Energy, Mining & Utilities

ATLANTA (March 30) -- Just in time for April Fool's Day, Earth Day 2000, the consumer clearinghouse for the environmental decade, released ''Don't Be Fooled,'' its annual report highlighting the top 10 greenwashers of the previous year. Read More

A surprise encounter in the Congressional office of Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney today brought the vice president of Occidental Petroleum face to face with the president of the U'wa indigenous people who are fighting the company's oil drilling on their traditional land in Colombia. Read More

Oil services provider Baker Hughes has become the latest United States firm to pull out of Burma, human rights campaigners and the firm's local partner said Wednesday. Read More

Jeepney drivers and operators, slumdwellers and other sectoral representatives yesterday took to the streets to demand an oil price rollback and the resignation or ouster of President Estrada. Read More

Environmentalists are claiming victory following General Motors Corp.'s decision to quit a lobbying group that has led the opposition to a 1997 global warming treaty reached in Kyoto, Japan. Read More

The Amsterdam-based environmentalist group announced the purchase of $240,000 worth of Royal Dutch/Shell Group equity to try to pressure the Anglo-Dutch energy conglomerate to build a huge solar panel production plant. Read More

Escalating a campaign questioning Vice President Al Gore's environmental commitment, environmental organizations today placed a full-page ad in the west coast edition of the New York Times. The ad, whose headline reads ''Who is Al Gore?Environmental Champion or Petroleum Politician? The U'wa people need to know'' substantiates Gore's connections to Occidental Petroleum and argues that the Vice President has a specific responsibility to act on behalf of the U'wa people. Read More

Rallying behind the struggle of the U'wa people of Colombia, at least 2,500 people have arrived during the past week in the small community of Gibraltar, in the department of North Santander, resuming the blockade of the main road to Oxy's well site. Read More

Japan's nuclear power industry suffered a historic defeat yesterday when one of the country's biggest utilities was forced to scrap plans for a power plant that it has been trying to build for 37 years. Read More

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether products made from vermiculite could expose consumers to asbestos. Preliminary test results on common household products indicate that a particularly lethal form of asbestos fibers contaminates some attic insulation, but researchers do not yet know whether normal use of these products could endanger consumers. Read More