Iraqi workers fight for their rights

This video from the USA is called Was The Iraq War About Oil?

From daily News Line in Britain:

Wednesday, 6 March 2013

‘PEOPLE’S OIL IS NOT FOR THIEVES!’ says Committee for the Defence of Oil Workers

CHANTING ‘People’s oil for the people not for the thieves!’ hundreds of workers protested against the South Oil Company in Iraq on 19 February 2013, demanding housing, permanent work and payment of delayed benefits.

The protest was organised by the Committee for the Defence of Oil Workers, including IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, and the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), and follows an earlier similar action on 13 February 2013.

The workers, from the fields of al-Ramlia north and south, al-Berjesia, Gharb al-Karna, and Bab al-Zubair gathered in front of the main door of the South Oil Company in Basra calling for the expulsion of corrupt employees and the dismissal of the company director.

They demanded a meeting with the company director to negotiate the payment of withheld benefits dating back to 2010, 2011 and 2012, the right to housing, permanent job contracts and an end to corruption in the company.

The South Oil Company (SOC), which produces more than 80 per cent of Iraqi oil, is a national company responsible for the oil in the south of Iraq.

As the company director has so far refused to meet with the protestors, they are now requesting a meeting with the management and the government in the coming days to negotiate on the issues.

The protestors have also addressed their demands to the Iraqi Prime Minister.

Some of the workers were subject to threats from company security during the actions.

Meanwhile, on February 15, the Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative (ICSSI) and peace groups marked the tenth anniversary of the worldwide protests against the war on Iraq.

An ICSSI statement said: ‘Today, ten years ago, a global demonstration took place in more than sixty countries around the world, involving millions, to protest against the upcoming war in Iraq.

‘Refusing an illegal war of aggression, protesting against a war for oil, demonstrators firmly rejected the idea a people can be bombed into democracy.

‘Today, ten years after, oil companies are making huge profits in Iraq.

‘While labour rights are not recognised, foreign oil companies have signed 20-year contracts and are benefitting from this denial of the fundamental rights of Iraqi workers.

‘Today, representatives of the Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative (ICSSI) from Italy, UK and France went to ENI, the Italian oil company, to deliver the following letter from Iraqi oil workers, which is also being sent to all foreign oil companies present in Iraq.

An open letter to the international oil companies operating in Iraq, a decade after the US-UK invasion of Iraq

‘Ten years after the US invasion of Iraq, which was undertaken ostensibly to overthrow the former dictator and to promote human rights and democracy, we see that a more essential, long-term goal was for international oil companies to acquire control over Iraq’s newly privatised oil resources, creating a “liberated” Iraq that would serve as an economic model for a “New Middle East” and spread neo-liberalism throughout the region.

‘The project has been a failure on all fronts. Those who suffer the consequences are Iraq’s citizens. Their country is wracked by violence and mounting sectarian conflict.

‘Their rights are violated. Vital services – water and electricity – are unavailable, while international oil companies receive priority access to these scarce resources, and operate under long-term contracts to develop Iraqi oil fields, that were signed while Iraq was still occupied.

‘All this comes at the expense of Iraq’s national oil companies. It has further aggravated an already troubled relationship between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central Government of Iraq.

‘And, with their narrow focus on increasing production and profits, international oil companies have shown little regard for public accountability or the rights of workers in Iraq.

‘These companies’ frenzied quest to extract ever greater quantities of oil has led to an acceleration of the rampant corruption that now afflicts Iraq.

‘Since the arrival of the companies, bribery and irregular accounting practices have become the norm in the Iraqi oil industry.

‘The companies have not carried out proper planning and resource management but rather are overseeing wasteful policies that deprive future Iraqi generations of their birthright.

‘And, these companies are working without a national Iraqi Labour Law that would protect Iraqi workers’ rights to join unions, bargain collectively, and organise strikes, protests and demonstrations.

‘Their policies punish workers and deny them rights that are internationally recognised and guaranteed in many of the nations in which the international companies are incorporated.

‘Therefore, we strongly urge that all international oil companies operating in Iraq:

‘1 – Respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi people over their natural resources and, noting the lack of legitimacy of their contracts, to relinquish any claims to rights over Iraqi oil.

‘2 – With oil companies now having taken the place of foreign troops in compromising Iraqi sovereignty, set a timetable for their withdrawal, while transferring technology to Iraq’s national oil companies.

