News Articles
| INDIA: Camera Obscura and the manufacture of happiness by Aman Sethi & Priscilla Jebaraj, The Hindu March 6th, 2012 An advertisement flooding airwaves across India would have you believe that a company called Vedanta is a creating a product called happiness. But London-based Vedanta Resources has attracted the ire of environmental activists and human rights groups like Amnesty International who have accused the company of exploiting indigenous communities — such as the Dongria Kondhs of Niyamgiri in Odisha — without due process. |
| LIBERIA: Land deals with foreign firms 'could sow seeds of conflict' by Tamasin Ford, The Guardian (UK) March 2nd, 2012 Land deals with foreign firms in Liberia 'could sow seeds of conflict'says a new report from the Centre for International Conflict Resolution (CICR) at Columbia University in New York. The report covers Golden Veroleum, Sime Darby, ArcelorMittal and Putu Iron Ore Mining Corporation. |
| ARCTIC: Shell Launches Preemptive Legal Strike For Ocean Drilling by Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times February 29th, 2012 Royal Dutch Shell launched an extraordinary preemptive legal strike Wednesday against opponents of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean, filing suit against more than a dozen environmental organizations likely to challenge its plan for drilling exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea this summer. |
| U.S.: TransCanada Pipeline Foes See U.S. Bias in E-Mails by Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times October 3rd, 2011 E-mails obtained by Friends of the Earth paint a picture of a collaborative relationship between lobbyists for TransCanada and the U.S. State department, the agency that has final say over a 1,661 mile pipeline that will transport tar sands crude from Alberta to Texas. Embassy officials in Ottawa procured invitations to Fourth of July parties for TransCanada officials and shared information with the company about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s meetings. |
| GLOBAL: Revealed: Secret world of global oil and mining giants by Nick Mathiason, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism September 19th, 2011 Ten of the world’s most powerful oil, gas and mining companies own a staggering 6,038 subsidiaries with over a third located in ‘secrecy jurisdictions’. |
| LIBYA: The minister, the Tory donor and a contract to supply oil by Robert Winnett, and Rowena Mason, The Telegraph (UK) September 2nd, 2011 An oil company whose chief executive has bankrolled the Conservatives won exclusive rights to trade with Libyan rebels during the conflict, following secret talks involving the British Government. |
| 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: Nature Conservancy faces potential backlash from ties with BP by Joe Stephens, Washington Post May 24th, 2010 The Nature Conservancy faces a problem: a potential backlash as its supporters learn that BP and the world's largest environmental organization long ago forged a relationship that has lent BP an Earth-friendly image and helped fund the Conservancy. The crude emanating from BP's well threatens to befoul a number of alliances between energy conglomerates and environmental nonprofits. |
| US: Oil Hits Home, Spreading Arc of Frustration by Campbell Robertson, Clifford Krauss and John M. Broder, New York Times May 24th, 2010 More than a month has passed since the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up, spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico and frustrating all efforts to contain it. The disaster underscores the enduring laxity of federal regulation of offshore operations and has shown the government to be almost wholly at the mercy of BP and of Transocean, the company leasing the rig. |
| WORLD: Disaster Plans Lacking at Deep Rigs by Ben Casselman and Guy Chazen, Wall Street Journal May 17th, 2010 Dealing with a deep-sea spill is a a problem that spans the industry, whose major players include Chevron Corp, Royal Dutch Shell and Petróleo Brasileiro SA. Without adequately planning for trouble, the oil business has focused on developing experimental equipment and techniques to drill in ever deeper waters, according to a Wall Street Journal examination. |
| US: U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits by Ian Urbina, New York Times May 13th, 2010 The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf. |
| UK/CANADA: Tar sands crude is reaching British petrol stations, Greenpeace says by Terry Macalister, The Guardian (UK) May 9th, 2010 While City investors have begun to question the role of companies such as BP and Shell in the tar sands business, a new report by Greenpeace claims British motorists are unwitting users of diesel and petrol derived from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. The carbon-heavy production methods involved make tar sands extraction particularly damaging to the environment. |
| US: BP touts itself as 'green,' but faces PR disaster with 'BP oil spill' by Paul Farhi, Washington Post May 6th, 2010 Ever careful of its public image, BP has been careful not to invoke its name in regard to the massive ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "We refer to it as Gulf of Mexico response," said Andrew Gowers, the company's spokesman. The name of a disaster can be critical, both as a historic matter and the more immediate matters of image, public relations and legal liability. |
| 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." |
| US: BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act by Campbell Robertson and Eric Lipton, New York Times April 30th, 2010 The Obama administration began Friday to publicly chastise BP America for its handling of the spreading oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Officials initially seemed to underestimate the threat of a leak, just as BP did last year when it told the government such an event was highly unlikely. |
| US: Oil Spill’s Blow to BP’s Image May Eclipse Costs by Clifford Krauss , New York Times April 29th, 2010 BP says that the offshore drilling accident that is spewing thousands of barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico could cost the company several hundred million dollars. Nobody really knows whether the oil giant is being too conservative about the cost for the April 20 accident, which some experts say could end up as the biggest oil spill in history. |
| 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. |
| AFRICA: E Guinea ejected from industry clean-up body by Tom Burgis, Financial Times April 16th, 2010 A pioneering initiative aimed at cleaning up the oil and mining industries has ejected Equatorial Guinea from its ranks. The board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a voluntary coalition of companies, governments, donors and civil society groups, had been under pressure from activists on granting extensions to 17 states that had missed a deadline to have audits of their industries independently verified. |
| US: Deaths at West Virginia Mine Raise Issues About Safety by Ian Urbina and Michael Cooper, New York Times April 6th, 2010 Rescue workers began the precarious task Tuesday of removing explosive methane gas from the coal mine where at least 25 miners died the day before. The mine owner’s -- Massey Energy Company -- dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, left federal officials and miners suggesting that Monday’s explosion might have been preventable. |
| 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. |
| US/IRAQ: U.S. Companies Join Race on Iraqi Oil Bonanza by TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times January 13th, 2010 American companies have been arriving in Iraq to pursue an expected multibillion-dollar bonanza of projects to revive the country’s petroleum industry. But there are questions about the Iraqi government’s capacity to police the companies. “These are for-profit concerns and they are trying to make as much money as they can,” said Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch. |
| 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. |
| EUROPE: Europe’s Vast Farm Subsidies Face Challenges by STEPHEN CASTLE and DOREEN CARVAJAL, New York Times December 29th, 2009 The last time the European Union decided the future of its 50 billion euro agricultural aid program, in 2005, the deal was cut behind closed doors in a luxury suite at the five-star Conrad Brussels hotel. Now, 2013 is closer at hand and a new round of maneuvering has begun to reshape the richest system of agricultural handouts in the world. |
| 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. |
| US: Monsanto's dominance draws antitrust inquiry by Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post November 29th, 2009 For plants designed in a lab a little more than a decade ago, they've come a long way: Today, the vast majority of the nation's two primary crops grow from seeds genetically altered according to Monsanto company patents. Now Monsanto -- like IBM and Google -- has drawn scrutiny from U.S. antitrust investigators. |
| 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. |
| SOUTHEAST ASIA: Sizing up palm oil by David Grant, Christian Science Monitor November 2nd, 2009 While it doesn’t sound (and need not be) nefarious, activist groups worldwide like the Rainforest Action Network argue that the production of palm oil is currently harming rain forests in Southeast Asia, orangutans, and the environment. |
| 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. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Arcelor Mittal South Africa dismisses pollution claims by Sapa-AP, Sunday Independent (South Africa) September 25th, 2009 On Friday, ArcelorMittal SA, the world's largest steel marker, dismissed allegations of severe environmental damage and unethical business practices at its Steel Valley mill. In 2002, the company took over the 67-year-old plant that residents and environmental groups say has polluted their lives. Company officials acknowledge there is air and water pollution but say that emissions comply with legislation and that clean-up operations are under way. |
| ANGOLA: The dark side of doing business by Rob Rose, Times South Africa September 17th, 2009 As Angolan leader Jose Eduardo Dos Santos wooed President Jacob Zuma this week, some South African companies are furious at having been fleeced out of cash by doing business with the oil-rich country |
| EU: Court adviser wants De Beers ruling upheld by REUTERS, Times Live September 17th, 2009 An adviser to Europe’s highest court has recommended upholding a decision by EU antitrust regulators which forced diamond producer De Beers to stop buying rough diamonds from Russia’s Alrosa this year. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| IRAQ: Big Oil Ready for Big Gamble in Iraq by Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal June 24th, 2009 Next week, Iraqi officials will auction off oil contracts to foreign companies for the first time since Iraq nationalized its oil industry three decades ago. Some 120 companies expressed interest in bidding for the contracts, and thirty-five companies qualified. They include Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Italy's Eni SpA, Russia's Lukoil and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec. |
| 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. |
| AFRICA: Battle to Halt Graft Scourge in Africa Ebbs by Celia W. Dugger, New York Times June 9th, 2009 The fight against corruption in Africa is faltering as public agencies investigating wrongdoing by powerful politicians have been undermined and officials leading the charge have been dismissed, subjected to death threats and driven into exile. The search is on for more effective ways to tackle corruption, including intensified legal efforts to prosecute multinational corporations that pay the bribes and reclaim loot that African political elites have stashed abroad. |
| GHANA: Energy groups lured by Ghana’s Kosmos by Carola Hoyos, Financial Times June 4th, 2009 Big international energy groups and state-owned oil companies from China and India are circling Kosmos Energy for its Ghanaian oilfield assets, which have been valued at $3bn-$6bn by analysts. The sale could open an oil corridor off the west African coast, stretching as far north-west as Sierra Leone. |
