Energy, Mining & Utilities

A militant group on Tuesday said that 90 percent of some 5,000 residents of an island in Albay had signed the petition calling for the permanent closure of the operations of an Australian-financed mining firm in the area. Read More

The commander of Nigeria's military operation in the oil-rich Niger delta has warned of more unrest there as Africa's biggest oil producer and most populous nation heads towards national elections next year. Read More

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is investigating the source of arsenic found at a cleanup site in Upper Ringwood where a Ford Motor Co. contractor recently removed tons of paint sludge. Read More

Mauritanian leaders and Australia's Woodside Petroleum have still to reach agreement over contracts, a fortnight before an oil production deal starts. Read More

PRESIDENT Macapagal-Arroyo has offered to suspend the issuance of new mining permits to try to appease Roman Catholic bishops strongly opposed to the country's new Mining Act, a top Malacanang official said yesterday. Read More

The "conflict" or "blood" diamond problem first drew wide notice in the late 1990s, when reports highlighted that rebels in African countries were using diamonds to fund brutal campaigns. Read More

High-ranking officials from the United States as well as Iraq accuse the Danish shipping company Maersk of having taken advantage of the chaos of war in order to grab control of Iraq's oil port. Read More

KENNETH L. LAY and his second in command, Jeffrey K. Skilling, were the public faces of Enron, painting a rosy picture of strong profits and healthy businesses. But as the facts began to tumble out, in the fall of 2001, the company swiftly collapsed, taking with it the fortunes and retirement savings of thousands of employees. Read More

Indigenous protesters from northwestern Venezuela marched Friday through the streets of Caracas, which is hosting the sixth World Social Forum (WSF), to protest plans for mining coal on their land. Read More

"For the government, if they lose the Enron case, it will be seen as a symbolic failure of their rather significant campaign against white-collar crime," said John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School. "It will be seen as some evidence that some cases are too complicated to be brought into the criminal justice process." Read More