‘3 – Stop exacerbating tensions between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central Government of Iraq, by ceasing to exploit oil until a stable national accord has been achieved, supported by all Iraq’s citizens.

‘4 – Promote transparency in the oil sector in Iraq, by publishing details of all contracts and ensuring Iraqi citizens’ access to information about Iraqi oil resources and their development. This is vital to end the corruption that has become rampant as a result of the presence of international oil companies in Iraq.

‘5 – Support the passage of an Iraqi Labour Law that guarantees all Iraqi workers rights that are in accord with the highest, international standards and that protects their freedom of association and their right to strike.

‘6 – Adopt clear policies to protect the Iraqi environment and agree to utilize appropriate, advanced equipment to monitor the effects of your companies’ activities on the soil, water and air in Iraq.

‘7 – Agree that the security and protection of personnel and equipment in all Iraqi oilfields should be exclusively under the authority of national Iraqi security forces. These responsibilities should not be assigned to private security companies that are based in other nations and that undermine the sovereignty of Iraq.’

‘15th of February 2013.

‘The Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative, and Iraqi unions: Adnan Al-Saffar for the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW) and its oil & gas union; Abdulla Malik for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU); Abbas Kadhim for the Engineering Professions Union (Electricity Section-Baghdad); Abdullatif Abdul Rahman for the Federation of Salahaddin Unions.’

l The National Union of Iraqi Journalists, on February 28, condemned the arbitrary detention in Baghdad of French journalist Nader Dndon who works for Le Monde Diplomatique.

The union is demanding Iraqi authorities either charge him formally or release him immediately. The NUIJ called on Iraqi security forces to ‘respect’ the constitution of Iraq and stop muddying the political waters.

Reporters Without Borders and Iraqi Press Freedom Observatory wrote to the Iraqi PM calling on him to intervene and secure the release of the French Journalist.

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement on March 1st: ‘Nadir Dendoune, a visiting journalist with French, Australian and Algerian nationality, who was released on bail of 10 million dinars (6,500 euros) on 14 February after 23 days in detention in Baghdad, is still being prevented from leaving Iraq.

‘Why hasn’t he been allowed to return to France?

‘1. First of all, it took 12 days for a Baghdad court to close his case.

‘2. Then his Australian passport and personal effects were returned to him only yesterday (28 February), two days after the case was closed.

‘3. Finally, today, after he had gone through all the airport controls in the presence of the French ambassador and an Australian diplomat and was within minutes of boarding his plane, he was prevented from departing by the aviation and border police, Reporters Without Borders has learned.

‘The reason given? His visa had expired.’

‘It is absurd and Kafkaesque that Dendoune cannot leave Iraq’, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. ‘After spending three weeks in Iraqi jails and then waiting two weeks for a judge to close the case, he has been prevented from leaving on the grounds that his visa had expired. I am outraged.

‘The Iraqi authorities’ reluctance to let this journalist leave is flagrant and we condemn it with the utmost strength. It is high time this sorry farce came to an end and Dendoune is allowed to recover his freedom.’

An investigative report by the British Guardian and the BBC’s Arabic language service links top US officials to atrocities carried out by Iraqi police forces after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. General David Petraeus and Bush-era Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others, worked directly with US officials overseeing death squads, secret prisons, and torture practices in US-occupied Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died and millions were displaced as a result of the chaos that the atrocities produced.: here.

Related articles

• British Iraq torture scandal (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Revealed: Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres (guardian.co.uk)
• Too Much Money Spent in Iraq for Too Few Results (abcnews.go.com)
• Iraqi sets himself on fire in Dutch refugee center (nzweek.com)
• Oil workers demonstrate in Iraq (nenosplace.wordpress.com)

Shell convicted for pollution in Nigeria

This video says about itself:

Nigeria News: Shell Oil Spill at Nembe flow-station

Published on Aug 16, 2012

(Latest Nigeria News) Despite threats from the military with a machine-gun, activists report a fresh leak at a Shell flow-station.

“We’ve discovered a serious crude oil slick,” explained Alagoa Morries, Project Officer for Environmental Rights Action/ERA in an exclusive interview with BattaBox. “We cannot ascertain the volume of spill but the leaves, the vegetation, fish traps all around were all soiled by crude oil.”

The spill is reported to have occurred at Shell Nembe 3 flow-station at 4am on 15th August.

