caspian Sea amid growing anger from the local people. |
| USA: Appeals Court Blocks California Offshore Oil Drilling by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service December 3rd, 2002 SAN FRANCISCO, California, December 3, 2002 (ENS) -- For a second time, the courts have ruled against federal plans to resume oil and natural gas drilling off the California coast. A three judge panel from a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that the government illegally extended 36 undeveloped oil leases off the central California coast, effectively blocking the renewal of the decades old leases. |
| EU: 'Rust Bucket' Tankers Blacklisted by Gareth Harding, UPI December 3rd, 2002 BRUSSELS, Belgium, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The European Commission Tuesday published a list of tankers to be banned from EU waters after an aging vessel sunk off northwest Spain, dumping thousands of tons of oil into the Atlantic Ocean. |
| USA:Former El Paso VP Indicted on Bogus Trade Charges Reuters December 3rd, 2002 A former vice president and natural gas trader from El Paso Corp. will appear before a U.S. magistrate in Houston on Wednesday to face charges he reported bogus trades to an industry journal in 2001, the prosecutor said. |
| UK: BP Chief Fears US Will Carve up Iraqi Oil Riches by Terry Macalister, The Guardian October 30th, 2002 Lord Browne, chief executive of BP and one of New Labour's favourite industrialists, has warned Washington not to carve up Iraq for its own oil companies in the aftermath of any future war. |
| World: Skepticism Hangs over Climate Change Meeting by Ranjit Devraj, Inter Press Service October 23rd, 2002 Another round of international talks on curbing global climate change began Wednesday in India, a country that sees the United States and the developed world as being part of the problem rather than the solution to global warming. |
| Burma: Oil Giant Denies Workers' Claim of Forced Labor by Kalyani, OneWorld South Asia October 22nd, 2002 French oil giant TotalFina-Elf flatly rejected accusations by a global trade union body Monday that its investments in Myanmar (formerly Burma) were directly linked to forced labor used for road-building and other heavy work around the Yadana oil pipeline off the country's southwest coast. |
| US: Energy Industry's Dirty Little Details About to Come to Light by David Lazarus, San Francisco Chronicle October 20th, 2002 The betting in energy circles is that Enron's erstwhile big cheeses are in deep trouble now that the company's former top trader has pleaded guilty to manipulating the California power market. |
| USA: Harken and Halliburton Back in the News The Daily Enron October 10th, 2002 First, the Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe let loose on W. Bush. The papers disclosed that while a director and paid consultant for Harken Energy Bush had actively participated in the creation of off-the-books accounting gimmicks to hide company debt and raise the company's stock price. The deal, which the company did in conjunction with Harvard Management, created an off-the-books partnership strikingly similar to the kind Enron used to accomplish the same goals -- and which Bush has condemned. |
| USA: Bush Oil Firm Did Enron-Style Deal by Greg Frost, Reuters October 9th, 2002 BOSTON -- President Bush's former oil firm formed a partnership with Harvard University that concealed the company's financial woes and may have misled investors, a student and alumni group said in a report on Wednesday. |
| USA: When It's Over, Who Gets the Oil? by Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway, Washington Post September 16th, 2002 WASHINGTON -- A U.S.-led ouster of President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and Iraqi opposition leaders. |
| Chad/Cameroon: World Bank OKs Pipeline Environment News Service September 16th, 2002 WASHINGTON, DC -- The construction of a 650 mile long buried pipeline to carry oil from landlocked Chad in central Africa to Cameroon's Atlantic coast is one step closer to reality over the objections of environmental and human rights groups. |
| USA: Enron Puts Assets Up for Sale CNN/Money August 27th, 2002 NEW YORK -- Bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp. started taking bids Tuesday for 12 assets, including electric utilities and natural gas pipelines, that make up a large portion of Enron's total holdings. |
| US: Government Secrecy and Corporate Crime by Stephen Pizzo, Daily Enron August 27th, 2002 What began with Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal 15 months ago to make his energy task force documents public expanded quickly to include policy making at virtually every level of government. And, after September 11, the blanket of secrecy - which had until then only covered the brass breasts of the DOJ's Lady Justice statue - darkened some of America's most valued constitutional protections. |
| USA: Oil Lobby Urges Bush to Keep Climate Change Off the Table at Earth Summit by Anthony Browne, Times of London August 16th, 2002 Conservative lobbyists in the US funded by Esso have urged President Bush to derail the Earth summit in Johannesburg because it is anti-freedom, anti-people, anti-globalization and anti-Western. |