| 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. |
| WORLD: When Chevron Hires Ex-Reporter to Investigate Pollution, Chevron Looks Good by Brian Stelter, New York Times May 10th, 2009 When Chevron learned that “60 Minutes” was preparing a potentially damaging report about oil company contamination of the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador, it hired a former journalist to produce a mirror image of the report, from the corporation’s point of view. An Ecuadorean judge is expected to rule soon on whether Chevron owes up to $27 billion in damages. |
| NIGERIA: A Writer’s Violent End, and His Activist Legacy by Patricia Cohen, New York Times May 4th, 2009 A new novel, "Eclipse," by Richard North Patterson, is based on the case of the Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed in November 1995 by the government of General Sani Abacha. The circumstances, along with related incidents of brutal attacks, are getting another hearing. This month the Wiwa family’s lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell over its role in those events goes to trial in federal court in Manhattan. |
| US: Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead by Jad Mouawad, New York Times April 7th, 2009 The Obama administration seeks the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation. But Big Oil is not on board. Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving “beyond petroleum,” has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. The list goes on. |
| WORLD: The Jewel Trade's Fading Luster by V. Dion Haynes and Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post March 28th, 2009 The drop in U.S. demand for high-end jewelry in a slumping economy is having ripple effects around the globe as stores close, workers are laid off in mass in the diamond-polishing factories of Gujarat, and countries like Botswana experience a dramatic drop in diamond revenue. |
| AFRICA/CHINA: As Chinese Investment in Africa Drops, Hope Sinks by Lydia Polgreen, New York Times March 25th, 2009 As global commodity prices have plummeted and several of China’s partners in Africa have stumbled deeper into chaos, China has backed away from some of its riskiest and most aggressive plans. China has sought to secure minerals in Africa through agreements to build huge projects in exchange for minerals. African governments are now realizing that these deals are loans against future revenue, and falling prices could leave them saddled with debt. |
| US/CANADA: Alaskan lake’s fate could echo across continent by Todd Wilkinson, Christian Science Monitor March 24th, 2009 A landmark legal case now before the US Supreme Court holds huge implications for lakes across the continent. Nearly four decades the Clean Water Act was passed to protect waterways from industrial pollution, a proposal by Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. to dispose of tons of effluent in Alaska's Lower Slate Lake has sparked an international debate. |
| CHILE: Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water by Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times March 15th, 2009 Nowhere is the system for buying and selling water more permissive than in Chile, where water rights are private property, not a public resource, and can be traded like commodities with little government oversight or safeguards for the environment. The small town of Quillaga is being swallowed up in the country’s intensifying water wars. |
| ECUADOR/CANADA: Canadian Mining Firm Financed Violence in Ecuador: Lawsuit by Jennifer Moore, Tyee Online March 3rd, 2009 Three villagers from the valley of Intag in northwestern Ecuador are suing Copper Mesa Mining Corporation and the Toronto Stock Exchange. They allege not enough has been done to reduce the risk of harm being faced by farmers and community leaders who have faced violent threats and attacks for opposition to a large open-pit copper mine in their pristine cloud forests. |
| EUROPE: Europe to Allow Two Bans on Genetically Altered Crops by James Kanter, New York Times March 2nd, 2009 European Union governments delivered a blow Monday to the biotechnology industry, allowing Austria and Hungary to maintain national bans on growing genetically modified crops from Monsanto. The market for genetically engineered crops is worth several billion dollars worldwide. |
| CANADA: The Canadian Oil Boom: Scraping Bottom by Robert Kunzig, National Geographic March 1st, 2009 Once considered too expensive, as well as too damaging to the land, exploitation of Alberta's oil sands is now a gamble worth billions. Syncrude and Suncor are two of the largest producers of bitumen; Canada is now the largest importer of oil to the United States, with tar sands exploitation slated to increase rapidly over the next five years. |
| US: Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests by Leslie Kaufman, New York Times February 25th, 2009 The U.S. obsession with soft toilet paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra. But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. |
| US: Plant That Spilled Coal Ash Had Earlier Leak Problems by John M. Broder, New York Times January 8th, 2009 The chief executive of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the coal-burning power plant responsible for an enormous flood of coal ash in East Tennessee late last month, acknowledged Thursday that the plant’s containment ponds had leaked two other times in the last five years but had not been adequately repaired. |
| TANZANIA: Intruders attempt to seize North Mara mine Guardian (Tanzania) December 13th, 2008 A person was shot dead when thousands of gold seekers invaded Barrick`s North Mara Gold Mine in Tarime District and destroyed equipment worth 15 million US dollars. |
| TANZANIA: Villagers storm Barrick gold mine: Inflict much damage, FFU police deployed to disperse them This Day (Tanzania) December 13th, 2008 Thousands of villagers raided the North Mara gold mine owned by Barrick Gold Corp on Thursday night and caused damage to various mining equipments worth more than $16 million (approx. 21bn/-). |
| CANADA/IRAQ: Drill, Garner, Drill by Anthony Fenton, Mother Jones November 24th, 2008 In the history of the Iraq War, one name is perhaps synonymous with the collapse of the Bush administration's hopes for a post-Saddam world: Retired Lt. General Jay M. Garner, who served as the first post-war administrator. This year, he and a small group of former US military leaders, officials, and lobbyists have quietly used their Kurdistan connections to help Canadian companies access some of the region's richest oil fields. |
| US: Court Says Shell Can’t Drill Near Alaska
by JAD MOUAWAD, The New York Times November 20th, 2008 A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked Royal Dutch Shell from drilling oil wells off Alaska’s North Slope after finding that the Interior Department had failed to conduct an environmental study before issuing the company’s drilling permit. |
| US: PacifiCorp Agrees To Remove Dams by Jim Carlton, The Wall Street Journal November 13th, 2008 Electric utility PacifiCorp has tentatively agreed to remove four dams from the Klamath River, in a deal that would end one of the West's most rancorous water disputes and could serve as a settlement model for similar fights. |
| GUINEA: One killed in Guinea protest over bauxite trains Reuters Africa October 10th, 2008 At least one person was killed when police in Guinea cleared protesters from a railway carrying bauxite for Russian aluminium company RUSAL, police and industry sources said on Friday. |
| CHILE: Native Community in Desert Oasis Threatened by Mines by Daniela Estrada, Inter Press News Service (IPS) October 9th, 2008 The Diaguita indigenous community in Huasco Alto, surrounded by rich gold, silver and copper deposits in the northern Chilean region of Atacama, are engaged in a struggle to prevent mining projects from infringing on their territory and destroying their way of life and ancestral identity. |
| PHILIPPINES: Execs urged: Act on river pollution by Bernadette Parco, Cebu Daily News (Philippines) October 6th, 2008 Environmentalists called on local government officials in Toledo City to actively monitor the ecosystem in the area following reports that a mining company discharged wastewater into the Sapangdaku River. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: AngloGold workers protest SAfrican mine deaths by James Macharia, Reuters October 2nd, 2008 Three workers in South Africa died after three separate mining incidents as miners at AngloGold Ashanti's TauTona mine stopped work over a fatality there last week, union and company officials said on Thursday. |
| US: Mosaic threatens $618 million lawsuit by Frank Gluck, Herald Tribune September 30th, 2008 Florida mining giant Mosaic Fertilizer said Monday it will file a $618 million lawsuit against Manatee County unless commissioners reverse a Sept. 16 vote that denied permission for Mosaic to mine phosphate on a property in Duette. |
| US: EPA sues Bradley Mining Co. for cleanup costs Associated Press September 30th, 2008 The federal government has filed a $7 million lawsuit against Bradley Mining Company, in an attempt to recover costs it says the Forest Service and Environmental Protection Agency incurred cleaning up arsenic-laden mining waste. |
| CONGO: Candidates Silent On Resource War In Congo by Georgianne Nienaber, Huffington Post September 25th, 2008 All politics is local, to paraphrase the venerable Bostonian and Democratic, Tip O'Neill. To human rights workers, journalists, writers, and humanitarians who have intimate knowledge of the Great Lakes Region of Equatorial Africa, this short email conjures a place, people, and tragedy that has been met with a wall of silence on the campaign trail. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama has addressed this great humanitarian breakdown, except in the context of political squabbling. |
| INDIA: India Grapples With How to Convert Its Farmland Into Factories by Somini Sengupta, New York Times September 17th, 2008 On the eve of opening a new auto factory in West Bengal, arranged via secret contract with the government, Indian industrial giant Tata is facing massive protests by local farmers determined not to be pushed off their land. |
| US: Federal Oil Officials Accused
In Sex and Drugs Scandal
by STEPHEN POWER, Wall Street Journal September 11th, 2008 Employees of the federal agency that last year collected more than $11 billion in royalties from oil and gas companies broke government rules and created a "culture of ethical failure" by allegedly accepting gifts from and having sex with industry representatives, the Interior Department's top watchdog said Wednesday. |
| US: Halliburton Ex-Official
Pleads Guilty in Bribe Case
by RUSSELL GOLD, The Wall Street Journal September 4th, 2008 In a wide-ranging foreign-corruption investigation, fired former Halliburton Co. executive Albert J. "Jack" Stanley pleaded guilty to orchestrating more than $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian government officials. The bribes were used to win a contract to build a liquefied-natural-gas plant in Nigeria. |
| Georgia: BP reopens Georgia gas pipeline BBC News August 15th, 2008 BP has said it has resumed pumping gas through a pipeline that runs through Georgia after an EU-brokered truce between Russian and Georgian troops. |
| FRANCE: Areva mishandled uranium leak: safety body
by Joseph Tandy and Muriel Boselli, Reuters July 11th, 2008 France's nuclear safety authority (ASN) said on Friday that Areva-subsidiary Socatri had poorly managed a leak of liquid containing uranium that occurred in southeastern France this week. |
| Iraq: U.S. Advised Iraqi Ministry on Oil Deals by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times June 30th, 2008 The Bush administration has disclosed that U.S. advisors in Iraq played a key role in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies. The no-bid contracts are expected to be awarded Monday to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron, as well as to several smaller oil companies. |