As ERA approached the flow-station in their boat, Alagoa described how a Naval Officer pointed a machine gun at his team and refused to allow them to take any photos. After telling the Naval Officer the purpose of their visit, Alagoa claims the Officer denied there was any oil spill… despite very thick crude oil slick surrounding his boat (see video above)

The spill comes after Amnesty International described Shell’s oil spill investigations “a fiasco”

Shell officials were seen monitoring the environment but there was little sign of any containment. At high tide, Alagoa explained, oil companies sometimes deliberately allow the crude to be washed into the mangrove forest.

After speaking to two attendants at the flow-station, ERA claims the spill is a result of a technical fault – which, if correct, means Shell would have to pay compensation to the loca community.

Full report here:

http://battabox.com/2012/08/17/nigeria-news-shell-oil-spill-at-nembe-video/

Dutch NOS TV reports today, that a court in The Hague, the Netherlands, has convicted Royal Dutch Shell oil corporation for its pollution in Nigeria.

Shell will have to pay a Nigerian farmer whose land they polluted for the damage. How much Shell will have to pay will be decided at a later trial.

The court did not convict Shell in four other similar cases.

Dutch Friends of the Earth, who started this court case on behalf of the Nigerian farmers, will appeal the four cases in which Shell today was not convicted.

This court case was only about a few of the thousands of pollution cases cases in the river Niger delta in Nigeria.

Related articles

• Dutch court says Shell responsible for Nigeria spills (Reuters) (newsdaily.com)
• One conviction in Shell’s Nigeria pollution case in Netherlands (nzweek.com)
• Breaking News: Shell Nigeria must pay damages for oil spills – Dutch Court (vanguardngr.com)
• Dutch court rules in Nigerian farmers’ suit against Shell today (vanguardngr.com)

BP oil still polluting Gulf of Mexico

This video from the USA is called BP, Beyond Pollution.

From Nature:

Dirty blizzard buried Deepwater Horizon oil

One-third of oil from 2010 spill may be mixed with sea-floor sediments.

Mark Schrope

26 January 2013

Scientists say large amounts of oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill may have ended up on the sea floor.

Missing oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill may have ended up at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 spewed more than 600 million litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. While microbes processed the vast majority within months, US government assessments failed to account for the fate of about one-quarter of the spilled oil.

Some scientists attending the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana this week are now saying that as much as one-third of the oil may have been mixed with deep ocean sediments through a phenomenon dubbed the dirthy bathtub, and dragged to the bottom by another process called the dirty blizzard. The oily sediments risk causing significant damage to ecosystems, they say, and might even affect commercial fisheries in the future.

Perfect storm

Rebekka Larson, a sedimentary geologist at Eckerd College in St Petersberg, Florida, presented data showing that at many sites, plankton and other surface material were raining down at least ten times faster than normal, often leaving a telltale darker layer on the sea floor. Jeff Chanton, a geochemist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, thinks that the oil acted as a catalyst for particles to clump together and fall to the bottom on a massive scale, creating a ‘dirty blizzard’. This fit with reports from researchers that during the spill, layers of water that would normally be cloudy with suspended plankton instead appeared totally transparent — except for strings of aggregated particles falling to the bottom. “There’s something about that oil that just sucks everything out of the surface,” says Chanton.

Uta Passow, a biological oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Barbara, offered hints about what that something might be. She presented lab experiments showing that weathered oil collected from the Deepwater Horizon site causes particles to clump together, whereas fresh oils do not. Passow’s lab is now exploring whether the effect is due to chemical transformation of the oil on its path to the surface or some bacterial effect.

Dark water

The dirty blizzard may have gotten dirtier as it rained down. Researchers at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science in St Petersburg, led by chemical oceanographer David Hollander, described a ‘dirty bathtub’ effect in which diffuse oil, suspended in a water layer at depths of more than 1,000 metres, contaminated sediments as deep currents moved it around the Gulf. Hollander said this week that, taken together, the dirty bathtub and dirty blizzard may have sent up to 30% of the spilled oil to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. “We can debate about how to delineate it, but the material is there,” he says.

Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science in Cambridge and a member of a commission assembled by the US government to investigate the spill, is not convinced by this figure. “I find it hard to believe,” he says, noting that oil concentrations measured in most sediments have been small. But Hollander says that the spill affected such a wide area that small concentrations might add up to huge amounts of oil.

