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While the Bush administration was drafting its national energy policy, a leading lobbyist for Enron Corp. was plotting strategy to turn the plan into a political weapon against Democrats, according to a newly obtained memo.

The oily links of the Bush presidency and the GOP do not end with energy and telecom giants like Williams Companies and Enron. On January 18, Williams named to its Board of Directors W. W. "Bill" Hanna, the former vice chairman of Koch Industries, an oil, gas and petrochemical company that was a major contributor to the Bush campaign.

A fired partner of auditor Andersen refused to testify to Congress on the destruction of evidence in the collapse of energy giant Enron, prompting lawmakers to say he was frustrating their probe.

Investigators probing the accounts of collapsed energy giant Enron are examining what happened to more than $5 billion in loans and investments the company made to subsidiaries kept off its balance sheet. The scale of the black hole opening up looks as if it could dwarf previous estimates.

The thousands of Enron employees who saw their 401(k) plans wiped out will be able to take the energy trader to court Monday, following a federal bankruptcy ruling in Manhattan yesterday.

Vice President Cheney tried to help Enron collect a $64 million debt from a giant energy project in India, government documents obtained by the Daily News show.

President George W Bush's administration, already on the back foot over its connections with the collapsed energy giant Enron, faces questions over a massive defence contract which aided an investment firm with Bush family links.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Moving quickly in the wake of US Senate approval of a military aid package, Colombian armed forces attacked two hundred non-violent U'wa Indians over the weekend. The U'wa have been blockading the road to a site where Occidental Petroleum plans to begin drilling for oil for months.

Three weeks before Republicans hold their national convention, it appears the number of protesters gathering in Philadelphia could rival the 30,000 delegates and party members attending the convention itself.

Many of the same American corporate executives who have reaped millions of dollars from arms and oil deals with the Saudi monarchy have served or currently serve at the highest levels of U.S. government, public records show.

WASHINGTON -- After waiting nearly eight months for a response, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) today filed a lawsuit to force the Department of Energy (DOE) to produce records regarding the agency's role in the operations of the National Energy Policy Development Group chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney. DOE's refusal to provide basic information about its involvement with the so-called energy task force violates the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to NRDC.

Thank you PR Watch for noting, via O'Dwyer's PR Daily, the increasingly obscene revolving-door scenarios in Washington:

By contrast, Ralph Nader is actually addressing some of the big issues affecting people of color. In tackling thorny topics such as corporate globalization, environmental abuse and child poverty, Nader often speaks to problems that have their most devastating affects in communities of color.

Republican congressional aide Barbara Kahlow sent the e-mail to a dozen business lobbyists on Sept. 26: ''Here's our non-public chart,'' it said. She underlined ''non-public'' and put it in boldface.

Having ensured the continued flow of cheap oil from the Gulf by waging a war with Iraq, and after his boss, George Bush's ouster from office by Clinton in 1992, Dick Cheney turned his attention to the corporate world.

With billions of dollars in profits on the line, the health care industry is waging the largest national advertising campaign ever conducted by a political special interest, with a price tag for the election cycle that could approach $90 million--more than either of the major presidential candidates is expected to spend.

Thousands of protesters, led by people in wheelchairs, marched on the Republican National Convention on Monday to demand economic rights for people oppressed by poverty and homelessness.

''There are 250,000 families living below the poverty line in Philadelphia, and 40,000 abandoned houses that the city has boarded up. That's an incredible disconnect that the Republicans won't be talking about this week!'' shouts activist Tamzin Cheshire.