| USA: State Department Tries to Get ExxonMobil Suit Dropped by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service August 7th, 2002 Weeks before the State Department told a trial judge that a lawsuit against oil giant ExxonMobil for alleged human rights abuses in Indonesia could endanger Washington's 'war on terror', Indonesia hinted the suit might put U.S. interests at risk, says Human Rights Watch (HRW). |
| Nigeria: Women Claim Victory in ChevronTexaco Oil Terminal Takeover by D'Arcy Doran, Associated Press July 19th, 2002 ESCRAVOS, Nigeria -- Hundreds of women carrying straw mats and thermoses abandoned ChevronTexaco's main oil terminal, ending a peaceful 10-day protest that crippled the oil giant's Nigeria operations and won an unprecedented company pledge to build modern towns out of poor villages. |
| Nigeria: Women Protestors Say Deal With Chevron Off by Andrew Marshall, BBC July 16th, 2002 Women protesters who have besieged an oil terminal in southern Nigeria for more than a week say they will continue their blockade. |
| NIGERIA: Women Stick to Oil Demands by D'Arcy Doran, Associated Press July 13th, 2002 Oil company executives thumped the table and even offered concessions, but the women who took over a giant oil terminal and trapped hundreds of workers inside did not budge Saturday in their demands for jobs for their sons and electricity for their homes. |
| Africa: Commission Hands Down Significant Human Rights Decision by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US July 3rd, 2002 Groups hailed Tuesday a sweeping and unprecedented ruling by Africa's premier human rights tribunal that held that the former military regime of Nigeria violated the economic and social rights of the Ogoni people by failing to protect their property, lands, and health from destruction caused by foreign oil companies and the Nigerian security forces. |
| World: Activists Oppose Public Financing of Caspian Oil Pipeline by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US June 26th, 2002 Sixty-four mainly European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from some 37 countries are asking international financial institutions (IFIs), like the World Bank, and bilateral export credit agencies (ECAs), including the United States Export-Import Bank, to deny funding for a multi-billion-dollar oil pipeline project to run more than 1,000 miles from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean. |
| USA: EPA to Relax Pollution Rules for Power Plants by John Heilprin, Associated Press June 13th, 2002 The Environmental Protection Agency will relax air pollution rules to make it easier for utilities to upgrade and expand their coal-burning power plants, Bush administration sources said yesterday. |
| USA: Burma Human Rights Abuse Case Against Oil Giant to Go Ahead Agence France Presse June 12th, 2002 A lawsuit claiming US energy giant UNOCAL was complicit in human rights abuses committed by Myanmar's military regime will go ahead in California in September, lawyers said. |
| US: Energy Task Force Documents Show Industry Influence by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service May 22nd, 2002 Vice President Richard Cheney's energy task force met with industry representatives 25 times for every one contact with conservation and public interest groups, shows a review by the group whose lawsuit prompted the release of thousands of Energy Department documents. The review was released the same day that the energy agency delivered another 1,500 pages of previously withheld task force information. |
| Central Asia: World Bank Chief In Talks Over Pipeline Agence France Presse May 16th, 2002 KABUL -- World Bank chief James Wolfensohn said Wednesday he had held talks about financing a fuel pipeline to channel massive gas reserves from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to India or Pakistan. |
| Costa Rica: Offshore Oil Drilling Scrapped by David Boddiger, Latinamerica Press May 15th, 2002 Environmentalists are praising Costa Rica's Ministry of the Environment and Energy for turning down a request from a US oil company to drill for oil along the Caribbean coast. |
| Nigeria: Youth Protestors Take Over Chevron Oil Rig, Leave Peacefully Associated Press April 25th, 2002 LAGOS, Nigeria -- Youths who seized an oil rig off southern Nigeria released their last 43 hostages and left the rig peacefully Thursday, after the oil company agreed to discuss their demands, officials said. |
| USA: Environmental Groups Look Ahead After Vote Against Oil Drilling in Arctic Reserve by Beth Bolitho, OneWorld US April 22nd, 2002 Following a vote in the United States Senate last week to block changes to a bill which would have allowed oil exploration and development of a fragile wildlife habitat in the Arctic, activists are now planning their next steps to ensure that the area remains protected from future environmental threats. |
| USA: Government OKs Drilling in Alaska Oil Reserve Reuters April 11th, 2002 WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department on Thursday approved final rules to allow energy companies to share the costs and revenues from drilling for oil and natural gas on leased tracts in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. |
| USA: Few Electric Companies Produce Majority of Polluting Emissions by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service March 21st, 2002 WASHINGTON, DC -- Just 20 electric utilities in the United States are responsible for half the carbon dioxide, mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide pollution emitted by the 100 largest power generating companies in the nation, a new report finds. The study by a coalition of environmental and public interest groups found that between four and six companies account for 25 percent of the emissions of each pollutant. |
