Energy, Mining & Utilities

The South African government has intervened to support the Indian-born Gupta brothers, owners of a sprawling conglomerate with interests from mining to media, following a scandal that suggested that the brothers had accumulated so much power that they could dictate cabinet-level decisions in the country. Read More

IOI, the second largest producer of palm oil in Malaysia, has been kicked out of an industry group that certifies sustainability practices, for environmental and labor violations. As a result, dozens of companies, including the makers of Dove soap, M&M's and Kellogg's Corn Flakes, have stopped buying from IOI. Read More

The World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) has ordered the government of Venezuela to pay US$1.386 billion to Crystallex, a bankrupt Canadian gold mining company, for canceling a 2002 permit to mine for gold in the Imataca Forest Reserve Read More

The Navajo Diné community have notched up a victory over Uranium Resources Inc. decades old plan to dig for uranium at Crownpoint and Churchrock, New Mexico, by successfully appealing a state permit for the Colorado company to dump waste into the Westwater Canyon aquifer. Read More

Sierra Leonian courts have started to release a group of community activists from the Malen Land Owners and Users Association (MALOA) who were jailed recently for taking part in a October 2013 protest at a palm oil plantation operated by Societe Financiere des Caoutchoucs (Socfin). Read More

A key witness has admitted under oath that he lied on behalf of Chevron, the California oil multinational, when the company sued to overturn a $9.5 billion verdict for pollution of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Read More

Some 500 Angolan fisherfolk have demanded compensation from Chevron after an oil spill polluted the Mandarin and Mpuela shoreline in Cabinda last month, close to the California company's drilling operations. Under government orders, all fishing activity was banned for almost two weeks. Read More

A music video asking Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant, to clean up mercury waste from their former Indian factory notched up two million views in less than a week, prompting a reply from the company CEO. 'Kodaikanal Won't,' the video by Sonia Ashraf, parodied Nicki Minaj's song 'Anaconda.' Read More

British regulators are investigating Soma Oil & Gas, a UK-based company, for allegedly paying bribes to the Somali government in exchange for exploration rights. Under scrutiny is the payment of $580,000 for "capacity building arrangements" at the Ministry of Petroleum in Mogadishu, according to Financial Times sources. Read More

Greenpeace temporarily blocked Shell from drilling for oil in the Arctic by blocking the path of a specialized ice-breaking ship in Portland, Oregon. Thirteen climbers suspended themselves from a bridge while hundreds of local supporters paddled below in kayaks forcing the company to delay operations for almost two days. Read More