Sediment contamination could be troublesome for commercially fished species such as tilefish, which live in deep waters and not only eat worms and other animals found in the sediment, but also burrow into the sediment, mixing it up, says Steve Murowski, a University of South Florida fisheries biologist who collaborates with Hollander. Tracey Sutton, an ichthyologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point, says that the ecological effects could get worse with time. ”The long-term effects, we’re not going to see yet.”

Nature
doi:10.1038/nature.2013.12304

Minor oil spills are often bigger than reported. Remote imaging finds official number of Gulf of Mexico slicks is correct, but size not always is: here.

Britain: BP drivers stage strike to save their pensions: here.

Related articles

• BP oil’s toxic ‘clean-up’ (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• The Science of the BP Oil Spill (wkrg.com)
• Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic (sciencedaily.com)
• Disperant Made BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill 52 Times More Toxic (treehugger.com)
• Environment: New study shows dispersant makes oil up to 52 times more toxic to Gulf of Mexico microorganisms (summitcountyvoice.com)
• BP Suspended By EPA From New Contracts With Federal Government (huffingtonpost.com)
• BP Oil Spill Class-action Claims – Filing a Claim and Making Presentment (prweb.com)

KBR poisons soldiers, taxpayers paying

This video from the USA says about itself:

Jan 9, 2009

Vice President Dick Cheney is asked about how former Halliburton subsidiary KBR knowingly exposed members of Indiana’s National Guard to cancer causing chemicals at a water treatment plant in Iraq.

Sign IAVA’s petition here–

http://www.iava.org

Read more about it here–

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/23/kbr-indiana-chemical/

From the blog of Ryan J. Reilly in the USA:

KBR, Guilty In Iraq Negligence, Wants Taxpayers To Foot The Bill

Posted: 01/09/2013 9:37 am EST

WASHINGTON — Sodium dichromate is an orange-yellowish substance containing hexavalent chromium, an anti-corrosion chemical. To Lt. Col. James Gentry of the Indiana National Guard, who was stationed at the Qarmat Ali water treatment center in Iraq just after the 2003 U.S. invasion, it was “just different-colored sand.” In their first few months at the base, soldiers were told by KBR contractors running the facility the substance was no worse than a mild irritant.

Gentry was one of approximately 830 service members, including active-duty soldiers and members of the National Guard and reserve units from Indiana, South Carolina, West Virginia and Oregon, assigned to secure the water treatment plant, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sodium dichromate is not a mild irritant. It is an extreme carcinogen. In November 2009, at age 52, Gentry died of cancer. The VA affirmed two months later that his death was service-related.

In November, a jury found KBR, the military’s largest contractor, guilty of negligence in the poisoning of a dozen soldiers, and ordered the company to pay $85 million in damages. Jurors found KBR knew both of the presence and toxicity of the chemical. Other lawsuits against KBR are pending.

KBR, however, says taxpayers should be on the hook for the verdict, as well as more than $15 million the company has spent in its failed legal defense, according to court documents and attorneys involved with the case.

KBR’s contract with the U.S. to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure after the 2003 invasion includes an indemnity agreement protecting the company from legal liability, KBR claims in court filings. That agreement, KBR insists, means the federal government must pay the company’s legal expenses plus the verdict won by 12 members of the Oregon National Guard who were exposed to the toxin at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant.

The military disagrees. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracting officer told KBR in November 2011 that litigation costs “are not covered by the indemnity agreement.”

The public doesn’t know what the indemnity agreement actually says because the military considers it classified. Until recently, the veterans exposed to the toxin couldn’t know either, nor could attorneys at the Department of Justice, who were left battling the contract in the dark, according to a source there.

Michael Doyle, a Houston-based lawyer who helped the successful suit against KBR, told The Huffington Post the military declassified the indemnification agreement on Dec. 21 and gave it to him under a protective order that banned him from sharing the language to parties not involved in the case. John A. Elolf, a spokesman for KBR, confirmed the declassification of the agreement and said the contractor also was prevented from providing a copy. HuffPost has requested the document under the Freedom of Information Act from the Corps of Engineers.