| US: Mine Workers Chief Arrested at Massey Energy Protest Environment News Service March 15th, 2002 United Mine Workers president Cecil Roberts was one of 11 people arrested Thursday at the site of a huge coal sludge spill as they demonstrated against the environmental performance of Massey Energy. |
| ECUADOR: Amazon Indians Appeal Texaco Case Ruling by Gail Appleson, Reuters March 11th, 2002 Rainforest Indians of Ecuador and Peru urged a U.S. appeals court on Monday to reinstate nine-year-old litigation against Texaco, alleging that toxic dumping devastated their environment and exposed residents to cancer-causing pollutants. |
| Latin America: Enron Fallout is a Hot Issue Oil Daily March 4th, 2002 The implications of Enron's dramatic fall extend far beyond US borders. The once-mighty energy giant's murky dealings in Latin America have emerged as a hot political issue throughout the region, where politicians in some countries are using it as an election tool or to take attention away from their own economic or political woes. |
| UK: Oil Giant BP Stops Political Donations Associated Press February 28th, 2002 LONDON -- BP PLC has announced it will no longer make political donations anywhere in the world, acknowledging that the relationship between corporations and government is under unprecedented scrutiny. |
| US: General Motors Protests Proposed Fuel Standards Associated Press February 25th, 2002 Fearing that increased fuel economy standards will doom the pickup trucks they produce, hundreds of General Motors Corp. workers chanted "Save our trucks, save our jobs," during a meeting Monday with union, company and political leaders. |
| Ecuador: Oil Pipeline Project Under Fire by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US February 21st, 2002 Environmental activist groups from two continents have vowed to step up their fight against a foreign-financed pipeline project that would transport oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon to the Pacific after completing a 10-day tour along the 300-mile route. |
| USA: Native Americans Speak Against Arctic Refuge Drilling Plans by Alex Carrera, United Press International February 12th, 2002 WASHINGTON -- A coalition of native-American groups is lobbying the Senate to ban oil drilling on the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, saying it threatens the way of life of local residents. |
| USA: Enron Lobbyist Plotted Strategy Against Democrats by Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times February 11th, 2002 While the Bush administration was drafting its national energy policy, a leading lobbyist for Enron Corp. was plotting strategy to turn the plan into a political weapon against Democrats, according to a newly obtained memo. |
| India: Enron's Debacle at Dabhol by Sandip Roy, Pacific News Service February 8th, 2002 Enron's collapse may have begun with the kind of misadventures it engaged in half a world away among the quiet coastal villages of Dabhol, India. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Oil Execs Revive Pipeline From Hell by Daniel Fisher, Forbes.com February 4th, 2002 It has been called the pipeline from hell, to hell, through hell. It's a 1,270-kilometer conduit, 1.2 meters in diameter, that would snake across Afghanistan to carry natural gas from eastern Turkmenistan -- with 700 billion cubic meters of proven reserves -- to energy-hungry Pakistan and beyond. |
| USA: Halliburton -- To the Victors Go the Markets by Jordan Green, Facing South February 1st, 2002 The influence of big energy corporations in the Bush Administration is no secret. But the story of Dick Cheney and his former company, Halliburton Co., has received little attention -- and it may be the most important. |
| USA: Fired Andersen Partner Refuses to Testify on Enron by Kevin Drawbaugh and Susan Cornwell, Reuters January 24th, 2002 A fired partner of auditor Andersen refused to testify to Congress on the destruction of evidence in the collapse of energy giant Enron, prompting lawmakers to say he was frustrating their probe. |
| USA: VP Tried to Aid Enron in India by Timothy J. Burger, New York Daily News January 18th, 2002 Vice President Cheney tried to help Enron collect a $64 million debt from a giant energy project in India, government documents obtained by the Daily News show. |
| Ecuador: Oil Spill Contaminates Amazon Environment News Service January 10th, 2002 QUITO, Ecuador -- Oil from an abandoned exploratory oil well in the Ecuadorian Amazon is spilling uncontrolled into the environment months after government authorities were first notified, according to an international wildlife conservation group. |
| USA: Auditor Says Enron Documents Gone by Marcy Gordon, Associated Press January 10th, 2002 WASHINGTON -- The firm that audited the books of collapsed Enron Corp., Arthur Andersen LLP, disclosed Thursday that a ''significant but undetermined'' number of documents related to the company had been destroyed. |
