Energy, Mining & Utilities

The Bodo community in the Niger delta will get £55 million ($84 million) to settle claims of environmental pollution by the Nigerian subsidiary of Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant. Despite the relatively large settlement, many other pollution claims by Nigerian communities affected by Shell remain unresolved. Read More

Paladin Energy, an Australian mining company, has been accused of discharging uranium-contaminated sludge into Lake Malawi, which supports 1.7 million people in three countries - Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. The company began uranium mining operations in Malawi in 2009 although it suspended operations last year after ore prices fell. Read More

A Kazakh oil consortium has been accused of "mass poisoning" after 25 school children and four teachers passed out almost simultaneously at a school in Berezovka village in northwest Kazakhstan. The incident is the latest in a decade of allegations of pollution caused by the neighboring Karachaganak oil field. Read More

When Alma Aranda tried to exercise her legal right to take unpaid time off to care for her dying mother, Verizon harassed her with so much paperwork that her hair fell out. In a new CorpWatch investigation into federal contractors who violate workers rights, Chris Thompson tells her story. Read More

A U.S. court has refused to allow family members of three murdered Colombian union leaders the opportunity to sue Occidental Petroleum. The families claimed that the Los Angeles based company should be held responsible since it allegedly provided financial support for the military unit that killed the men. Read More

Major energy companies have effectively created a secret law firm of conservative attorneys general to persuade Washington lawmakers to gut environmental regulations, according to an investigation by the New York Times. In return, these senior government officials have received millions of dollars to help them win political campaigns. Read More

Adani Enterprises has been offered a $1 billion loan by the State Bank of India to support a mega coal mining project in the Galilee basin in central Queensland, Australia. Environmentalists say that the accompanying industrialization is likely to severely impact the Great Barrier Reef, 400 kilometres away. Read More

Two senior Tanzanian officials were arrested after they failed to produce details of 26 multi-billion dollar agreements signed with Statoil of Norway; the BG Group and Ophir from the UK; and ExxonMobil from the U.S. Opposition politicians want assurances that the money will be spent in a transparent manner. Read More

Indigenous activists burned down a bridge in British Columbia, Canada, to prevent Imperial Metals from starting a lead and zinc mine on the lands of the Secwepemc peoples. Local tribes say that the mine may severely impact the one of the largest remaining sockeye salmon populations in the world. Read More

The Dutch Supreme Court recently upheld an arbitration tribunal judgment requiring the Ecuadorean government to pay Chevron $106 million for breach of contract. Ironically, activists say Ecuador is now free to hand this money to indigenous communities who have sued the oil giant for pollution in an unrelated case. Read More