| US: Court slashes damages award in Exxon oil spill by PETE YOST, Associated Press June 25th, 2008 The Supreme Court on Wednesday slashed the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million, a decision that could have broader implications for limiting how much courts can order businesses to pay. |
| US: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist by Ed Pilkington, Guardian (UK) June 23rd, 2008 On June 23, James Hansen, a leading world climate scientist, called for the executives of major fossil fuel companies, including ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy, to be put on trial for crimes against humanity and nature through actions like funding climate skeptics to undermine global consensus around combating climate change. |
| US: Justices Turn Down Appeal by Exxon
REUTERS June 17th, 2008 The Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear an appeal by Exxon Mobil seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by 11 Indonesian villagers. |
| US: Bush administration files nuclear dump application by H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press June 3rd, 2008 Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday he's confident the government's license application to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada will "stand up to any challenge anywhere." |
| BRAZIL: Businessman alleges Alstom paid bribes for Brazil project: report AFP May 29th, 2008 French engineering group Alstom allegedly paid nearly a million dollars in bribes in connection with a Brazilian energy plant, testimony from a Brazilian businessman reported in the press here said Thursday. |
| US: Exxon investors reject green initiatives by Andrew Clark, The Guardian May 29th, 2008 The world's biggest oil company emerged bruised but victorious from a bust-up with the billionaire Rockefeller family yesterday as an effort to foist green initiatives on ExxonMobil failed to capture wholehearted support from shareholders. |
| US: Rockefellers Seek Change at Exxon by CLIFFORD KRAUSS, The New York Times May 27th, 2008 The family members have thrown their support behind a shareholder rebellion that is ruffling feathers at Exxon Mobil, the giant oil company descended from John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust. |
| US: Oil Industry, Lawmakers Aim
To Lift Bans on Drilling
by RUSSELL GOLD BEN CASSELMAN and STEPHEN POWER, Wall Street Journal May 23rd, 2008 Mounting concerns about global energy supply are fueling a drive by the oil industry and some U.S. lawmakers to end longstanding bans on domestic drilling put in place to protect environmentally sensitive areas. |
| UK: Shell 'selling suicide' by preferring tar sands to wind by Terry Macalister, The Guardian May 21st, 2008 Shell was accused yesterday of "selling suicide on the forecourt" by pressing ahead with tar sands operations in Canada and continuing to flare off excess gas in Nigeria while pulling out of renewable schemes such as the London Array - the world's largest offshore wind scheme. |
| US: Congress grills oil execs on record pump prices by Chris Baltimore, Reuters May 21st, 2008 Executives from the five biggest international oil companies on Wednesday claimed that they were victims of high oil prices along with U.S. consumers, but U.S. Senate lawmakers showed little sympathy. |
| NETHERLANDS: Nigerians seek damages from Shell over pollution by Arthur Max, Business Week May 14th, 2008 Four Nigerian villagers and the environmental group Friends of the Earth are demanding Shell take responsibility for damage from oil leaks caused by its Nigerian subsidiary, lawyers said Wednesday. |
| LUXEMBOURG: Mittal braced for protests on pollution by Heather Stewart, The Observer May 11th, 2008 Steel giant ArcelorMittal will be accused of leaving a trail of environmental destruction in its wake this week when campaigners descend on Luxembourg to protest at its annual meeting. |
| RUSSIA: As Gazprom Goes, So Goes Russia by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times May 11th, 2008 Gazprom and the Russian government have long had a close relationship, but the revolving door between them is spinning especially fast this year. But Gazprom also epitomizes the risks of state capitalism: waste and inefficiency. |
| NIGERIA: Ex-Halliburton unit in bribery probe by Michael Peel in London and Matthew Green in Lagos, The Financial Times May 9th, 2008 US anti-bribery investigators are targeting a former Halliburton subsidiary over its work on a key Royal Dutch Shell project in Nigeria, widening a corruption probe into the country’s troubled oil industry. |
| US: Hawaii ironworkers' pension fund sues Alcoa, board members over Bahrain bribery allegations The Associated Press May 8th, 2008 The Hawaii Structural Ironworkers Pension Trust Fund accuses Alcoa's board in the lawsuit of "causing and/or failing to prevent Alcoa's illegal payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal bribe payments" to senior Bahraini government officials. |
| MEXICO: Pemex Oozes Corruption by Diego Cevallos , IPS May 7th, 2008 Funds belonging to the Mexican state oil monopoly, Pemex, have paid in recent years for liposuction treatment for the wife of the company's chief executive, a presidential candidate's campaign, contracts with firms facing legal action, and the whims of trade union leaders who are not required to account for their expenses. |
| CHINA: In China City, Protesters See Pollution Risk of New Plant by Edward Wong, New York Times May 6th, 2008 Residents took to the streets of Chengdu to protest a $5.5 billion ethylene plant under construction by PetroChina, reflecting a surge in environmental awareness by urban, middle-class Chinese determined to protect their health and the value of their property. |
| US: Alcoa lawsuit halted so federal criminal probe can continue by Associated Press, International Herald Tribune March 28th, 2008 A civil lawsuit accusing Alcoa Inc. and affiliates of bribing officials in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain will be temporarily halted so that U.S. investigators can conduct a criminal investigation of the aluminum maker. |
| CHILE: Salmon Virus Indicts Chile’s Fishing Methods
by ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO, The New York Times March 27th, 2008 The new virus is spreading, but it has primarily affected the fish of Marine Harvest, a Norwegian company that is the world’s biggest producer of farm-raised salmon and exports about 20 percent of the salmon that come from Chile. |
| INDONESIA: Indonesia's Commodity Boom Is a Mixed Bag by Tom Wright, Wall Street Journal March 24th, 2008 Indonesia's economy is riding the recent wave of high global commodity prices. But local pressure is arising towards steel makers and power producers in China and India who have diverted coal supplies abroad by locking in 20-year supply contracts with Indonesian miners. |
| IRAQ: Forbidden fields: Oil groups circle the prize of Iraq's vast reserves by Roula Khalaf and Steve Negus, The Financial Times March 19th, 2008 Shell is one of several international oil companies - including BP and the US groups ExxonMobil and Chevron - that have been tapping into Iraq's oil industry by remote control. |
| US: Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a 'Clean' Fuel by BRENDA GOODMAN, The New York Times March 11th, 2008 The spills, at the Alabama Biodiesel Corporation plant outside this city about 17 miles from Tuscaloosa, are similar to others that have come from biofuel plants in the Midwest. The discharges, which can be hazardous to birds and fish, have many people scratching their heads over the seeming incongruity of pollution from an industry that sells products with the promise of blue skies and clear streams. |
| CHINA: Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China by Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post March 9th, 2008 The Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co. of Henan, China, is a green energy company, producing polysilicon for solar energy panels. But the byproduct -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards. |
| CANADA: Native Leader Serving Six Months for Opposing Mine by Chris Arsenault, IPS March 5th, 2008 Algonquin community leader Robert Lovelace had never been charged with an offence, but when a uranium company began prospecting for radioactive ore on unceded native land without engaging in consultation, he decided to take action, organising a non-violent blockade. |
| BRAZIL: King of soya: environmental vandal or saviour of the world's poor? by Rory Carroll and Tom Phillips, Guardian (UK) March 3rd, 2008 Erai Maggi's company Bom Futuro produces more than 600,000 tonnes of soya a year, most of it to feed livestock ending up as meat in China and Europe, and generating £175m in revenue. Critics decry the link between increasing soya production and Amazon deforestation. |
| UGANDA: Privatization of Seeds Moving Apace by Aileen Kwa, IPS February 21st, 2008 The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. According to an inside government source, seeds companies including Monsanto have been lobbying for such intellectual property protection. |
| KAZAKHSTAN: Kazakhs warn Mittal over safety by Isabel Gorst in Moscow and Peter Marsh in London, The Financial Times Limited 2008 February 19th, 2008 Kazakhstan has warned ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel company, that it could be forced to close one of its coal mines if it does not improve safety following an explosion last month that killed 30 people. |
| GLOBAL: 2 Reports At Odds On Biotech Crops by Rick Weiss, The Washington Post February 14th, 2008 Dueling reports released yesterday -- one by a consortium largely funded by the biotech industry and the other by a pair of environmental and consumer groups -- came to those diametrically different conclusions. |
| US: U.S. jewelry retailers oppose large Alaska gold mine by Mary Pemberton, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS February 12th, 2008 Just in time for Valentine's Day, five of the leading U.S. jewellers have sworn off gold that someday could come from the Pebble Mine, a huge deposit being scoped out by a subsidiary of a Canadian company near the world's most productive wild sockeye salmon stream in southwestern Alaska. |
| US-CHINA: Staples cuts ties with APP on environment worry Reuters February 8th, 2008 Staples Inc, the largest U.S. office supplies retailer, said on Friday it ceased doing business with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) late last month because of environmental concerns. |
| US: Uranium Exploration Near Grand Canyon
by FELICITY BARRINGER, The New York Times February 7th, 2008 With minimal public notice and no formal environmental review, the Forest Service has approved a permit allowing a British mining company to explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park, less than three miles from a popular lookout over the canyon’s southern rim. |
| EL SALVADOR: "Life Is Worth More than Gold" Say Anti-Mining Activists by Raúl Gutiérrez, Inter Press Service (IPS) February 1st, 2008 Peasant farmers from the northern Salvadoran province of Cabañas fear that mining operations planned for the region will consume 30,000 litres of water a day, drawn from the same sources that currently provide local residents with water only once a week. |
| US: An Ex-President, a Mining Deal and a Big Donor by JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr., The New York Times January 31st, 2008 Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton. |
| PERU: For Peru's Indians, Lawsuit Against Big Oil Reflects a New Era by Kelly Hearn, The Washington Post January 31st, 2008 Oxy is Occidental Petroleum, the California-based company that pulled a fortune from this rain forest from 1972 to 2000. It is also the company that Maynas and other Achuar leaders now blame for wreaking environmental havoc -- and leaving many of the people here ill. |
| GLOBAL: False 'Green' Ads Draw Global Scrutiny
by Tom Wright, Wall Street Journal January 30th, 2008 With companies eager to tout their "green" credentials to consumers, advertising watchdogs are stepping up efforts to rein in marketers that make false or exaggerated claims. |
| UK: Vestey's vegan grandson sees off Shell by Isabel Oakeshott, The Sunday Times (UK) January 27th, 2008 SHELL has abandoned its sponsorship of one of Britain’s most prestigious wildlife photography exhibitions after protests by environmental groups. |