| USA: Unocal Advisor Named Representative to Afghanistan by Patrick Martin, World Socialist Web Site January 3rd, 2002 President Bush has appointed a former aide to the American oil company Unocal, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as special envoy to Afghanistan. The nomination was announced December 31, nine days after the US-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai took office in Kabul. |
| China: Oil Workers Revolt Over Drilling Rights Reuters December 19th, 2001 BEIJING -- Their battle cry was ''Get to Work'' and they came in three shifts, but the Chinese oil drillers weren't brandishing their crowbars and wooden sticks as tools. |
| USA: Enron on Brink of Bankruptcy by Kristen Hays, Associated Press November 29th, 2001 HOUSTON -- The slick financing that helped turn Enron Corp. into a mighty power-brokering dynamo became its Achilles' heel, leaving the energy trader teetering toward bankruptcy after a smaller rival abandoned plans to buy it. |
| UZBEKISTAN: US Ally Hopes War Will Lead to Oil Investment by Priscilla Patton, Globalvision News Network November 26th, 2001 The Uzbek government hopes to parlay its close working relationship with the United States during the ''war on terrorism'' into closer economic ties, garnering much-needed direct investment for its underdeveloped petrochemical sector and increased bilateral trade, according to Sadyq Safayev, former Uzbek ambassador to the U.S. and first deputy foreign minister since May. |
| USA: Enron, Dynegy Confirm Possible Merger Talks by Jeff Franks, Reuters November 8th, 2001 HOUSTON -- Enron Corp., plagued by investor doubts and under the gun to shore up its crumbling finances, said on Thursday it was talking with power trading rival Dynegy Inc. about a possible merger. |
| USA: Oil Firms Fund 'Tobacco Terrorism' by John Creed, Anchorage Daily News November 7th, 2001 We interrupt our regularly scheduled sense of decency for the following heart-breaking news bulletin: A huge tobacco company is spreading disease across our state with help from Williams Alaska Petroleum and Tesoro Alaska. |
| USA: Court Throws Out Exxon Valdez Fine by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle November 7th, 2001 A jury's $5 billion punitive damage award for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was too high compared to the damage caused and the sums the company already has spent for cleanup and compensation, a federal appeals court ruled today. |
| USA: The Real Price of Oil by Mark Hertsgaard, MotherJones.com October 15th, 2001 Perhaps it's a sign of politics inching back toward business as usual: Congressional Republicans are exploiting the Sept. 11 terror attacks to push the Bush administration's plan for an all-out increase in energy production. |
| Australia: Police Move on Melbourne Climate Protestors Environment News Service September 27th, 2001 MELBOURNE, Australia -- Police have moved in to disband protesters opposing construction of a gas fired power generator and pipeline in Somerton, a Melbourne neighborhood. The demonstrators, from Friends of the Earth Melbourne, say the generator will destroy the fragile ecosystem of the Merri Creek today and over the weekend. |
| USA: It's the Oil, Stupid by Johnny Angel, LA Weekly September 26th, 2001 In the orgy of examination of who and what is to blame for the events of September 11, we must have heard every conceivable explanation. The American right, as exemplified by President Bush, Fox News and the opinion page of the The Wall Street Journal, blames envy of American values and success. The extreme right blames secular humanism, gay rights and the other bogeymen they love to flog. The center faults lax airport security and a general lack of preparedness, while the left, all but ignored by the corporate media, blames American imperialism and in some cases our unconditional support for Israel. |
| USA: Wartime Opportunists by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation September 6th, 2001 Corporate interests and their proxies are looking to exploit the September 11 tragedy to advance a self-serving agenda that has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with corporate profits and dangerous ideologies. |
| USA: Exxon CEO Draws Anger Over Climate Change by Thaddeus Herrick, Wall Street Journal August 29th, 2001 Like his predecessors, Exxon Mobil Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Lee Raymond keeps a relatively low profile. He's reluctant to grant interviews and make public appearances. But ever since he assailed the Kyoto initiative to combat global warming in a speech a few years ago, Mr. Raymond has been inextricably linked to the issue. |
| USA: Big Oil, Gas Funding Ads for Bush's Energy Policy by William E. Gibson, Orlando Sentinel August 19th, 2001 The big oil and gas companies that spent nearly $2 million to help elect President Bush last year are pouring millions more into an advertising campaign this summer to help sell his energy policy in Congress. |
| Germany: Climate Deal Is Weak by Bonner R. Cohen, Earth Times News Service July 24th, 2001 One of the surest indications that trouble is at hand is when diplomats start hiding behind catchy phrases and meaningless terminology. Participants and observers to the COP-6 Climate Change conference here have been told that ''breakthrough,'' ''deal,'' or ''compromise'' (take your pick) had been achieved. |
