Environment

Chevron - the Northern California-based oil and gas company - has been quietly acquiring rights to drill for natural gas in Eastern Europe using "fracking" technology - a controversial technique. However, grassroots opposition in Bulgaria and Romania has thwarted the companies plans so far. Read More

Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation has won a $101.5 million license to dig for copper in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company has been questioned by Global Witness for possible links to corrupt Congolese officials. Read More

Syabas, a private water company in Malaysia, has threatened to start water rationing in the state of Selangor after claiming that it had almost no water reserves left. Critics claim that the threat is a ploy to win more lucrative contracts and to favor a rival political party. Read More

A mysterious fire and a missing activist have contributed to the concerns of Russian activists fighting a new highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The highway is being built by a consortium that involves Vinci, a French construction multinational, and individuals rumored to be close to prime minister Vladimir Putin. Read More

Protestors have forced Sichuan Hongda to cancel plans to build a $1.6 billion copper alloy plant in Shifang city in southwestern China, because of pollution concerns. The halt has been hailed as a major victory by environmental activists against corporate and government power. Read More

Rio Tinto has been named as early front-runner for the Greenwash Gold award for the worst Olympic sponsor, with BP in second place and Dow Chemical third. The three corporations have paid millions to stick their names all over Olympic promotional material and activities. Read More

Monsanto, the largest seed corporation in the world, has long dealt out severe legal sanctions against farmers it suspects of "pirating" its seed. Now farmers in Brazil have turned the tables on the company which may have to pay out $7.5 billion. Read More

Aubrey McClendon, the founder and CEO of Oklahoma-based Chesapeake Energy, who championed natural gas to the extent of paying environmental groups to oppose coal, is facing angry shareholders for his profligate ways. Chesapeake is one of the leading users of fracking - an environmentally questionable method of extracting natural gas. Read More

The Xavante tribe in western Brazil and the Parakana tribe in the north-east are separated by a thousand miles of the Amazon basin but they face a common threat: the sprawling global beef export empire controlled by the Batista family from the state of Goiás. Read More

A $6.3 billion coal mine project in the Galilee Basin in Queensland that could impact the Great Barrier Reef, has been halted by Tony Burke, Australian environment minister. The Alpha project is the first of several major coal projects being pushed by Campbell Newman, the premiere of Queensland. Read More