| CHILE: Copper Boom - Cui Bono? by Daniela Estrada, IPS News January 11th, 2008 According to global forecasts, the price of copper, Chile’s main export, will remain high in 2008 thanks to strong demand from China. But just who will benefit from this bonanza is up for debate. |
| NIGERIA: Inefficient Gas Flaring Remains Unchecked by Sam Olukoya, IPS January 10th, 2008 Some of the largest multinational oil companies in the world -- including the U.K. and Dutch owned Shell, the French company Total, and the American companies Mobil and Chevron -- are responsible for the bulk of the scores of gas flares burning in Nigeria. |
| JAPAN: Yamada gave additional 400,000 dollars to organization Yomiuri Shimbun January 8th, 2008 Defense contractor Yamada Corp. provided a total of 400,000 dollars in consultant fees to an executive director of a Japan-U.S. exchange organization between 2003 and 2005. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Copper project tests Afghanistan’s resources by Jon Boone, Financial Times January 8th, 2008 The debris left over from previous attempts to extract some of Afghanistan’s colossal mineral wealth can be found just 35km south-east of Kabul. But in five years, the landscape in the Aynak exploration area may be changed into one of the world’s largest opencast mines, thanks to a $3bn (£1.5bn) investment by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC). |
| US: U.S. high court declines to review Can. company pollution ruling by JOHN K. WILEY, Associated Press January 7th, 2008 An Indian tribe says it will continue its efforts to force a Canadian company, Teck Cominco Ltd., to pay to clean up pollution of a stretch of the Columbia River that flows past the tribe's reservation. |
| US: Cloned Livestock Poised by Jane Zhang, John W. Miller and Lauren Etter, Wall Street Journal January 4th, 2008 After more than six years of wrestling with the question of whether meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to declare as early as next week that they are. The food industry appears to be divided over the issue. |
| US: Former miners oppose bond release by Nathan Blackford, Warrick Publishing Online January 2nd, 2008 Former miners do not want the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to release the final portion of a $4 million bond on a large section of the North Field at the Squaw Creek Mine. |
| EUROPE/RUSSIA: Gas pipeline stirs up Baltic fears by Tristana Moore, BBC News Online December 31st, 2007 Nord Stream, a consortium led by Russia's Gazprom, is building a new controversial pipeline under the Baltic Sea. |
| JAMAICA: Regulators Mull Viability of Ferti-irrigation by Patricia Williams, IPS News December 26th, 2007 Appleton Estates seemed to have solved the centuries old problem of what to do with distillery waste when they started a new project eight years ago. However, they are yet to convince regulators and locals that it is a viable option. |
| EUROPE: Both Sides Cite Science to Address Altered Corn by Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times December 26th, 2007 A proposal made by Europe’s top environment official, to ban the planting of a genetically modified corn strain produced by companies like Syngenta and Monsanto, sets up a bitter war within the European Union. |
| SOUTH KOREA: South Korea Arrests 2 Captains in Huge Oil Spill Agence France Press December 25th, 2007 The South Korean Coast Guard said Monday that it had arrested the captains of a barge owned by Samsung Heavy Industry and a tugboat that caused an oil spill this month, the nation’s worst. |
| CHINA: China Grabs West’s Smoke-Spewing Factories by Joseph Kahn and Mark Landler, New York Times December 21st, 2007 In its rush to re-create the industrial revolution that made the West rich, China has absorbed most of the major industries that once made the West dirty. |
| PNG: Govt Warns Public To Stay Away From Barrick Gold's Porgera Mine by Alexander Rheeney, The Pacific Magazine December 18th, 2007 The Papua New Guinea government has appealed to the public to keep away from the Porgera gold mine after security guards shot dead an alleged illegal miner. |
| GLOBAL: Mining Firms Bulk Up, Echoing Big Oil Mergers by Patrick Barta and Robert Guy Matthews, Wall Street Journal December 18th, 2007 Mining are embarking on another round of deals that promises industry juggernauts with great influence over the cost of raw materials -- and, by extension, the price of consumer electronics, cars and new apartment blocks. |
| GLOBAL: Big Oil lets sun set on renewables
by Terry Macalister, Guardian (UK) December 11th, 2007 Shell, the oil company that recently trumpeted its commitment to a low carbon future by signing a pre-Bali conference communique, has quietly sold off most of its solar business. Rival BP decided last week to invest in the world's dirtiest oil production in Canada's tar sands, indicating that Big Oil might be giving up its flirtation with renewables and going back to its roots. |
| CANADA: Gov't Urged to Rein in Mining Sector
by Am Johal, IPS News December 7th, 2007 Canadian mining companies continue to come under scrutiny from civil society organisations for international human rights violations and environmental damage that critics say the Canadian government has done little to check. |
| US: Shoshone Use Film, Courts to Fight Barrick Gold Mine on Sacred Land by Lisa J. Wolf, Enviroment News Service December 6th, 2007 "Our Land, Our Life," a 74 minute documentary directed by George and Beth Gage, details Carrie and Mary Dann's 30 year struggle to protect their traditional ways and ancestral lands from mining degradation in a battle that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and beyond to the United Nations with no relief as yet from the U.S. government. |
| CHINA: China Shows High Interest in African Oil by Benoit Faucon, Wall Street Journal November 22nd, 2007 Royal Dutch Shell is considering selling interests in two Nigerian offshore oil blocks to China's Cnooc Ltd. as it restructures its business in the troubled region. |
| DRC: Six arrested in Congo radioactive dumping scandal by Joe Bavier, Reuters November 10th, 2007 Congolese authorities arrested six people in connection with the dumping of tonnes of highly radioactive minerals into a river near the southeastern town of Likasi. A report said some 17 tons of the minerals confiscated were destined for Chinese firm Magma. |
| US: Coal-Funded Ad Is Called Misleading
by Steven Mufson, Washington Post November 7th, 2007 A Kansas newspaper ad paid for by coal mining giant Peabody Energy uses Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad to counter calls for cleaner energy. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Recriminations start as trapped miners are freed
by Basildon Peta, Independent November 1st, 2007 The South African government shut down Elandsrand gold mine yesterday as the last of 3,200 miners trapped more than a mile underground made their way back to the surface after more than 36 hours underground. |
| GERMANY: FSC's 'Green' Label for Wood Products Gets Growing Pains by Tom Wright and Jim Carlton, Wall Street Journal October 30th, 2007 The Forest Stewardship Council -- a widely recognized third-party labeling system to identify "green" wood and paper products -- has acknowledged that some companies using its label are destroying pristine forests and says it plans to overhaul its rules. |
| US: BP fined $373m by US government BBC News October 26th, 2007 Oil giant BP has been fined a total of $373m (£182m) by the US Department of Justice for environmental crimes and committing fraud. |
| US: Fight Against Coal Plants Draws Diverse Partners by Susan Moran, NY Times October 20th, 2007 Western anti-coal coalitions of environmentalists and non-environmentalists are becoming more effective at dampening new efforts to build coal plants. |
| CANADA: Newmont joins the gold rush to Nunavut by Richard Blackwell and Andy Hoffman, Globe and Mail October 10th, 2007 Newmont Mining Corp. looks into a previously undeveloped gold deposit in Nunavut, Vancouver as a potential new gold mining hot spot. |
| RUSSIA: Siberian boom threatens traditions by Tom Esslemont, BBC News October 8th, 2007 Russia is forging ahead with ambitious energy projects in eastern Siberia, but the indigenous Evenk people are complaining that their age-old way of life is in danger. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Old perils resurface as trapped S African miners emerge alive by Alec Russell in Carletonville, Financial Times October 5th, 2007 Old perils resurface as trapped S African miners emerge alive. |
| BURMA: Criticism of Total Operations Grows by Michael Diebert, IPS October 4th, 2007 The Yadana natural gas pipeline runs through the heart of the debate on corporate responsibility as to how foreign businesses should operate in a country ruled by a military dictatorship accused of widespread human rights abuses and violent suppression of dissent within its borders. |
| CONGO: World Bank accused of razing Congo forests by John Vidal, The Guardian (UK) October 4th, 2007 The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world's second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts. |
| BURMA: Total says pulling out would raise hardship by Ed Crooks, Financial Times September 28th, 2007 Total of France, which operates a natural gas project in Burma, has expressed its "deep concern" over the situation in the country but rejected the idea it should pull out. |
| FRANCE: Total: No Capital Expenditures in Myanmar Associated Press September 27th, 2007 Total SA, reacting Thursday to comments by French President Sarkozy urging the oil and gas giant to refrain from new investment in Myanmar, said it had not made any capital expenditure there since 1998. The military junta that rules Myanmar this week escalated its efforts to repress pro-democracy demonstrations led by thousands of Buddhist monks. |
| IRAQ: Big oil’s waiting game over Iraq’s reserves
by Ed Crooks and Sheila McNulty, Financial Times September 19th, 2007 Oil companies face a dilemma in Iraq over whether to wait for a new oil law which will give them a legal framework in which to operate or to sign agreements now with the Kurdistan Regional Government at the risk of sullying relations with Baghdad and the rest of the country. |
| CHILE: Pascua Lama payoff disputed by Chile locals by Trey Pollard, Santiago Times/El Mercurio September 11th, 2007 Huasco Valley property owners who live below the Pascua Lama gold mine and administer US$3 million yearly in “hush” money given them by mine owner Barrick Gold charged this weekend that their predecessors used Barrick’s money for personal gain. |
| INDONESIA: Mr. Clean: Accused of Poisoning Indonesian Villagers, Rick Ness Tries to Prove His Innocence by David Case, Mother Jones magazine September 10th, 2007 Ever since Rick Ness was accused of contaminating pristine Indonesian water, he's been spending a million a month to convince the world that he's innocent. And once you meet him, you'll want to believe him. |
| CHINA: The Misery of China's Mines As Anger Flares Over Latest Disaster,Workers and Families Feel Powerless by Edward Cody, Washington Post August 22nd, 2007 Anger at the wide spread pain and suffering of mining communities flares with each new disaster and the recent collapse of a mine on the Chaiwen River is no exception. |
| INDIA: Indian Activists' Rising Clout by Jackie Range, Wall Street Journal August 16th, 2007 India's Supreme Court is poised to decide whether a British company has the right to mine in a sacred tribal forest, a case that underlines the complexity of undertaking large-scale industrial projects here. The case's hearing by the court reflects the growing clout of activist groups in India. |
| WORLD: We must count the true cost of cheap China by Richard McGregor, Financial Times August 2nd, 2007 In the wake of the multiple scandals over tainted Chinese food and drug exports in recent months, Chinese goods now have an indelible image of being not just cheap, but life-threatening as well. But the fact that wrongly labelled foods, liquor and pharmaceuticals have routinely sickened and even killed people en masse in China has been largely overlooked. |
