Environment

U.S. hostage Macon Hawkins and five other foreign oil workers kidnapped last month by Nigerian militants were freed today. Read More

Scientists working for the chromium industry withheld data about the metal's health risks while the industry campaigned to block strict new limits on the cancer-causing chemical, according to a scientific journal report published yesterday. Read More

Newmont Mining agreed Thursday to pay $30 million to Indonesia in a settlement of a civil lawsuit in which the government argued that the company had polluted a bay with arsenic and mercury. Read More

The EPA alleged Wednesday that Northshore, a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs and its former owner, Cyprus Minerals, modified three taconite furnaces at its Silver Bay processing plant without installing the best available pollution control technology. Read More

A group of scientific advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a recommendation that a chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon and other nonstick and stain-resistant products should be considered a likely carcinogen. Read More

A controversial Kuwait-based construction firm accused of exploiting employees and coercing low-paid laborers to work in war-torn Iraq against their will is now building the new $592-million U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Listen to an interview with David Phinney about this article on CorpWatch Radio. Read More

MORE WOES for Lafayette Philippines Inc. (LPI) whose mine on Rapu-Rapu Island in Albay province figured in two toxic spills last year. Read More

A militant group on Tuesday said that 90 percent of some 5,000 residents of an island in Albay had signed the petition calling for the permanent closure of the operations of an Australian-financed mining firm in the area. Read More

Taking a break from spraying his neat, one-hectare plot of young cotton plants with herbicide, Moses Mabika surveys the land that has been supporting his family for 45 years. He may not realise it, but he is standing at the epicenter of a heated debate about growing genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa. Read More

Mauritanian leaders and Australia's Woodside Petroleum have still to reach agreement over contracts, a fortnight before an oil production deal starts. Read More