| Colombia: Americans Blamed in Raid by Karl Penhaul, San Francisco Chronicle July 15th, 2001 Three American civilian airmen providing airborne security for a U.S. oil company coordinated an anti-guerrilla raid in Colombia in 1998, marking targets and directing helicopter gunships that mistakenly killed 18 civilians, Colombian military pilots have alleged in a official inquiry. |
| Colombia: Oxy's Relationship with Military Turns Deadly Drillbits and Tailings (Project Underground) June 30th, 2001 New evidence has surfaced in a Colombian government inquiry exposing active collaboration between security forces protecting oil operations of the Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum (OXY) and the notorious Colombian military in one of the country' deadliest attacks on civilians. |
| UK: MI6 'Firm' Spied on Green Groups by Maurice Chittenden and Nicholas Rufford, The Sunday Times (London) June 17th, 2001 A private intelligence firm with close links to MI6 spied on environmental campaign groups to collect information for oil companies, including Shell and BP. |
| Sudan: Oil Money Is Fueling Civil War by Karl Vick, Washington Post June 11th, 2001 In a civil war that seems to be fueled by so much -- religion, for example, because one side is Muslim and the other side is not, and race, because one side is Arab and the other African -- nothing has supercharged the fighting in southern Sudan quite like Nile Blend crude. |
| KENYA: Japan Suspends Funding for Sondu Miriu Dam by Jennifer Wanjiru, Environment News Service June 4th, 2001 Citing "environmental disruption and corruption" in a letter to the government of Kenya, Japan's Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka indicated that suspension of funding for the Sondu Miriu hydropower dam project was ''a response to criticism from environmental campaigners and differences between Kenya and Japan over further funding.'' |
| USA: Bush Energy Plan Faulted, Ignores Human Rights Reuters May 31st, 2001 A leading advocacy group has taken the Bush administration to task for failing to include human rights considerations in its new national energy plan, according to a letter obtained by Reuters yesterday. |
| USA: Bush Administration OKs Drilling on Native Lands by Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times May 22nd, 2001 A federal land agency on Monday upheld billionaire Philip Anschutz's right to drill an exploratory oil well in an area of south-central Montana where Native American tribes want to preserve sacred rock drawings. |
| USA: Bush Calls for More Coal, Oil and Nukes by Randall Mikkelsen, Reuters May 17th, 2001 President Bush called for expanding U.S. coal, oil and nuclear power production and offered conservation incentives on Thursday to beat back high gas prices, blackouts and ''a darker future.'' |
| Nigeria: Shell Oil Spill Increases Tensions in Ogoniland AllAfrica.com May 8th, 2001 Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) of Nigeria finally managed to cap the oil gushing from one of its wells in Ogoniland at the weekend, but the well's blow-out and the resulting flood of oil and gas into the immediate environment has once more intensified tensions between the giant oil company and the half-million strong Ogoni Kingdom. |
| USA: Cheney Vows to Stick With Fossil Fuels by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service May 1st, 2001 The United States will focus on increased domestic production of oil and greater use of coal for electricity generation in a new national energy strategy to be announced in a few weeks, Vice President Richard Cheney said Monday. |
| USA: Bush Task Force to Recommend Alaska Drilling by Patricia Wilson, Reuters April 23rd, 2001 Seeking to clarify a muddied message on oil exploration in the Alaska wilderness, the White House said on Monday President Bush's energy panel would call for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. |
| USA: Pipeline Leaks Oil on Alaska Tundra by Yereth Rosen, Reuters April 17th, 2001 A hole in a pipeline used for transporting by-products at the Kuparuk oil field on Alaska's North Slope has resulted in the biggest spill of industrial material onto the tundra in recent years, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) said on Tuesday. |
| Australia: Activists Discuss World Boycott of U.S. Oil Firms Associated Press April 12th, 2001 Green groups from around the world were drawing up a global action plan Friday that could include boycotts of U.S. energy giants to force the United States to honor its Kyoto greenhouse gas reduction commitments. |
| USA: 500 Protest Enron Plant by David Fleshler, Sun-Sentinel March 27th, 2001 More than 500 people packed the Pompano Beach Civic Center on Monday night in a formidable display of opposition to Enron Corp.'s plans for a power plant next to Florida's Turnpike. |
| Nigeria: Workers Buck IMF by William Wallis, Financial Times March 22nd, 2001 The Nigerian Labour Congress yesterday threatened to render Africa's most populous nation ungovernable if President Olusegun Obasanjo went ahead with plans to phase in the deregulation of fuel supplies in an attempt to end chronic shortages. |
| Sudan: Oil Firms Accused of Fueling Mass Displacement and Killing by Victoria Brittain and Terry Macalister, The Guardian (London) March 15th, 2001 Oil companies operating in Sudan are complicit in the systematic depopulating of large areas of the country and atrocities against civilians, tens of thousands of whom have been killed and displaced from the areas around the oil fields, according to a report to be published today. |