| US: Mattel Recalls One Million Toys by Louise Story , New York Times August 2nd, 2007 Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, is recalling nearly one million toys in the United States today because the products’ surfaces are covered in lead paint. According to Mattel, all the toys were made by a contract manufacturer in China. |
| COLOMBIA: Suing Multinationals Over Murder by Ken Stier, TIME Magazine August 1st, 2007 Organized labor often complains of its treatment at the hands of corporate America, but its accusations pale in comparison to those made recently by the widows of Colombian mine workers in an Alabama courtroom. During a two-week trial, a Birmingham jury weighed charges that the local Drummond Coal Company bore responsibility for the murders of three union leaders who represented workers at its Colombian mine - the world's largest open pit mine. |
| US: Can Ford Clean Up After Itself? by Ron Stodghill, The New York Times July 29th, 2007 Follow-up studies on a cleanup effort at the site of a former Ford car factory have shown that there is still a great deal of toxins left in the soil. |
| US: Navajos and Environmentalists Split on Power Plant by Felicity Barringer, The New York Times July 27th, 2007 A plan to build a new, large coal-fired power plant has proved divisive in the Navajo community in Nevada, with some arguing that it will bring the community millions, while others saying it is a lethal "energy monster" and harbinger of environmental destruction. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: S African miners vote to strike BBC News July 26th, 2007 South African workers for the world's biggest diamond producer, De Beers, have voted to go on strike over pay. |
| COLOMBIA: Drummond Union: Govt Muffles Key Witness by Frank Bajak, Forbes.com July 24th, 2007 The union activists suing U.S. coal company Drummond Co. Inc. in Alabama in the 2001 murders of three labor leaders say deliberate foot-dragging by Colombian authorities is preventing the jury from hearing their star witness. Concerned by the delay, 12 Democrats in the U.S. Congress wrote Colombia's vice president last week asking him to intercede. |
| ITALY: Devil's Advocate by Daniel Fisher, Forbes July 24th, 2007 Italian oil giant Eni has a long history of cutting deals with anyone, and of accusations of corruption and bribery. Now that its future hangs on Russia and its notorious reputation in the energy market, has Eni finally met its match? |
| US: Ex-Willbros official who sought Nigeria contract is indicted by David Ivanovich , Houston Chronicle July 23rd, 2007 A federal grand jury in Houston has charged a former executive of a Willbros Group subsidiary with conspiring to bribe Nigerian officials as part of an alleged scheme to win a major natural gas pipeline contract. |
| CONGO: Edmonds group in spin after miner is run out by Ben Laurance, Sunday Times July 22nd, 2007 Billy Rautenbach, a former kingpin of the mining world in southern Africa becomes the newest "persona non grata" in the new DRC regime's attempt to rid its mining industry of corruption. |
| WORLD: A Way for Resource-Rich Countries to Audit Their Way Out of Corruption by Tyler Cowen, The New York Times July 12th, 2007 An Oxford economist has a new and potentially powerful idea: setting up an voluntary international charter to guide transparency efforts in resource-rich developing countries, in order to stave of corruption. |
| UGANDA: African forest under threat from sugar cane plantation by Daniel Howden, The Independent (UK) July 10th, 2007 Conservationists in Uganda are fighting a last-ditch battle to stop the destruction of a forest reserve by a sugar corporation friendly with the government. |
| CHILE: Gold rush threatens glacier by Lucia Newman , Al Jazeera July 8th, 2007 A new gold rush is under way as mining companies seek to supply the ever-increasing demand for the precious metal from emerging economies such as India, and with reserves dwindling all over the world they are going to extraordinary lengths to extract it. |
| NETHERLANDS: Shell ordered to withdraw 'misleading' Dutch ad that made environmental claims by James Kanter, The International Herald Tribune July 5th, 2007 Royal Dutch Shell has been ordered to withdraw an advertisement in the Netherlands that sought to portray the oil giant as environmentally friendly, and British authorities said Thursday they had opened a formal investigation in the case. |
| INDONESIA: Palm Oil Producer Unethical, Groups Say by Toby Sterling, The Associated Press July 3rd, 2007 A Singapore-based company was involved in slashing and burning Indonesian forests to make way for palm oil plantations that feed the growing market for biofuels, environmental and activist groups claimed Tuesday. The company emphatically denied the allegations. |
| SAO TOME: No Oil Yet, but African Isle Finds Slippery Dealings by Barry Meier and Jad Mouawad, The New York Times July 2nd, 2007 The experience of São Tomé, a poor country that supports itself by selling cocoa and commemorative stamps featuring celebrities like Elvis Presley and Brigitte Bardot, shows how just the hint of oil can set off a scramble for riches. |
| US: Buying Into the Green Movement by Alex Williams, The New York Times July 1st, 2007 Consumers have embraced living green, and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism. But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists, a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls “light greens.” |
| COLUMBIA: Studies Find DNA Damage from Anti-Coca Herbicide by Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service News Agency June 16th, 2007 U.S.-funded aerial spraying of coca plantations in Colombia near the Ecuador border has severely damaged the DNA of local residents, a new study has found. |
| DR CONGO: DR Congo reviews 60 mining deals BBC News June 12th, 2007 The BBC's John James in Kinshasa says that since DR Congo's independence in 1960 its vast mineral wealth has been a key factor in the country's civil wars and instability. |
| CAMBODIA:Denuded by Corruption, Plunder, Impunity by Marwaan Macan-Markar , Inter Press Service News Agency June 6th, 2007 The Cambodian government turns its ire on non-governmental organisations that are critical of Cambodia's environmental policies and the copious relationships between logging companies and Cambodia's political elite and military. |
| BRUSSELS:Europe Moves to Make Big Polluters Pay for Emissions by Stephen Castle, The New York Times June 4th, 2007 Europe moves towards making significant changes to its emissions-trading system that could force large polluters to pay for most, if not all, permits to produce climate-changing gases. |
| CHILE: Chile Must Pay US$5.4 Million to Aricans Living Amid Toxic Waste
by Mike Hager, The Santiago Times June 1st, 2007 In a landmark case, Chile’s Supreme Court ruled this week that the state must compensate 356 residents of two slums in the northern mining city of Arica for health problems brought on by years of exposure to open deposits of toxic waste. Promel, the Swedish company responsible for the importation of the toxic materials, cannot compensate the plaintiffs because the company no longer exists. |
| INDONESIA: Blood boils as mud volcano swallows homes Sydney Morning Herald May 26th, 2007 One year ago this Tuesday, a gas-exploration well part-owned by the Australian mining giant Santos blew, sending a geyser of mud and toxic gas into the air. Nearby villages and factories were flooded, then a big highway and railway were covered, and later East Java's main gas pipeline ruptured. |
| AUSTRALIA: Miner's poll cash for MPs by Amanda O'Brien, The Australian May 19th, 2007 MINING company Precious Metals Australia donated thousands of dollars to the election campaigns of two West Australian politicians who helped write a doctored report that commercially benefited the company. |
| CYPRUS: US company’s toxic waste under scrutiny in Cyprus Today's Zaman May 10th, 2007 US mining company Cyprus Mines Corporation dumped 10 million tons of toxic waste on the island during its 60-year-long operations on Cyprus. |
| CANADA: Barrick Boss Gets Served by Amy Chung, Now (Toronto) May 10th, 2007 Protest Barrick, a network of aboriginal communities from Australia, the U.S., Latin America and Asia, converged on Barrick Gold Corporation's shareholder meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre May 2 to serve the company an eviction notice from First Nation land. |
| CONGO: New row over delay of Congo funds report by Dino Mahtani, Financial Times May 8th, 2007 The World Bank has withheld the findings of an inquiry into alleged mismanagement of bank funds in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising fresh questions about the anti-corruption strategy of Paul Wolfowitz, the bank's president |
| INDONESIA: Jakarta launches appeal in case against Newmont Mining Corp Reuters May 8th, 2007 Indonesian prosecutors have launched the first stage of an appeal after Newmont Mining Corp’s Indonesian unit was cleared in a high-profile pollution case two weeks ago, a court official said yesterday. |
| PHILIPPINES: Island residents face lost livelihoods, damaged environment by GLENIS BALANGUE, ABS-CBN News (IBON features) April 22nd, 2007 For the nearly 50,000 residents of Rapu-Rapu, Albay and the adjoining municipality of Prieto Diaz, Sorsogon, fishing has been the primary livelihood for generations. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Fresh allegations tarnish glittering year for Anglo The Observer (UK) April 22nd, 2007 It may have made $9bn profit, but the metals mining group stands accused of some base practices, reports Nick Mathiason |
| CANADA: UN Body Holds Canada Responsible for Corporations’ Actions Abroad by Mark Cherrington, Cultural Survival April 10th, 2007 In a groundbreaking decision, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has told Canada that it must rein in Canadian corporations operating on Indian land in the United States. |
| AUSTRALIA: Arrests made after Barrick mine protest turns ugly by Jano Gibson, Sydney Morning Herald April 9th, 2007 Eighteen anti-gold mine activists have been charged following a protest in central NSW, which concluded with a man allegedly ransacking the protesters' campsite while armed with a knife. |
| RUSSIA: Toxic truth of secretive Siberian city
BBC News April 5th, 2007 A BBC team has entered a remote region of Russia normally closed to foreigners that produces almost half the world's supply of palladium - a precious metal vital for making catalytic converters. But, as the BBC's Richard Galpin reports, it is accused of being the world's largest producer of acid rain. |
| NIGERIA: Shell to raise Nigerian oil production by Jad Mouawad, International Herald Tribune April 4th, 2007 A year after being forced to shut down more than half of its oil output in Nigeria because of militant violence, Royal Dutch Shell said it expected to resume full production within the next "five to six months," after agreeing with local communities that it could safely return to the Niger Delta. |
| NIGERIA: Shell to raise Nigerian oil production by Jad Mouawad, International Herald Tribune April 4th, 2007 A year after being forced to shut down more than half of its oil output in Nigeria because of militant violence, Royal Dutch Shell said it expected to resume full production within the next "five to six months," after agreeing with local communities that it could safely return to the Niger Delta. |
| CHILE: Water clash at Chile copper mine by Jane Chambers, BBC News March 26th, 2007 A dispute over water rights has hit one of Chile's largest copper mines, Los Pelambres. |
| BURMA: Natural Gas Project Threatens Human Rights Human Rights Watch March 24th, 2007 South Korean, Indian Investments May Lead to Complicity in Abuses |
| US: World Bank raps Exxon over Chad by Lesley Wroughton, Reuters March 22nd, 2007 The World Bank has told an Exxon Mobil-led consortium to take corrective action to fully compensate farmers in southern Chad who lost land and their livelihoods as the U.S. company expands its search for oil in the Doba basin. |
| GUATEMALA: Mining misery
by Maria Amuchastegui, This Magazine March 21st, 2007 Guatemala is one of many countries that has attracted the investment of Canadian mining companies—but at what cost to its people? |
