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CUT THE LIFELINE! is an ongoing campaign aiming to cut the economic lifeline keeping the Burmese military dictatorship in power. The latest target in this campaign is Amerada Hess, an American oil company which owns 25 percent of Premier Oil. Premier Oil are the largest UK investor in Burma. Our campaign to persuade them to pull out has been backed by Aung San Suu Kyi and the UK government.

Last Friday, April 12, The Municipal Government of Talamanca (one of the counties where the Costa Rican government granted concessions to U.S. companies for oil development) declared Talamanca an ''Oil-Free'' County. As far as we know, this is the first government entity anywhere that has declared its territory ''free of oil and gas exploration and exploitation'' by initiating a ''moratorium on all activities related to petroleum exploration and exploitation within the Talamancan territory.''

United Mine Workers president Cecil Roberts was one of 11 people arrested Thursday at the site of a huge coal sludge spill as they demonstrated against the environmental performance of Massey Energy.

The implications of Enron's dramatic fall extend far beyond US borders. The once-mighty energy giant's murky dealings in Latin America have emerged as a hot political issue throughout the region, where politicians in some countries are using it as an election tool or to take attention away from their own economic or political woes.

New York (February 27, 2002) -- The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York refused to dismiss two lawsuits charging Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, Shell Transport and Trading Company, p.l.c. (Royal Dutch/Shell) and the former head of its Nigerian subsidiary, Brian Anderson, with human rights violations against activists Ken Saro-Wiwa and John Kpuinen.

LONDON -- BP PLC has announced it will no longer make political donations anywhere in the world, acknowledging that the relationship between corporations and government is under unprecedented scrutiny.

HOUSTON -- Enron Corp., plagued by investor doubts and under the gun to shore up its crumbling finances, said on Thursday it was talking with power trading rival Dynegy Inc. about a possible merger.

HOUSTON -- The slick financing that helped turn Enron Corp. into a mighty power-brokering dynamo became its Achilles' heel, leaving the energy trader teetering toward bankruptcy after a smaller rival abandoned plans to buy it.

How could one of the most wealthy and powerful corporations in the world go bust overnight? It turns out that the 7th largest US business was mostly smoke and mirrors.

WASHINGTON -- The firm that audited the books of collapsed Enron Corp., Arthur Andersen LLP, disclosed Thursday that a ''significant but undetermined'' number of documents related to the company had been destroyed.

The influence of big energy corporations in the Bush Administration is no secret. But the story of Dick Cheney and his former company, Halliburton Co., has received little attention -- and it may be the most important.

Enron's collapse may have begun with the kind of misadventures it engaged in half a world away among the quiet coastal villages of Dabhol, India.

Environmental activist groups from two continents have vowed to step up their fight against a foreign-financed pipeline project that would transport oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon to the Pacific after completing a 10-day tour along the 300-mile route.

WASHINGTON -- A coalition of native-American groups is lobbying the Senate to ban oil drilling on the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, saying it threatens the way of life of local residents.

It has been called the pipeline from hell, to hell, through hell. It's a 1,270-kilometer conduit, 1.2 meters in diameter, that would snake across Afghanistan to carry natural gas from eastern Turkmenistan -- with 700 billion cubic meters of proven reserves -- to energy-hungry Pakistan and beyond.

Shell refinery on the island of CURACAO (Netherlands Antilles), near the coast of Venezuela, is casuing great concern and health threats to nearby poor neighborhoods and the entire island.

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria -- A Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt has ordered Royal Dutch/Shell to pay US$40 million in compensation for an oil spill which happened in 1970 in Ogoniland.

SANTA MONICA -- The California beach city of Santa Monica is suing 18 oil companies for damages that could exceed $200 million, claiming that the firms polluted drinking water wells with the possibly cancer-causing gasoline additive MTBE.