| LIBERIA: Hunting for Liberia’s Missing Millions by Doreen Carvjal, New York Times May 30th, 2010 How much money did Charles G. Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, siphon out of his war-shattered country, and where is it? Investigators are developing a new strategy involving filing civil damage claims against companies, governments and international banks that they contend aided Mr. Taylor in illegal transactions. |
| NIGERIA: Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it by John Vidal, The Guardian (UK) May 30th, 2010 With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. More oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the current BP/Transocean oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. |
| US: FBI Probes Explosion in West Virginia Mine by Kris Maher and Siobhan Hughes, Wall Street Journal April 30th, 2010 The Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting a criminal probe of the deadly explosion at a Massey Energy Co. mine in West Virginia in early April that killed 29 miners, according to people familiar with the matter. In a statement on Friday Massey Energy said, "Massey has no knowledge of criminal wrongdoing." |
| BURMA: Pressure Mounts on Energy Giant Chevron to Disclose Revenue by Marwaan Macan-Markar , Inter Press Service (IPS) April 29th, 2010 When shareholders of the multinational company Chevron gather for their annual meeting in the U.S. city of Houston in late May, they will come face to face with Naing Htoo, whose community has suffered due to the exploits of the energy giant in military-ruled Burma. |
| CANADA: Munk takes on mine protesters, defends capitalism by John Spears, The Star April 28th, 2010 Mark Ekepa journeyed from Papua New Guinea to tell the shareholders of Barrick Gold Corp. how police had burned down his house near the Barrick’s Porgera mine. Idolia Bornones travelled from Chile to say that Barrick operations are damaging local glaciers and rivers. But Barrick chairman Peter Munk was unrepentant as he faced the company’s annual meeting. |
| CANADA/CHINA: Canada looks to China to exploit oil sands rejected by US by Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian (UK) February 14th, 2010 Canada, faced with growing political pressure over the extraction of oil from its highly polluting tar sands, has begun courting China and other Asian countries to exploit the resource. The move comes as US firms are turning away from tar sands because of its heavy carbon footprint and damage to the landscape. |
| NIGERIA: Ex-militant leader heads SPDC’s patrol team by Chris Ejim, Nigerian Compass January 8th, 2010 Authorities of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) have unveiled a new security strategy for securing oil pipelines and platforms within the Niger Delta region. Shell has appointed former MEND militant commander, Eris Paul, and his company, Eristex Pipeline Patrol, to secure oil facilities in the Southern Ijaw area of the Delta. |
| GHANA: Corruption probe into sale of Ghana oil block by William Wallis, Martin Arnold and Brooke Masters, Financial Times January 7th, 2010 US and Ghanaian authorities are investigating corruption allegations involving a Texas oil company and the local partner that helped it secure control of the Ghanaian oil block that yielded one of Africa’s biggest recent discoveries. The case risks complicating efforts by Texas company Kosmos to sell its stake in the Jubilee oil field to ExxonMobil in a deal valued at $4bn. |
| US: Judge dismisses all charges in Blackwater shooting by Associated Press, Los Angeles Times December 31st, 2009 A federal judge has dismissed all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a deadly Baghdad shooting. |
| CHINA: Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively by Keith Bradsher, New York Times December 26th, 2009 Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. Most of these come from China. “In many places, the mining is abused,” said Wang Caifeng, the top rare-earths industry regulator at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Lost in Limbo: Injured Afghan Translators Struggle to Survive by Pratap Chatterjee, ProPublica December 17th, 2009 Local translators are hidden casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military uses defense contractors to hire local residents to serve as translators for the troops. These local translators often live, sleep and eat with soldiers. And yet when they are wounded, they are often ignored by the U.S. system designed to provide them medical care and disability benefits, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Paying Off the Warlords,
Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com November 17th, 2009 Among the dozens of businesses with lucrative Afghan and U.S. taxpayer-financed reconstruction deals are two extremely well connected companies -- Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid -- that helped to swell the election coffers of President Hamid Karzai as well as the family business of his running mate, the country's new vice president, warlord Mohammed Qasim Fahim. |
| US/ECUADOR: New nonprofit uses Web to pressure Chevron by David A. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle November 16th, 2009 Retired retail executive Richard Goldman was astonished when he heard about the $27 billion pollution lawsuit against Chevron Corp. in Ecuador. SO he has created a nonprofit group, Ethos Alliance, that will use social-networking tools to spread word of the case and put pressure on Chevron. |
| FRANCE: France jails 'Angolagate' power players by Pascale Juilliard, The Times Online (South Africa) October 27th, 2009 A French court slapped jail terms Tuesday on the main players in a network that smuggled arms to war-torn Angola and included an ex-minister and the son of the late president Francois Mitterrand. |
| BRAZIL: Giants in Cattle Industry Agree to Help Fight Deforestation by Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times October 7th, 2009 Environmental groups hailed a decision this week by four of the world’s largest meat producers to ban the purchase of cattle from newly deforested areas of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. Brazil has the world’s largest cattle herd and is the world’s largest beef exporter. It is also the fourth largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. |
| ECUADOR: Chevron Offers Evidence in Ecuador Bribery Case by Reuters, New York Times September 7th, 2009 On Monday Chevron said it gave Ecuadorean authorities evidence of a bribery scheme linked to a $27 billion environmental damages lawsuit against the oil company. Last week, the judge hearing the case, Juan Núñez, recused himself. The Amazon Defense Coalition said the recusal did not “change the overwhelming evidence against Chevron.” |
| US: Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows by Thom Shanker, New York Times September 6th, 2009 Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study. |
| FIJI: Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle by Anna Lenzer, Mother Jones August 17th, 2009 Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won't sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool? |
| SOUTH AMERICA: Plundering the Amazon by Michael Smith and Adriana Brasileiro, Bloomberg.com August 16th, 2009 Alcoa and Cargill have bypassed laws designed to prevent destruction of the world’s largest rain forest, Brazilian prosecutors say. The damage wrought by scores of companies is robbing the earth of its best shield against global warming. |
| UK: Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant by Danny Fortson, Sunday Times (UK) July 19th, 2009 In Colchester, Essex, John and Alfred Donovan are compiling perhaps the world's largest dossier on Royal Dutch Shell, at royaldutchshellplc.com. It's an awkward position for Shell, this month crowned by Fortune magazine as the world’s largest company, as trying to shut the website down would draw even more attention to it. |