| PERU: Human Rights Commission May Examine Violations at La Oroya, Peru Earthjustice Legal Fund and CIEL March 21st, 2007 Public health and environmental organizations from throughout the Western Hemisphere today announced the filing of a petition with the human rights division of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. The petition accuses the Peruvian government of doing little to halt contamination from a metallurgical complex that is impacting the lives and health of the citizens of La Oroya, Peru. |
| ARGENTINA: Famatina Says NO to Barrick Gold by David Modersbach, Mines and Communities March 20th, 2007 In the Argentine province of La Rioja, an astonishing series of events have lead to the ouster of a corrupt pro-mining provincial governor and the apparent withdrawal of gold mining giant Barrick Gold from operations on the Famatina range. Who was responsible for these events? A small group of dedicated neighbors who are fighting tooth and nail to save their mountain range from open-pit mining exploitation. |
| US: Global-warming deniers feeling the heat by Diane Carman, Denver Post March 20th, 2007 The drumbeat of skepticism over global warming has been oddly muted in the weeks since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its summary report in February. |
| US: BP 'is to blame for Texas blast' BBC News March 20th, 2007 British oil giant BP has been heavily criticised by US safety investigators over a refinery disaster that killed 15 workers in 2005. |
| US: Coeur d'Alene Mines Loses Clean Water Act Court Case Environment News Service March 16th, 2007 The federal Clean Water Act cannot be used to destroy an Alaskan lake, a federal appeals court ruled today, in a decision that may set precedent about how the act is interpreted nationwide. |
| US: Chevron Faces More Scrutiny in Ecuador over Pollution by Emad Mekay , IPS News March 15th, 2007 Leaders of indigenous communities in Ecuador are pressing their government to investigate senior executives from U.S. oil giant Chevron for an alleged environmental fraud scheme in the mid-1990s related to a long-running six-billion dollar class action suit in the South American nation. |
| US: Chevron gets part of suit dismissed by Elizabeth Douglass, Los Angeles Times March 15th, 2007 A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a racketeering charge against Chevron Corp. brought by Nigerian villagers who believe the oil giant condoned human rights abuses carried out by the West African nation's militia. |
| INDIA: Amnesty International Public Statement: Deaths in West Bengal due to police firing during protests against new industrial project Amnesty International March 15th, 2007 Amnesty International is deeply concerned at reports of the use of excessive and unnecessary force by police in West Bengal (Eastern India) against farmers protesting proposed displacement by the state government for a new industrial project, which has resulted in deaths of at least 14 persons and injuries. |
| US: Chevron wins partial dismissal in Nigeria case Herald Tribune March 14th, 2007 A federal judge in California threw out a racketeering claim against Chevron Corp. filed by Nigerians who claimed the oil company conspired with the military and police to gun down demonstrators protesting their operations in the African nation. |
| PHILIPPINES: Court orders removal of oil storage facilities by Gilbert Felongco, Gulf News March 8th, 2007 Citing threats to the inhabitants of a thickly populated area, the Supreme Court yesterday ordered the removal of three major oil storage facilities in the city. |
| US: Exxon unveils 20 projects for next three years by Sheila McNulty, Financial Times March 7th, 2007 ExxonMobil, the world's biggest listed oil company, said on Wednesday the company will start more than 20 new global projects in the next three years that should add 1m oil equivalent barrels per day to Exxon's base volumes. |
| US: Earthjustice, Alaska Natives protest drilling plans in Beaufort Sea by Terry Winckler, Earthjustice Legal Fund and CIEL March 1st, 2007 Federal agency allowed drilling without adequate assessment of impacts on marine mammals |
| HONDURAS: Protests Mount Against Mining Giant by Stephen Leahy, Mines & Communities February 24th, 2007 Dangerous levels of lead and arsenic have been found in the blood of Honduran villagers living downstream from a controversial gold and silver mine owned by Canada's Goldcorp Inc., the world's third largest gold mining firm. |
| CONGO: All that glitters... by Jean-Roger Kaseki, Guardian (UK) February 13th, 2007 Decades of gold mining should have given Congo a ticket to prosperity. Instead, it is trapped in a cycle of violence and poverty. |
| PHILIPPINES: Protesters regroup as mine due to reopen Manila Times February 11th, 2007 Environmentalists and church leaders in Bicol will launch yet another protest—this time for three days—against the government for allowing Lafayette Philippines Inc. to resume its operation. |
| JAMAICA: Dust, stench and claim of impotence: Pollution killing us, say communities near bauxite plants - Firms insist waste not toxic by Karyl Walker, Jamaica Observer February 11th, 2007 The approximately US$400 million earned by the bauxite sector last year means nothing to Sandra McLean and other residents of districts surrounding the Alumina Partners of Jamaica (Alpart) refinery in Nain, St Elizabeth. |
| PERU: UN Mission Probes Private Security Groups by Ángel Páez, Inter Press News Service (IPS) February 7th, 2007 A priest who provides support for Peruvian farmers in their conflict with a transnational gold mining corporation complained to a United Nations mission that he was under surveillance by a private security company. |
| ICELAND: Smokestacks in a White Wilderness Divide Iceland in a Development Debate by Sarah Lyall, New York Times February 4th, 2007 The $3 billion Karahnjukar Hydropower Project in Iceland, a sprawling enterprise to harness the rivers for electricity that will be used for a single purpose: to fuel a new aluminum smelter owned by Alcoa, the world's largest aluminum company, has been the focus of the angriest and most divisive battle in recent Icelandic history. |
| MALI: Country must work to avoid the "resource curse" Reuters February 2nd, 2007 Sambala Macalou, mayor of Sadiola village in western Mali where the South African gold mining company AngloGold Ashanti operates, thinks the company is short-changing the community and ignoring its needs. |
| PNG: Ramu project 'needs review' Postcourier (Papua New Guinea) January 31st, 2007 Mr Ipatas said the agreement was done in such a way the State of Papua New Guinea and the landowners were mere observers on their own land while the developer got about 85 per cent of the takings. |
| INDONESIA: Indonesia Newmont boss says no complaints on mining Reuters January 23rd, 2007 The head of the Indonesian unit of Newmont Mining Corp. told a court on Tuesday that authorities had never told the firm its mining activities might be breaking environmental or mining laws. |
| BRAZIL: Tailings dam failure in Brazil Water Power Magazine January 22nd, 2007 Brazil's state government of Minas Gerais has shut down the Mineracao Rio Pomba bauxite mine after the failure of a tailings dam. |
| PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Ok Tedi villagers sue for $5bn damages The Australian January 19th, 2007 MINING giant BHP Billiton and the operators of the Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea are being sued for civil damages exceeding $US4 billion ($5.08 billion) by villagers on the Ok Tedi River. |
| US: ARCO Ordered to Investigate Radioactivity at Anaconda Mine Environmental News Service January 17th, 2007 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday ordered to the Atlantic Richfield Company, ARCO, to begin an investigation to determine the nature and extent of contamination at the Anaconda Copper Mine in Yerington, Nevada. |
| CANADA: Mine could impact everything from fish to grizzlies by HEIDI DESCH, Hungry Horse News January 17th, 2007 Environmental experts continue to warn against the creation of a huge coal mine just north of the border. |
| ROMANIA: Fighting Over Gold in the Land of Dracula Wilmington Star January 3rd, 2007 A small-time Romanian farmer counts powerful names among his backers in a land battle with a Canadian gold mining company. |
| CHILE: Chile's divisive mountain of gold by Luisa Baldini, BBC News January 2nd, 2007 Tons of gold-bearing ore need to be excavated to produce a single ounce of bullion. Once the rock has been pulverised, cyanide is used in a leaching process to extract gold and silver. |
| PERU: Company Offers Bandaid Solutions to a Polluted Town by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press News Service (IPS) December 14th, 2006 In this mining town in Peru's Andean highlands, there is a shelter, but not for the victims of a war. The only bombardment escaped by the young children taken there every day comes from toxic emissions that have already done plenty of damage. |
| US: Md. coal mining's toxic legacy by Tom Pelton, Baltimore Sun December 8th, 2006 In the woods at the fringe of this Western Maryland town, a mountain of waste 50 feet high is slouching into a creek that's tinted an eerie orange. The "gob pile" is refuse from a long-abandoned coal mine. And the stream into which it's eroding, Winebrenner Run, is devoid of life - one of the state's worst cases of sulfuric acid pollution from mines. |
| CHILE: Stepped-Up Battle Against Andean Gold Mine by Daniela Estrada, Inter Press Service (IPS) December 6th, 2006 Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold Corp. is facing a stepped-up international campaign against its Pascua Lama gold mine project on the border between Chile and Argentina, high up in the Andes Mountains. |
| GHANA: Ghana's gold inflicts heavy price by James Haselip, People and the Planet December 6th, 2006 Gold mining is Ghana�s most valuable export industry: in 2005, US$1.4 billion worth of gold was shipped from the country, dwarfing the value of its other major foreign currency earners - timber and cocoa. However, very little of the gold revenues stay in the country while damage to the physical environment by both large and small-scale mining is inflicting an incalculable cost to the economy with vast tracts of farming land permanently ruined, forests destroyed and water resources diverted and polluted. |
| INDONESIA: UPDATE 1-NYC comptroller wants review of miner Freeport Reuters December 5th, 2006 New York City Comptroller William Thompson, who oversees the city's pension funds, on Tuesday called for a review of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.'s environmental policies and practices in Indonesia. |
| US: Anti-, pro-Pebble forces square off
by ELIZABETH BLUEMINK, Anchorage Daily News December 3rd, 2006 The state Board of Fisheries now is squarely in the middle of the noisy battle being waged over Southwest Alaska's large and controversial Pebble copper and gold prospect. |
| PHILIPPINES: Lafayette's Rapu Rapu project damaged The Age (AUST) December 1st, 2006 Lafayette Mining Ltd's troubled Rapu Rapu polymetallic project in the Philippines has suffered a further setback with a second typhoon causing damage to the operation. |
| US: BLIGHTED HOMELAND: Mining firms again eyeing Navajo land by Judy Pasternak, The Los Angeles Times November 22nd, 2006 Decades after the Cold War uranium boom ended, leaving a trail of poisonous waste across the Navajo Nation, the mining industry is back, seeking to tap the region's vast uranium deposits once again. |
| MALAWI: Bingu misled on uranium mining—civil society by Juliet Chimwaga, The Nation (Malawi) November 21st, 2006 Civil society organisations accused government Monday of misleading President Bingu wa Mutharika and the nation in its dealings with Paladin Africa Limited, saying the latter are not coming out clearly on the negative impact the multi-billion kwacha uranium mining project at Kayelekera in Karonga will have on people’s lives. |
| US: Uranium mining could contaminate Goliad aquifer
by Joe Conger, KENS 5 Eyewitness News November 17th, 2006 Just a pound of uranium brings top dollar on the market and could help to wean the United States off its foreign oil dependence. However, opponents say it could threaten the environment around San Antonio. |