| USA: Federal Worker Fired For Posting Refuge Map by Lisa Getter, Los Angeles Times March 15th, 2001 Last week, Ian Thomas posted a map on a U.S. government Web site of the caribou calving areas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area the Bush administration wants to open up for oil exploration. This week, Thomas is looking for a new job. |
| USA: Bush's Reversal on Greenhouse Gas Cuts by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service March 14th, 2001 President George W. Bush did an abrupt about face Tuesday, reversing a previous pledge to legislate limits on carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants. Bush said such a rule would prove too costly, launching another in a slew of recent federal and state government attempts to roll back environmental protections in favor of controlling energy prices. |
| USA: The Unimog, Daimler's New Polluter Deutsche Presse-Agentur February 22nd, 2001 DaimlerChrysler announced plans Wednesday to produce a version of the German military vehicle, the Unimog, for sale in the United States, with production planned to begin in January. |
| ECUADOR: Nationwide Protests End with Triumph by Indians by Kintto Lucas, Inter Press Service February 7th, 2001 The nationwide protests or ''uprising'' by Ecuador's indigenous people that has brought much of this Andean nation to a standstill over the past two weeks ended Wednesday with the signing of a pact with President Gustavo Noboa, who agreed to lower the price of gasoline, one of the demonstrators' main demands. |
| Ecuador: Army Crackdown Leaves Four Indian Protesters Dead by Kintto Lucas, Inter Press Service February 5th, 2001 The protests by indigenous groups against the government's economic austerity policies have brought large areas of the country to a standstill for the past two weeks, intensifying Monday when four people, including a child, were killed when the army cracked down on demonstrators in the Amazon province of Napo. |
| Pakistan: Shell Under Fire for Pipeline Environmental News Service January 29th, 2001 Environmentalists have taken multinational oil giant Shell to court over its plans to build a pipeline for mineral and gas exploration in Pakistan's Kirthar National Park. |
| Nigeria: Ogonis Say Arms Were Sponsored by Shell by Ahamefula Ogbu and Chuks Akunna, AllAfrica.com January 25th, 2001 The multinational oil giant, the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC) was yesterday accused of importing arms and ammunitions into the country with which destabilisation was engendered in the Niger Delta. |
| USA: Ten Worst Corporations of 2000 by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation January 3rd, 2001 Here is the annual Top 10 Worst Corporations of 2000 list compiled by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. This year, rushing to the head of the pack of irresponsible biotech companies was the French corporation Aventis, the maker of Cry9C corn, sold under the name StarLink. |
| Ecuador: US Company Drops Bid to Build Pipeline Reuters December 7th, 2000 U.S.-based Williams Cos. Inc. has dropped its bid to build a heavy crude pipeline in Ecuador, a company spokesman said on Thursday. |
| USA: Cheney Made Millions Off Oil Deals with Hussein by Martin A. Lee, San Francisco Bay Guardian November 13th, 2000 During former defense secretary Richard Cheney's five-year tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Inc., his oil services firm raked in big bucks from dubious commercial dealings with Iraq. Cheney left Halliburton with a $34 million retirement package last July when he became the GOP's vice-presidential candidate |
| USA: Corporate Giants Begin Greenhouse Gas Trading Program by Danielle Knight, Inter Press Service October 18th, 2000 Seven corporations, including several of the world's largest multinational companies, have joined with an environmental group in seeking ways to trade emission permits to reduce their production of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. But critics say the partnership is just more of the same hot air from the world's fossil fuel industry. |
| USA: Corporate Giants Begin Greenhouse Gas Trading Inter Press Service October 18th, 2000 Seven corporations, including some of the world's largest multinational companies, have joined with an environmental group in seeking ways to trade emission permits to reduce their production of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. |
| USA: Chevron-Texaco Merger Criticized Institute for Public Accuracy October 16th, 2000 Chevron has just agreed to acquire Texaco for $36 billion. This follows the BP-Amoco and Exxon-Mobil mergers. The following analysts are available for comments. |
| Venezuela: Oil Workers Strike by Fabiola Sanchez, Associated Press October 11th, 2000 As tensions mounted between President Hugo Chavez and opposition labor groups, tens of thousands of oil workers went on strike Wednesday to demand higher wages. |
| USA: Government Ties Helped Cheney and Halliburton Make Millions by John Rega, Bloomberg News October 6th, 2000 While the comment came in a light-hearted exchange with his Democratic opponent Joe Lieberman, Cheney's reply left out how closely Dallas-based Halliburton's fortunes are linked to the U.S. government. The world's largest oil services firm is a leading U.S. defense contractor and has benefited from financial guarantees granted by U.S. agencies that promote exports. |
