Energy, Mining & Utilities
Halliburton, the oil services giant Dick Cheney headed until his selection as vice presidential candidate, has provided services to two controversial pipelines in Burma known for the violent human rights abuses associated with their construction.
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.
Villagers in Tororo district, Uganda, not far from the Kenyan border, say that Guangzhou Dongsong Energy, a company from China, has conspired with the government to cheat them out of their land titles in order to build a $600 million phosphate mine and industrial complex.
Oil giant BP has been fined a total of $373m (£182m) by the US Department of Justice for environmental crimes and committing fraud.
Transnational aluminium smelters, some teaming up with Malaysian partners, are beating a path to eastern Sarawak state with an eye to surplus power from the problem-ridden Bakun Dam.
US and Ghanaian authorities are investigating corruption allegations involving a Texas oil company and the local partner that helped it secure control of the Ghanaian oil block that yielded one of Africa's biggest recent discoveries. The case risks complicating efforts by Texas company Kosmos to sell its stake in the Jubilee oil field to ExxonMobil in a deal valued at $4bn.
French engineering group Alstom allegedly paid nearly a million dollars in bribes in connection with a Brazilian energy plant, testimony from a Brazilian businessman reported in the press here said Thursday.
Here is the annual Top 10 Worst Corporations of 2000 list compiled by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. This year, rushing to the head of the pack of irresponsible biotech companies was the French corporation Aventis, the maker of Cry9C corn, sold under the name StarLink.
Only days away from the end of the United Nations' Year of Deserts and Desertification, four experts discuss the challenges of translating a decade's worth of research about the degradation of land in arid areas of the world. Phuong Tran reports from VOA's Dakar bureau, located in the arid Saharan region of West Africa.
Did US officials and oil companies play a role in international arms-for-oil scandal?