| US: Dueling polls oppose, support Pebble Mine project by Hal Spence, Morris News Service November 15th, 2006 Two public opinion polls commissioned by an environmental group opposed to the Pebble Mine project are being touted as proof that Bristol Bay Region residents and voters statewide believe, by and large, that open-pit mining is not worth the risk. |
| WORLD: Controlling the Corporate Mercenaries by Nick Dearden, War on Want, Zmag November 7th, 2006 While Iraq represents bloodshed and death on a massive scale to most people, to Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) it has brought a boom time, boosting the revenues of British-based PMSCs alone from £320 million in 2003 to more than £1.8 billion in 2004. In the same year income for the industry worldwide reached $100 billion. |
| PERU: Achuar win oil victory in Peru by Lisa Garrigues , Indian Country Today November 6th, 2006 On Oct. 24, after a 14-day occupation, representatives of the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes Rio (FECONACO), which includes the Quichua and Urarinas people, reached an agreement with PlusPetrol and the Peruvian government. The agreement gave them 98 percent of their demands. |
| JAMAICA: Bauxite Mine Fight Looms in Jamaica's Cockpit Country Environment News Service October 24th, 2006 Drilling for bauxite samples in Jamaica's Cockpit Country is threatening the plants and animals that live in the region's moist tropical limestone forest, said conservationists today. Bauxite is the raw material for aluminum. |
| BRAZIL: Brazilian Indians leave iron mine BBC News October 20th, 2006 A group of about 200 Xikrin Indians in Brazil have agreed to leave an iron mine they occupied on Tuesday. |
| PHILIPPINES: Once-idyllic island center of debate on mining
by Cyrain Cabuenas, Inquirer (PHIL) October 19th, 2006 For many years, Manicani has served as a haven for people who wanted to commune with nature or check out World War II artifacts. These days, Siman has no glowing account of Manicani. "The island's balding mountains and depleted marine resources no longer hold any promise," he said. |
| US: Critics attack Myanmar’s ‘blood gem’ auctions by Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, Agence France Presse October 18th, 2006 With up to 90 percent of the world’s rubies and many other precious gems mined in Myanmar, chances are that a vast proportion of the stones glinting in the windows of high-end jewelers worldwide originate in the military-ruled nation. |
| JAMAICA: Trafigura figures in South Africa bribery scandal by Olivia Campbell, The Jamaica Observer October 18th, 2006 Trafigura president Claude Dauphin, who in August paid a visit to Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller at Jamaica House before his company controversially transferred over $31 million to the People's National Party, is a man steeped in the art of expensive gift giving. |
| GHANA: Dispute Over Newmont's Proposed Gold Mine At Akyem by Mike Anane, Public Agenda (Accra) October 16th, 2006 Plans by Denver-based multinational, Newmont mining Corporation to construct an open pit gold mine in the Ajenjua Bepo Forest Reserve located at New Abirem in the Birim North District of Ghana's Eastern Region are mired in controversy. |
| INDIA: 80,000 coal belt families face evacuation Statesman News Service October 10th, 2006 As many as 80,000 families living near the Jharia mine in Dhanbad coal belt face relocation. Officials say the coalfield area is, in effect, sitting on a “giant fireball deep inside the earth,” after they discovered at least six underground leaks of toxic fumes. Experts fear massive underground explosions followed by subsidence occuring at any moment. |
| INDONESIA: New Indonesia Calamity, a Mud Bath, Is Man-Made by Raymond Bonner and Muktita Suhartono, The New York Times October 6th, 2006 It started as a natural gas well. It has become geysers of mud and water, and in a country plagued by earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis another calamity in the making, though this one is largely man-made. |
| LIBERIA: Mittal accused of creating a state within a state in Liberia by David Pallister, The Guardian (UK) October 2nd, 2006 A damning report on Mittal Steel's acquisition of an impoverished African country's iron ore reserves is published today, accusing the world's largest steelmaker of offering an inequitable "raw deal" that has created an unaccountable "state within a state". |
| CANADA: Mining Rights Trampling Human Rights, activists charge by Stephen Leahy, Inter Press News Service (IPS) September 29th, 2006 Activists want the Canadian government to impose mandatory human rights and environmental standards on Canadian mining and oil companies operating in Latin America and other developing regions. |
| CANADA: Activists Push for Sustainable Mining by Stephen Leahy, Inter Press News Service (IPS) September 29th, 2006 Civil society activists want the Canadian government to impose mandatory human rights and environmental standards on Canadian mining and oil companies operating in Latin America and other developing regions. |
| PERU: Leaching Out the Water with the Gold by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service (IPS) September 20th, 2006 The conflict that brought operations at Yanacocha, Latin America's largest gold mine, to a halt just a month after President Alan García took office in Peru was merely the latest illustration of the tensions between mining companies and local communities in the northern province of Cajamarca. |
| US: Nevada panel OKs rules for mercury emissions by Brendan Riley, Associated Press September 18th, 2006 New rules for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants were approved Monday by a legislative panel after Nevada's environmental agency chief warned that the alternative would be direct federal oversight. |
| US: Farmers Fear Coal Mining Will Sink Land
by Bob Secter, Chicago Tribune September 17th, 2006 Two mining companies want to dig for coal under nearly half of Montgomery County. They plan to use a nontraditional but highly efficient process called "longwall" mining that will cause flat-as-a-dime land to sag like a burst souffle. |
| AFRICA: War, Murder, Rape... All for Your Cell by Stan Cox, Alternet September 14th, 2006 Cassiterite, or tin oxide, is the most important source of the metallic element tin, and the DRC is home to fully one-third of the world's reserves. Some cassiterite miners work on sites operated directly by the country's military or other armed groups. Working in the same area are "artisanal" miners who are theoretically independent, like prospectors in America's Old West. But the cassiterite they extract is heavily taxed by the soldiers -- when it's not just stolen outright. |
| US: Walking with purpose by Edward Marshall, The Journal September 5th, 2006 After 32 days and 380 miles of walking, Ed Wiley, a concerned grandfather of a Marsh Fork Elementary School student and grass roots activist, stopped in Shepherdstown Monday to speak with residents on his way to Washington where he hopes to meet with federal lawmakers. Wiley is on a mission to ensure the safety of the children in Sundial, W.Va., where their elementary school sits next to a coal preparation plant and just 400 yards downstream from a dam holding back over two billion gallons of toxic sludge. |
| WORLD: Private Sector 'Not the Answer to Poverty' by Philip Thornton, Independent (UK) September 1st, 2006 Rich countries must deliver more money directly to poor nations to avert a growing health and sanitation crisis spreading across the southern hemisphere, Oxfam will say today. |
| US: Judge tells BP leaders to give depositions by Anne Belli, The Houston Chronicle August 29th, 2006 Injured workers and families of those killed in an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery last year scored a court victory Monday when a judge ordered the London-based company's top two executives to give depositions in the case. |
| UK: Shareholder raps Shell's 'corroded' gas pipes by Julia Kollewe , The Independent (UK) August 29th, 2006 Royal Dutch Shell has come under fire over corroded gas pipes, just days after BP was forced to shut down production at an oilfield in Alaska due to severe pipeline corrosion. |
| CHAD: Chad Orders 2 Oil Companies to Leave by Madjiasra Nako , The Associated Press August 27th, 2006 Chad's president on Saturday ordered oil companies Chevron Corp. and Petronas to leave the country, saying neither has paid taxes and his country will take responsibility for the oil fields they have overseen. |
| PERU: Yanacocha Mine Ceases Carachugo Project Operations by Robert Kozak, Dow Jones Newswire August 25th, 2006 Minera Yanacocha SRL, which runs Latin America's largest gold mine, on Friday ceased activities at its Carachugo project in northern Peru because of protests. |
| INDONESIA: Newmont Exec to Defend Himself in Court by Robin McDowell, Associated Press August 25th, 2006 An American gold-mining executive was preparing Friday to defend himself in court for the first time against charges his company dumped millions of tons of mercury and arsenic-laced waste into an Indonesian bay, sickening villagers. |
| PERU: ‘Voluntary Payment' Instead of Taxes for Mining Firms
by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service (IPS) August 25th, 2006 Peruvian Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo told Congress that private mining companies operating in Peru would make a "voluntary payment" of 757.5 million dollars over the next five years, to go towards fighting poverty. However, they will not pay the tax on windfall profits that new President Alan García had promised in his campaign. |
| PHILIPPINES: Lafayette test run cause of water contamination by Mark Ivan Roblas, The Manilla Times August 25th, 2006 GOVERNMENT officials and Greenpeace activists have discovered contamination of the waters on Rapu-Rapu Island as the test run for the resumption of the operations of Lafayette Philippines Inc. continues. |
| PHILIPPINES: Deportation of 3 Greenpeace activists sought by Lafayette
Inquirer (PHIL) August 24th, 2006 LAFAYETTE Philippines on Thursday said it was preparing legal action against the environmentalist group Greenpeace for trespassing and is seeking the deportation of three Caucasians who climbed up the company’s conveyor belt to unfurl their anti-mining banners for picture taking. |
| US: Int'l Coal Group stock down as mine survivor sues Reuters August 24th, 2006 Stock in International Coal Group Inc. slipped on Thursday, a day after the company was sued by the lone survivor of the mine disaster that killed 12 men at its Sago coal mine in West Virginia. |
| PERU: Beggar on a Throne of Gold by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service (IPS) August 23rd, 2006 Mining companies operating in Peru are seeing increasing millions in profits as a result of the surge in international prices for metals, but few are contributing what is needed to alleviate the poverty of the people living in mining areas. |
| US: Company testing mine to determine extent of uranium contamination by Jim Tiffin, The Gallup Independent August 18th, 2006 A state geologist said Thursday afternoon Rio Cinto Mining Co., also known as Sohio Western Mining, is planning to drill two water wells and sample 11 vent shafts at a former uranium mining site north of the Pueblo of Laguna. |
| PERU: Indigenous Community to Take Oil Company to Court by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service August 17th, 2006 Arankartuktaram! This Achuar cry sums up what indigenous communities in the heart of Peru's Amazon jungle region are demanding from the State and multinational oil companies -- a little respect. |
| INDONESIA: Java sinks deeper into toxic crisis by Mark Forbes, The Age (AUS) August 12th, 2006 TOXIC mud still spurting from a gas drilling well part-owned by Australian mining giant Santos is threatening to mire East Java in a full-scale disaster. |
| INDIA: Tribal activists carry Indian mining protest to London by Marianne Barriaux, The Guardian August 3rd, 2006 Vedanta Resources faced a wave of protest at yesterday's annual meeting as activists travelled to London from the Orissa region of India to challenge the mining group's chairman Anil Agarwal on his company's human and environmental rights record in the country. |