| USA: Koch Industries Indicted for Air, Hazardous Waste Violations by Brian Hansen, Environment News Service October 2nd, 2000 A Texas based oil conglomerate and four of its employees were indicted last week on 97 counts of violating federal clean air and hazardous waste laws. The charges come less than one year after the company was slapped with the largest civil penalty ever levied under federal environmental statutes. |
| USA: Shell to Face Lawsuit for Saro-Wiwa Execution by Karen McGregor, The Independent September 19th, 2000 Allegations that the oil multinational Shell aided and abetted the torture and murder of Nigerian activists including the executed writer Ken Saro-Wiwa will be tested by a full jury trial in New York, after the oil company's attempts to have the case thrown out were rejected. |
| USA: Billion Dollar NAFTA Challenge to California MTBE Ban by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service September 11th, 2000 The Canadian challenger, Methanex Corporation, has argued that a plan to remove the toxic chemical MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) from California's gasoline violates the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). |
| France: Fuel Prices Ignite Protests Financial Times September 6th, 2000 French riot police prevented farmers from blocking freight access to the Channel Tunnel as protests against petrol prices continued to escalate. |
| USA: Chevron Will Pay $7 Million for Clean Air Violations by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service August 24th, 2000 Chevron USA, the second largest U.S. oil company, has agreed to pay a $6 million fine and spend $1 million on environmental improvements to settle a federal lawsuit over Clean Air Act violations at a California offshore oil terminal. |
| Bangladesh: Shell Oil Drilling Threatens Tiger Preserve by Jonathan Leake, Sunday Times of London August 20th, 2000 SHELL, the Anglo-Dutch oil company, is planning to survey the world's biggest tiger reserve after company geologists pinpointed it as one of the richest potential sources of oil and gas on earth. |
| USA: Oil Corporations Woo Democrats Associated Press August 14th, 2000 While Democrats will be partying all across Tinseltown this week, these events go far beyond typical convention-week soirees. Each is aimed at the Democrat who would take over a key committee if the party managed to regain control of Congress in the November elections. |
| USA: U'wa March Trashes Gore by Tamara Straus, AlterNet August 14th, 2000 To put it mildly, the U'wa are a touchy issue for Gore. The presidential candidate owns between $500,000 and $1 million in Occidental stock and his father, Al Gore Sr., served as chair of the board for 28 years, earning an annual salary of $500,000. The elder Gore was such a close political ally of the company that Armand Hammer, Occidental's founder and CEO, liked to say that he had Gore ''in my back pocket.'' |
| India: World Bank Admits Failure of Coal Project UN Wire August 14th, 2000 According to the report, thousands of villagers in eastern and central India received no compensation after state-owned Coal India used a $530 million loan from the World Bank in 1997 to raze their homes in a coal mine modernization scheme. Although resettling, compensating and retraining farmers as entrepreneurs was part of the loan deal, Coal India had no experience in these activities and was unable to carry them out. |
| USA: BP's Arctic Oil Project Stalled as Greenpeace Occupies Barge by Neville Judd, Environment News Service August 7th, 2000 The environmental group Greenpeace International says it took the action this morning because British Petroleum's (BP) Northstar Development will fuel global warming and open the Arctic to offshore oil expansion. |
| Burma: Cheney, Milosevic and Premier Oil Do Business with Junta The Guardian (London) July 28th, 2000 What do Dick Cheney, Slobodan Milosevic and the British company Premier Oil have in common? Answer: they all firmly believe in doing business with Burma, home to perhaps the world's most oppressive regime. |
| USA: Dick Cheney's Oil Connections Drillbits and Tailings (Project Underground) July 25th, 2000 Having ensured the continued flow of cheap oil from the Gulf by waging a war with Iraq, and after his boss, George Bush's ouster from office by Clinton in 1992, Dick Cheney turned his attention to the corporate world. |
| USA: Fronting for Big Coal by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation July 11th, 2000 So, we're sitting in our office, and under the door comes a note advising us that there will be a press conference the next day where African-American and Hispanic groups will release a report showing how minority populations will suffer most if the United Nations Global Warming Treaty (Kyoto agreement) passes the U.S. Senate. |
| USA: Time to Cap Big Oil's Profit Gusher by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation July 3rd, 2000 The startling concentration of economic power that has resulted from the U.S. merger wave of the last several years is going to require new levels of government intervention in the marketplace. |
| USA: Oil Money Gushing into Bush Campaign by H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press July 3rd, 2000 WASHINGTON -- While locked in a string of disputes with the Clinton administration, the oil industry has pumped more than $1.5 million into George W. Bush's campaign. Oil companies will be seeking Bush's help on a range of issues, should he be elected president. |
