A Chatham House event last Thursday launched the new report “Unpaid Debt: The Legacy of Lundin, Petronas and OMV in Sudan, 1997-2003,” on the role of oil companies in fuelling war and atrocities in Sudan. A group of aid agencies that worked in Sudan during the civil war, the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS), have called for an…

Claire Hall from Espacio Bristol-Colombia describes how the Colombian army has joined in the repression of striking BP workers in Casanare. from Upside Down World: “A five month long mobilisation against BP in the Casanare region of Colombia has escalated after the Colombian army entered the BP installations with force this week and confronted workers who have been peacefully…

I’m posting a few pieces which have emerged from C Words starting with this piece by curator Sophie Hope on C Words, activism, and the art world, continuing with “what the stewards saw”, and ending with a wallop “It was doomed from the start” from Gary Anderson of the Institute for the Art & Practice…

An article by John Vidal in The Observer this week finds that the enormity of oil pollution in Nigeria ‘dwarfs’ BP’s Deepwater Horizon blow-out. Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta…

In a blunt display of corporate censorship, Chevron officials denied respected human rights activist and Niger Delta women’s leader Emem Okon and a global delegation including Justice In Nigeria Now from its annual Shareholder Meeting in Houston yesterday (picture credit: Rainforest Action Network’s Change Chevron campaign).  The company, which is facing multiple lawsuits regarding its…

As BP’s Deepwater Horizon continues to exceed the company’s efforts to control it, the arrogance and irresponsibility of the oil major’s chief executive, Tony Hayward and his team has never been as clear. The consequences of BP’s mismanagement of the rig loom large, with estimated legal costs currently pegged at $60bn, and rising. Since the quantity of oil…

Frontline waterkeepers from Louisiana’s bayous have begun to tell of the devastation caused by the Macondo rupture in the sea floor. Tracy Kuhns, is the Louisiana Bayoukeeper as well as running the Fishing Community Family Support Center. Her husband, Michael Roberts, is a fisherman and they live on Bayou Barataria where fishing is down for multiple reasons, one being…

Tullow & British Embassy push disputed deal that could cut Congo’s revenues by $10 billion Confidential oil contracts held by UK companies Tullow and Heritage in the Democratic Republic of Congo were leaked today, revealing the danger of economic rip-off and rights abuses in one of Africa’s most unstable countries. The Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) are…

On the 28th of April, RBS held its Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh. Amidst the various motions relating to executive bonuses and a report back on the rocky road to recovery, two people raised concerns over the impact that RBS’ investments were having on indigenous communities in very different parts of the world. Eriel Tchekwie…