The explosion on a BP rig off Louisiana on Wednesday will remind Americans of BP’s atrocious safety record. Eleven workers are missing and almost certainly dead, with seventeen injured after the “Deepwater Horizon” drilling rig blew up while drilling a deep well in the Gulf of Mexico. BP CEO Tony Hayward promised change when he took…

After weeks of industrial action in the southern oil fields in Iraq, management are trying to prevent the Refinery Workers Union from operating by sending four of its leaders to other workplaces. This is a standard management tactic in Iraq, and in the past has often meant sending union leaders to more hostile, violent areas of…

Yesterday, people from all over the country streamed into the Excel Conference Centre in the London Docklands to take part in the financial theatre that is the BP Annual General Meeting. One of the people who was protesting outside remarked that there was a “surprisingly low shareholder turnout of hedge fund managers in suits, and…

Update on the workers and community struggle against BP at Casanare in Colombia: The USO oil workers are back at work and BP has agreed to negotiate, but community mobilisations continue:   Movements, particularly in the Global North, could probably learn from the Casanare struggle’s close alliance between BP workers and local community and environmental campaigners. The interests of…

Shell sponsor high-profile exhibition on climate change at Science Museum. Good thing? Except that the exhibition backs down from the need for urgent action to deal with climate change. Chris Rapley, the museum’s director, went as far as stating that “The Science Museum will not state a position on whether or not climate change is real, driven…

Frontline human rights defenders in the Niger Delta suffered a brutal police attack on Monday 5th April, it emerged today in an Amnesty International statement. Activists from the Ogoni Solidarity Forum and Social Action were beaten, illegally detained without charge and denied access to lawyers and medical treatment. The text below is cross-posted from the Amnesty…

From RSW blog: Frontline human rights defenders in the Niger Delta suffered a brutal police attack on Monday 5th April. Activists from the Ogoni Solidarity Forum and Social Action were beaten, illegally detained without charge and denied access to lawyers and medical treatment. The text below is cross-posted from the Amnesty International website and community rights monitor, Niger Delta Watch: “Amnesty International…

Viewers of the BBC2 action drama on the Niger Delta, ‘Blood and Oil’  may be shocked to discover that this murky thriller of hostages, soldiers, oil and conflict, has its roots in real events in the Delta. In particular, one of the darker chapters of former President Obasanjo’s repressive rule that went largely unreported… In…