Environment

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

Saudi Star Agricultural Development plans to pump $100 million into a rice export project in Gambella region of Ethiopia despite allegations of human rights violations surrounding the "villagization" program under which the land has been taken from indigenous Anuak pastoralists to lease to foreign investors. 
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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

Plans for the Don Sahong dam in southern Laos have come under renewed fire from environmental activists. This week activists boycotted a regional consultation on the dam, just eight weeks after filing a formal request for an investigation of Mega First Corporation, the company that has the construction contract. 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

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

Kashagan, Kazakhstan's flagship offshore oil project in the Caspian Sea, will need to spend some $4 billion to repair 200 kilometres of pipelines that are leaking corrosive sulphur-containing gas, according to new estimates. The reports confirm long standing fears of environmental organizations and the local community. Read More