4 July, 2010 — Dahr Jamail’s Dispatches
We drive south on Louisiana Highway 55 towards Pointe-au-Chien. The two-lane road hugs a bayou, like most of the roads leading south into the marsh areas. Incredibly green, lush forest gives way to increasing areas of water the further south we venture, until the very road feels as though it is floating.
Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010
19 June, 2010 — Information Clearing House
Dwayne Price, a charter boat fisherman, gave the AP’s Bonny Ghosh a tour of oil-soaked Barataria Bay in Louisiana. Price decried the impact of the oil spill on the areas wildlife and pleaded for more help cleaning it up.
14 June, 2010 — Global Research
Gulf Oil Spill “Could Go on Years and Years” …
– by F. William Engdahl – 2010-06-11
The Obama Administration and BP are not working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe.
The Gulf Spill Continues: Is Obama Powerless Against BP?
– by Shamus Cooke – 2010-06-09
After BP successfully placed a cap to divert some of the spewing oil into tankers, thousands of gallons continue to flow daily into the gulf.
BP: The Unfinished Tale of Imperialism
– by Frederic F. Clairmont – 2010-05-13
It is well to remember the sordid historical role of BP and its earlier incarnation as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
20 May, 2010 — The Real News Network
One month after explosion of Deepwater Horizon rig, journalists update situation
Jesse Freeston interviews journalists at McClatchy’s DC bureau to get the latest on the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Journalists believe that BP and the Government may be hiding information on the severity of the leak. Those who fish for a living in the Gulf of Mexico are after BP for compensation. The central question yet to be answered to help resolve the question of how the explosion happened. And, the Cuban government is concerned but not vocal, given it’s own aspirations for deep sea drilling. Produced by Jesse Freeston.
http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Groupvideo.5726737
18 May, 2010
19 May, 2010 — Update
Whoops! The ‘press release’ was a hoax (I thought it was too good to be true, shades of the Yes Men as it is in fact a production of the Yes Lab). However, it doesn’t alter any of my comments. Here is the mail I just received on the hoax:
Company flummoxes back; activist group takes responsibility
The Hague – Hours before Shell’s annual general shareholder meeting on Tuesday, and not long after BP’s oil rig catastrophe, millions of people around the world received press releases announcing that Shell would implement a “comprehensive remediation plan” for the oil-soaked Niger Delta. The plan included an immediate halt to dangerous offshore drilling, the end of health-damaging gas flaring, and reparations for the human damage caused over the decades of Shell’s involvement.
The “good news” was fiction, created by an ad-hoc activist group called the Nigerian Justice League to generate pressure on Shell to withdraw from, and remediate, the Niger Delta. According to the activists, Shell’s operations in the Delta have helped transform that area into the world’s most polluted ecosystem, which has in turn resulted in a human rights catastrophe.
(The NJL developed the project as part of the Yes Lab (http://www.theyesmen.org/lab), a workshop run by a group called “the Yes Men” to share their experiences and facilitate the projects of others. The Yes Lab is in the midst of a fundraising drive.)
“Shell, Chevron, and the others are perpetrating a massive, life-threatening hoax by claiming that they can’t quickly stop their gas flaring, reduce their oil spills, and clean up their mess in the Niger Delta,” said Chris Francis of the Nigerian Justice League. “Our press release revealed the truth: that there is a decent way forward, instead of the continual deceit we get from them.”
Shell’s public relations staff quickly and energetically moved to contain the fallout from the fake release. On Tuesday, Shell attempted to eliminate the Justice League’s spoof Shell website by complaining that it was a “phishing scheme” to the upstream internet service provider. Shell then sent a threatening legal letter to the Danish internet provider hosting the site.
In a related story, the Financial Times (a blog of which, incidentally, was duped by the fake release) refused to run a hard-hitting advertisement, created and paid for by Amnesty International, that called for action against Shell for its Niger Delta legacy. Like the fake release, the ad was timed to coincide with Shell’s May 18 AGM.
“For now, Shell’s legal threats are bearing ripe fruit,” said Esmée de la Parra of the Nigerian Justice League. “But they can’t keep blustering their way to destruction forever. Eventually, people will have had enough. For the sake of the planet, let’s hope ‘eventually’ is very soon.”
My piece follows unedited.
13 May, 2010 — Global Research – World Socialist Web Site – 12 May, 2010
On Tuesday, the US senate began hearings into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which took the lives of 11 workers in an April 20 explosion and has since poured millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the region with an environmental and economic catastrophe.
Appearing before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in the morning and the Environmental and Public Health Committee in the afternoon were executives from the three corporations implicated in the disaster: Lamar McKay, president of the US operations of BP, which owned the oil and the drill site; Steven Newman, president of Transocean, the contractor that owned the rig and employed most of its workers; and Tim Probert, an executive with Halliburton, which contracted for the work of cementing the rig’s wellhead one mile beneath ocean’s surface.
The hearing resembled a falling out among thieves, with multi-millionaire executives—who, until April 20, had collaborated in thwarting basic safety and environmental considerations—each blaming the other for the explosion.
5 May, 2010 — MRZine-Monthly Review – Citizen Energy
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BP is a London-based oil company with the worst safety and environmental record of any oil company operating in America. In just the last few years, BP has pled guilty to two crimes and paid over $730 million in fines and settlements to the US government, state governments, and civil lawsuit judgments for environmental crimes, willful neglect of worker safety rules, and penalties for manipulating energy markets.
Worker Safety: $215 Million in Penalties/Settlements
BP paid the two largest fines in OSHA history — $87.43 million and $21.36 million — for willful negligence that led to the deaths of 15 workers and injured 170 others in a March 2005 refinery explosion in Texas. In September 2005, OSHA cited BP for 296 “Egregious Willful Violations” and other violations associated with the explosion, fining BP $21.36 million and entering into a settlement agreement under which BP agreed to corrective actions to eliminate hazards similar to those that caused the explosion. In October 2009, OSHA determined that BP was in non-compliance with the settlement agreement, finding 270 “notifications of failure to abate” and 439 new willful violations, resulting in the $87.43 million fine.
The U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board concluded in 2007 that “The Texas City disaster was caused by organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation. Warning signs of a possible disaster were present for several years, but company officials did not intervene effectively to prevent it.” This followed an August 2004 OSHA fine against BP for $63,000 for violations at the same facility. In December 2009, a Texas jury returned a $100 million award against BP on behalf of workers injured in 2007 at the Texas city refinery while making repairs after the 2005 blast.
Just last month, BP paid $3 million fine to OSHA for 42 willful safety violations at one of its refineries in Ohio. This follows a $2.4 million fine BP paid for safety & health violations at this refinery in April 2006.
In September 2001, OSHA fined BP $141,000 after an explosion killed 3 workers at BPs Clanton Road facility.
In October 2007, the Minerals Management Service fined BP $41,000 for various safety violations.
The New Dark Age 