| Nigeria: Court Fines Shell $40 Million for 1970 Spill Environment News Service June 26th, 2000 PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria -- A Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt has ordered Royal Dutch/Shell to pay US$40 million in compensation for an oil spill which happened in 1970 in Ogoniland. |
| USA: City Sues Big Oil for Millions Over Polluted Drinking Water by Timna Tanners, Reuters June 21st, 2000 SANTA MONICA -- The California beach city of Santa Monica is suing 18 oil companies for damages that could exceed $200 million, claiming that the firms polluted drinking water wells with the possibly cancer-causing gasoline additive MTBE. |
| USA: ExxonMobil Shareholders Use Stock to Push Change by Jonathan Fox, Dallas Observer June 8th, 2000 As with other behemoth multinational companies, Irving-based ExxonMobil's annual meeting is strictly a formality. Most of the crowd that packed the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in downtown Dallas to vote on shareholder resolutions last week were retirees who own relatively small amounts of company stock. |
| USA: Earth Day 2000 Targets Global Warming, Clean Energy Inter Press Service April 20th, 2000 In Earth Day 2000 celebrations around the globe, environmentalists plan to highlight the culprits of global warming and the solutions: renewable energy, including wind and solar. |
| USA: Occidental Chairman Sues Protestors for Harassment by Timna Tanners, Reuters April 4th, 2000 The chairman of Occidental Petroleum is staging his own protest against the human rights groups who picket his home and office --he is suing them for harassment and wants a court to grant him damages. |
| USA: Oxy CEO Confronted by U'wa Leader in Congresswoman's Office Environment News Service March 30th, 2000 A surprise encounter in the Congressional office of Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney today brought the vice president of Occidental Petroleum face to face with the president of the U'wa indigenous people who are fighting the company's oil drilling on their traditional land in Colombia. |
| Burma: US Oil Giant Pulls Out of Country Agence France Presse March 29th, 2000 Oil services provider Baker Hughes has become the latest United States firm to pull out of Burma, human rights campaigners and the firm's local partner said Wednesday. |
| Philippines: Strike Over Gas Hike Paralyzes Southern City by Edwin O. Fernandez and Charlie C. Sease, Philippine Daily Inquirer (Internet Edition) March 23rd, 2000 Jeepney drivers and operators, slumdwellers and other sectoral representatives yesterday took to the streets to demand an oil price rollback and the resignation or ouster of President Estrada. |
| USA: General Motors Quits Global Warming Lobby Group by David Goodman, Associated Press March 15th, 2000 Environmentalists are claiming victory following General Motors Corp.'s decision to quit a lobbying group that has led the opposition to a 1997 global warming treaty reached in Kyoto, Japan. |
| Netherlands: Greenpeace Buys Shell Stock Associated Press March 14th, 2000 The Amsterdam-based environmentalist group announced the purchase of $240,000 worth of Royal Dutch/Shell Group equity to try to pressure the Anglo-Dutch energy conglomerate to build a huge solar panel production plant. |
| JAPAN: People Power Overcomes Nuclear Power by Jonathan Watts, The Guardian (UK) February 23rd, 2000 Japan's nuclear power industry suffered a historic defeat yesterday when one of the country's biggest utilities was forced to scrap plans for a power plant that it has been trying to build for 37 years. |
| World: Who is Paying the Cost of Our Fuel Bills? by George Monbiot, The Guardian Weekly February 10th, 2000 The effects of global warming are cruelly ironic: the impact of fossil-fuel consumption will be most severe in regions where the least fuel has been consumed. Sub-Saharan Africa is becoming drier: in East Africa droughts of the kind that used to strike every 40 years are arriving every four or five. |
| Canada: Oil Company Targeted for Ties to Sudanese Military by Mark Bourrie, Inter Press Service February 7th, 2000 An oil company headquartered in Alberta, Canada, is the target of a divestment campaign aimed at forcing the company to stop its partnership with the Sudanese government in the exploitation of oil fields in the war-torn southern region of Sudan. |
| USA: Closing the Lid on the Chlorine Industry by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on Corporations January 31st, 2000 Thornton is a research fellow at Columbia University's Center for Environmental Research and Conservation. His forthcoming book, Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health and a New Environmental Strategy (March 2000, MIT Press), argues that chlorine and the organochlorine chemicals made from it pose a global health and environmental threat. |
| A Movement Blossoms: Cross-Border Activism Picks Up Speed by Kent Paterson, Borderlines October 20th, 1998 In October 1998, after years of protest by an unprecedented bi-national coalition, the proposed Sierra Blanca nuclear waste dump was defeated. The proposed site for the commercial nuclear waste dump was just 16 miles from the Texas-Mexico border. |