| WORLD: Requiem for the WTO by Gustavo Capdevila , Inter Press News Service (IPS) August 2nd, 2006 Civil society activists, who early on foretold the inevitable collapse of the Doha Round, are now predicting the beginning of the end for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) itself, which sponsored the failed negotiations. |
| INDIA: Investors fly in to tap Orissa's mineral riches by Khozem Merchant, Financial Times July 28th, 2006 Ratan Tata will soon become the latest of a series of top industrialists to land his private jet at Bhubaneshwar, the dusty capital of Orissa, whose vast deposits of high quality coal, iron ore and bauxite have made the eastern state the hottest investment destination in India. |
| GHANA: Mines' cyanide spills targeted by Steve Raabe, The Denver Post July 27th, 2006 Mining foes called Wednesday for greater international scrutiny of two cyanide spills at gold mines in Ghana operated by Littleton-based Golden Star Resources. |
| UK: Water companies head polluters' league by Charlotte Moore and agencies, Guardian Unlimited July 26th, 2006 The Environment Agency said it was "disappointed" with the amount of pollution caused by water companies last year, as Thames Water topped the league table of worst polluters in England and Wales. |
| UK: SFO to investigate Southern Water by Hans Kundnani, The Guardian July 19th, 2006 The Serious Fraud Office today announced an investigation into whether Southern Water deliberately misled the water regulator, Ofwat, about its failure to meet customer service standards. |
| US: BP shuts leaking Alaskan wells by Mark Tran, Guardian Unlimited July 19th, 2006 BP's image today suffered another blow as the British oil giant closed the last 12 of 57 oil wells in Alaska that had been leaking. |
| UK: Thames Water faces fine of up to £140m by Hans Kundnani, The Guardian July 19th, 2006 Thames Water could face a fine of up to £140m for failing to provide a good service to its eight million customers in the south-east of England. |
| DRC: Minerals Flow Abroad, Misery Remains by Emad Mekay, Inter Press News Service July 5th, 2006 International companies and local elites in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are pocketing revenues from copper and cobalt production instead of sharing it with local communities or spending it to reduce poverty, a watchdog group charged Wednesday. |
| FRANCE: France's shareholder revolt
by Henri Astier, BBC June 29th, 2006 |
| ZAMBIA: Record Copper Prices, But Mine Region Yet to Benefit UN Integrated Regional Information Networks June 28th, 2006 Record world copper prices should brighten hopes of recovery in Zambia's Copperbelt region after a decade of mine closures and job losses. |
| US: Costs soar as acidic waters gush freely from 12 of Oregon's abandoned mines by Diane Dietz, The Register-Guard June 25th, 2006 This is a dirty secret from the Oregon backcountry, where hills are pocked with at least 140 abandoned mines. A dozen of them gush fish-killing acidic waters. |
| UK: Water Firm's Plan for Drought Order Faces Challenge After Level of Leaks Revealed by Hugh Muir and Rob Booth, The Guardian (UK) June 23rd, 2006 Plans by Britain's biggest water company to impose drought order restrictions on its eight million customers may be challenged in court following revelations that its pipes leak 800 gallons a day. |
| CANADA: Corporate SLAPP by Kim Petersen, The Dominion Paper June 22nd, 2006 The Ontario-based mineral company Platinex has slapped the Ojibwa of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (Big Trout Lake) First Nation (KIFN) with a $10-billion damage suit for refusing the company permission to drill on territory the KIFN says is its own. |
| AUSTRALIA: Mt Isa Lead Risk For Children by Michelle Wiese Bockmann, The Australian June 21st, 2006 Children in the Queensland mining capital of Mount Isa have been put at risk by fallout from the city's copper and lead smelters because the state Government has failed to routinely test for lead poisoning. |
| UK: Thames Water Fails to Plug Leaks But Profits Rise 31% by Mark Milner, The Guardian (UK) June 21st, 2006 The water industry regulator Ofwat sharply criticised Thames Water after the company again failed to meet its target for cutting the amount of water lost through leaks. The news came as the company reported profits had increased by almost a third. |
| CANADA: Miners, retailers to certify ethical production of metal by Kelly Patterson, The Ottawa Citizen June 14th, 2006 Some of the biggest mining companies in the world, including Newmont Mining Corp., BHP Billiton and Canada's Falconbridge Inc., as well as retail giants ranging from Wal-Mart to Tiffany & Co., met in Vancouver recently to consider creating a seal of approval for sustainably produced metals. |
| CANADA: Canada Conservative Gets Aggressive With Big Oil by Ian Austen, The New York Times June 14th, 2006 Danny Williams may be a multimillionaire and a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, but these days he is being compared to a self-proclaimed revolutionary, the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. |
| CONGO: Congo's Child Miner Shame by Orla Guerin, BBC News June 12th, 2006 To commemorate World Day Against Child Labour, BBC News has spent a day with child miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who work for about one dollar per day. At Ruashi mine, in the Eastern province of Katanga, almost 800 children dig for copper and cobalt. |
| US: Bottlers, States and the Public Slug It Out in Water War by David Fahrenthold, Washingtom Post June 12th, 2006 In a series of lawsuits and statehouse debates that reached critical mass in the past year, activists and lawmakers have questioned whether bottling companies have become too greedy about the water they take from the ground, and -- in some cases -- what gives them the right to take it at all. |
| CANADA: Sudden Wealth's High Price
by Doug Struck, The Washington Post June 9th, 2006 Huge mines here turning tarry sand into cash for Canada and oil for the United States are taking an unexpectedly high environmental toll, sucking water from rivers and natural gas from wells and producing large amounts of gases linked to global warming. |
| ARGENTINA: Kolla Indians Fight to Protect Their Land
by Marcela Valente, Inter Press News Service (IPS) June 8th, 2006 "We are here to take care of the land, because we depend on it for a living," said Andrés Sajama, cacique (chief) of Queta, a Kolla indigenous community in the northwestern Argentine province of Jujuy. "We don't want to block mining projects, but we won't allow them to take away what little we have left," he told IPS. |
| US: BP under criminal investigation for Alaska spill by Mark Tran, The Guardian June 8th, 2006 The oil giant BP is under criminal investigation in the US for a big oil spill in Alaska in March that has raised fresh questions about the company's safety record. |
| ARGENTINA: Another War Over Water by Marcela Valente, Inter Press Service News Agency June 7th, 2006 Fed up with poor water quality, rate hikes and a lack of investment in expanding infrastructure, residents, union members and environmentalists in the Argentine province of Córdoba have forced a multinational corporation to withdraw from the business, and are now demanding that the state play a part in a new public water company. |
| CHILE: Chile Struggles to Meet Copper Demand by Rebecca Bream, Paul Harris and Kevin Morrison, The Financial Times June 6th, 2006 Although Chile has an abundant supply of copper, it does not have an abundant supply of the resources it needs to get it out of the ground — including water, capital and even workers. |
| US: Critics Wary of Development Plans for Utah Land by Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times June 6th, 2006 The proposed Washington County Growth and Conservation Act would sell up to 40 square miles of federal land and use the proceeds to finance a multimillion-dollar water pipeline and other local projects. Utah Republican Sen. Robert F. Bennett and Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson are expected to introduce the bill in coming weeks. Waiting in the wings are nearly a dozen similar bills for counties in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico where population pressure is fueling the demand for more developable land. |
| CHILE: Pascua Lama Gold Mine, a Threat to Sustainability
by Gustavo González, Inter Press News Service June 5th, 2006 The Pascua Lama gold-mining project in northern Chile threatens one of the richest farming valleys in the region of Coquimbo, which is also the area in the country most heavily affected by desertification. |
| US: New Hampshire Town Bans Corporate Water Withdrawals by Kat Bundy, Susquehanna June 1st, 2006 Across the country, corporations are privatizing the commons -- water -- so they can sell it. Now one town is fighting back in a powerful new way: Barnstead, New Hampshire, has become the first municipality in the U.S. to adopt a binding local law that bans certain corporations from withdrawing water within the town. To protect their local law, Barnstead residents have also voted to strip corporations of their claims to constitutional rights and powers. This is not your father's old "regulatory" approach. |
| AUSTRALIA: Centennial Coal’s community consultation has a price by Ross Kendall and Michael Walsh, Ethical Investor June 1st, 2006 Centennial Coal is attempting buy ‘people’s opinions and right to free speech’ with its property purchase contracts for a new mine, according Greenpeace and a local residents group. |
| VENEZUELA: For Venezuela, a Treasure in Oil Sludge by Juan Forero, The New York Times June 1st, 2006 This great, largely untapped treasure is pitting a leftist government aiming to use oil revenue for social programs against multinational corporations like Chevron, which were invited here a decade ago to develop the Orinoco Belt, a 54-square-mile area some 120 miles south of here. |
| US: U.S. to Seek Extra $92 Million From Exxon for Valdez Spill by John Holusha, The New York Times June 1st, 2006 The federal government and Alaska said today that they would seek to get the Exxon Mobil Corporation to pay an additional $92 million to clean up the lingering effects of the 1989 oil spill caused by the crash of the tanker Exxon Valdez. |
| CANADA: Canada Pays Environmentally for U.S. Oil Thirst by Doug Struck, Washington Post Foreign Service May 31st, 2006 Huge mines here turning tarry sand into cash for Canada and oil for the United States are taking an unexpectedly high environmental toll, sucking water from rivers and natural gas from wells and producing large amounts of gases linked to global warming. |
| LIBERIA: Firestone in Liberia Rubber Row by Caspar Leighton, BBC May 31st, 2006 Rubber manufacturer Firestone has been accused of buying rubber from plantations illegally occupied by ex-combatants from Liberia's civil war. |
| SPAIN: Spanish Copper Project Arouses Environmental Anger by Julia Hayley, Rueters May 30th, 2006 A plan to start the biggest open pit copper mine in Europe in southern Spain has run into opposition from environmentalists who fear it will pollute a river with poisonous heavy metals. |
| CANADA: Platinum Mine Sparks Lawsuits Canadian Press May 29th, 2006 The development of a potentially rare and lucrative platinum mine near a reserve in Northern Ontario has prompted a First Nation to sue the provincial government while it faces a $10 billion lawsuit from a Canadian exploration company. |
| WORLD: The Scariest Predators in the Corporate Jungle by Thalif Deen, Inter-Press Service May 23rd, 2006 The world's oil, gas and mining industries account for nearly two-thirds of all violations of human rights, environmental laws and international labour standards, according to a soon-to-be-released United Nations study. |
| PHILIPPINES: Philippine communist rebels vow attacks on mines by Manny Mogato, Reuters May 22nd, 2006 Philippine communist rebels vowed on Monday to step up attacks on mining firms and troops guarding them in the northern Kalinga mountains, raising a new threat to a sector that has been beset with environmental woes. |