Environment

For the past eight years, the oil giant formerly known as British Petroleum has tried to convince the world that its initials stand for "Beyond Petroleum." An announcement just issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may suggest that the real meaning of BP is Brazen Polluter. Read More

The McArthur River winds through Australia's remote Northern Territory, home to four main Aboriginal linguistic groups: the Gurdanji, Yanyuwa, Garawa and Mara. Earlier this month Australian Minister for Environment Peter Garrett announced conditional approval for a bid by Swiss mining giant Xstrata to expand its zinc mining operations in the sacred McArthur River floodplain. Read More

Norway's Ministry of Finance announced Friday that it would exclude mining giant Barrick Gold and U.S. weapons producer Textron Inc from the country's pension fund for ethical reasons. This is an especially significant judgment for Canada, as Barrick Gold is currently Canada's largest publicly traded company. Read More

The chief executive of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the coal-burning power plant responsible for an enormous flood of coal ash in East Tennessee late last month, acknowledged Thursday that the plant's containment ponds had leaked two other times in the last five years but had not been adequately repaired. Read More

Why would "criminals" set fire to millions worth in mine equipment? How was it that these "intruders" had an estimated 3,000 people backing them up? In what appears to be a spontaneous civilian movement against Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold miner, thousands of people invaded Barrick`s North Mara Gold Mine this week in Tarime District and destroyed equipment worth $15 million. Read More

Spoiler Alert! Read More

Royal Dutch Shell last year suffered more workforce deaths than any other large western oil company. Two employees and 28 contractors were killed working for Shell in 2007. Nine of last year's deaths were in Nigeria, with two people killed in attacks on Shell facilities, and 10 in Russia. Read More

In the history of the Iraq War, one name is perhaps synonymous with the collapse of the Bush administration's hopes for a post-Saddam world: Retired Lt. General Jay M. Garner, who served as the first post-war administrator. This year, he and a small group of former US military leaders, officials, and lobbyists have quietly used their Kurdistan connections to help Canadian companies access some of the region's richest oil fields. Read More

The Diaguita indigenous community in Huasco Alto, surrounded by rich gold, silver and copper deposits in the northern Chilean region of Atacama, are engaged in a struggle to prevent mining projects from infringing on their territory and destroying their way of life and ancestral identity. Read More

Trillions of dollars' worth of oil are present, but the environmental costs are high, too - and growing. Read More