| UK: Kingsnorth power station plans shelved by E.ON by Mark Tran, The Guardian (UK) October 7th, 2009 E.ON, the German energy group, has effectively thrown in the towel on its plans to build a new coal-power station at Kingsnorth, UK, blaming the recession. Kingsnorth has been shrouded in controversy ever since inception, with protests over several years including a high-profile Climate Camp protest. |
| IVORY COAST: Toxic waste: company to pay by AFP, Times Live September 17th, 2009 Victims will receive compensation after seeking legal action in Britain against Trafigura oil company. Waste from a ship the company chartered was illegally dumped in Abidjan, killing 17 people and causing more than 100,000 to seek medical help in 2006. |
| US: Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering by Charles Duhigg, New York Times September 12th, 2009 Violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found. Polluters include small companies, like gas stations, dry cleaners, and shopping malls. They also include large operations, like chemical factories, power plants, sewage treatment centers and one of the biggest zinc smelters, the Horsehead Corporation of Pennsylvania. |
| US: Tar-sands oil standoff brews in Minnesota by Leslie Brooks Suzukamo , TwinCities.com - Pioneer Press September 9th, 2009 The fight over global warming and Canadian oil is heating up. A group of oil companies and big industries launched a campaign to try to snuff out rules that might raise the cost of piping Canadian tar-sands oil through the Dakotas to refineries in the Twin Cities. Meanwhile, environmentalists are trying to stop tar-sands oil, claiming it is some of the dirtiest petroleum on Earth. |
| 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.” |
| 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. |
| UK: Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant by Danny Fortson, The 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. |
| US: Sued by the forest by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, The Boston Globe July 19th, 2009 Last February, the town of Shapleigh, Maine, population 2,326, passed an unusual ordinance. Like nearby towns, Shapleigh sought to protect its aquifers from the Nestle Corporation, which draws heavily on the region for its Poland Spring bottled water. Shapleigh tried something new. At a town meeting, residents voted to endow all of the town’s natural assets with legal rights. |
| TANZANIA: The human cost of gold: And a deadly price to pay This Day Tanzania June 30th, 2009 Villagers living near a gold mine owned and run by Canada’s Barrick Gold Corp. in Tarime District, Mara Region are demanding the immediate closure of the project, saying they are paying a deadly price for the mining activities in the area. |
| UK: Fears for safety as nuclear watchdog hires staff from firms pitching to build reactors by Tim Webb, The Guardian June 26th, 2009 In another example of the revolving door between industry and government, the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate is recruiting more than a dozen project managers to speed up its review of new nuclear reactor designs – even though those managers work for the companies hoping to build the reactors. |
| ECUADOR: Chevron's Amazon 'fake cleanup' trial United Press International June 25th, 2009 A report submitted this week to a court in Ecuador finding dangerous levels of contamination at oil wells Chevron says it cleaned up in the 1990s is expected to reinforce a fraud indictment against two Chevron lawyers in a $27.3 billion environmental lawsuit against the oil company. |
| AFRICA: Blood diamond scheme 'is failing' BBC News June 24th, 2009 Officials are meeting to review the Kimberley Process, amid criticism that the scheme, set up to certify the origin of diamonds to assure consumers that by purchasing diamonds they are not financing war and human rights abuses, is failing. The Kimberley Process emerged from global outrage over conflicts in countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, largely funded by the plundering of diamond resources. |
| CANADA/US: A Delicate Undertaking: Virgin Forests Going Down the Toilet by Bryan Walsh, Time in partnership with CNN June 10th, 2009 Major toilet paper brands like Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle are using paper from North American virgin forests to produce toilet paper. |
| A Delicate Undertaking: Virgin Forests Going Down the Toilet by Bryan Walsh, Time in partnership with CNN June 10th, 2009 Major toilet paper brands like Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle are using paper from North American virgin forests to produce toilet paper. |
| NIGERIA: Shell to Pay $15.5 Million to Settle Nigerian Case by Jad Mouawad, New York Times June 8th, 2009 Royal Dutch Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle a case accusing it of taking part in human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, a striking sum given it has denied any wrongdoing. Ken Saro-Wiwa, Shell’s most prominent critic at the time in Nigeria, was hanged in 1995 by that country’s military regime after protesting Shell's environmental practices in the oil-rich delta, especially in his native Ogoni region. |
| INDONESIA: Scramble for coal assets in Indonesia by Sundeep Tucker and John Aglionby, Financial Times June 7th, 2009 Some of the world’s largest energy groups are scrambling to acquire coal mining assets in Indonesia as family-run conglomerates consider divestments to raise cash. Peabody Energy, the US coal miner, and Xstrata, the Anglo-Swiss miner, are believed to be among those interested. Industry analysts said Chinese, South Korean, Indian and Middle Eastern companies were also scouring Indonesia for assets. |
| US: 'Roadless' Forest Areas Now Under Vilsack by David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post May 29th, 2009 U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a temporary order yesterday governing development in "roadless" areas of national forests, requiring all new projects to be approved by him personally. A USDA official said it is unclear whether projects with a strictly commercial aim, such as logging or mining, will be allowed. |
| FINLAND: In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble by James Kanter, New York Times May 28th, 2009 As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site. The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. But things have not gone as planned. |