Environment

MARRAKECH -- The lack of transparency and public participation in the climate negotiations will further worsen conditions for Indigenous Peoples, people of color and workers in the US and US-Mexico border. Speakers from Indigenous Environmental Network, Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, CorpWatch and Redefining Progress held a briefing on Tuesday in Marrakech, bringing issues of racial justice and worker's rights to the center of the climate change negotiations.
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.
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.
DuPont Co. has agreed to pay $10.25 million in fines and $6.25 million for environmental projects to settle allegations by the Environmental Protection Agency that the company hid information about the dangers of a toxic chemical used to make the non-stick coating Teflon, officials said Wednesday.
The state Board of Fisheries now is squarely in the middle of the noisy battle being waged over Southwest Alaska's large and controversial Pebble copper and gold prospect.
Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation has won a $101.5 million license to dig for copper in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company has been questioned by Global Witness for possible links to corrupt Congolese officials.
The Concerned Citizens of Norco (CCN) and Shell Chemical LP (Shell) have engaged in a series of frank and open discussions in an attempt to understand and resolve their differences regarding the Voluntary Property Purchase Program, a program designed to create greenbelt space along the fence lines of the Shell and Motiva Enterprises (Motiva) facilities in Norco, Louisiana that was offered to residents living on two of the four streets that make up the tight-knit and historic Diamond neighborhood. CCN and Shell also discussed the Shell and Motiva Good Neighbor Initiative, which contains several programs to enhance the quality of life for all of Norco, including the Diamond neighborhood.
Mining companies operating in Peru are seeing increasing millions in profits as a result of the surge in international prices for metals, but few are contributing what is needed to alleviate the poverty of the people living in mining areas.
As the World Conference on Racism opens, EJ activists pledge to highlight environmental racism. Sam Olukoya looks at the connection between oil disasters in the Niger Delta and racism.