Doyle said the agreement may mean a taxpayer “bailout” for KBR. “It’s basically saying that no matter if we’re guilty of — willful misconduct, poisoning soldiers — taxpayers have to pay to cover us as well as whatever we decide to pay on lawyers at whatever rates and all these fees,” Doyle said. “That’s a pretty good bailout.”

…

It’s unclear how many defense contractors have secret indemnification agreements with the military. Under the law, most government agencies are banned from entering open-ended indemnification agreements, but the Pentagon and a handful of other agencies were exempted in an executive order signed by President Richard Nixon in 1971.

KBR originally claimed it didn’t know about the deadly toxin until the spring of 2003. Documents produced in the lawsuit, however, revealed that KBR knew the chemical was being stockpiled and used in massive quantities at the water treatment facility as early as January of that year. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraqi workers would treat water at the plant with sodium dichromate before injecting it under pressure into the ground, driving oil to the surface. Sodium dichromate helped increase the life of pipelines and pumps by preventing corrosion.

Soldiers assigned to guard the facility said the chemical dust came from bags stacked both inside and outside the plant, which some soldiers would sit on or use for protection from the wind. Wind spread the orange powder from the thousands of 100-pound bags. Gentry estimated the dust covered about half the plant’s area.

“There were soldiers that actually brought it up, asked what it was, and they were told it was a mild irritant at first,” Rocky Bixby, 45, a plaintiff in the Oregon National Guard suit that bears his name, told HuffPost.

“They had this information and didn’t share it,” Gentry said in a deposition two days before his final Christmas, in 2008. “I’m dying now because of it.”

Another soldier, Larry Roberta, now 48, was exposed to the chemical after a gust of wind blew it into his eye and into a chicken patty he was eating. After washing his face and mouth, he tried washing the chicken, because it was the only food he had left for the day. “It tastes like a mouthful of nickels,” Roberta said. “I just kept washing my mouth and I couldn’t get that taste out.”

Roberta said he now requires an oxygen tank because he has less than 60 percent of his lung function and gets migraines stemming from the eye that was exposed to the chemical. He had surgery to fix the muscle at the top of his stomach that prevented food from coming back up. “I can’t throw up, I can’t even burp,” Roberta said. “You know, when you can’t burp, the air has to come out the other end, which makes me the stinky dog that nobody wants to let in the house.”

Roberta said he doesn’t think U.S. taxpayers should have to pay for KBR’s mistakes.

“The United States Army Corps of Engineers is not in the business of restoring oilfields, therefore they hired KBR as their subject expert,” Roberta said. “KBR was paid a good sum of money to do a job and unfortunately it didn’t get done well. … The end results were okay, but they made some mistakes along the way.”

Gentry’s wife said the “bailout” fits a KBR pattern.

“Whether it’s morally, ethically or even fiscally, there was no accountability then and there is no accountability now,” LouAnn Grube Gentry told The Huffington Post. “In fact, they continue their negligence and indifference. And just as an example of that is they continue to overbill the government for the legal fees. And to me that in itself proves that they are profit-mongering and their sole motivation is profit.”

Gentry said her husband initially declined to get involved in the litigation because of his loyalty to the National Guard and the Army. Gentry even praised KBR’s work during his second tour in Iraq, calling company safety measures “top grade” during a deposition. He decided to join the litigation late in his life because he felt KBR was being dishonest about what it knew about the chemical.

“Once KBR denied accountability, denied knowing, my husband became very angry,” Gentry said.

A federal jury in Oregon found on Nov. 2 that KBR negligently exposed troops to the toxic dust and ordered the company to pay $85 million in noneconomic and punitive damages to the Oregon National Guard members. A separate suit against KBR on behalf of national guardsmen from both Indiana and West Virginia, as well as troops from the U.K., is pending in federal court in Houston. That case awaits a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals on whether the case can proceed with claims based on wartime activity.

Bixby, who said he was at the water treatment plant for as many as five days, said it makes no sense for taxpayers to pick up the bill for KBR’s mistakes.

“I think it’s fraudulent and I think it’s criminal on their part to do this,” Bixby told HuffPost.

Secret indemnity agreements shouldn’t be a problem in the future, because of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 pushed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). The act requires the Pentagon to disclose indemnification clauses that hold military contractors harmless and to justify the agreements to Congress.

“What KBR received — and Oregon soldiers and the American taxpayers may be stuck paying for — is a get out of jail free card that no one outside of the Pentagon had any say in giving them,” Wyden said in a statement last month. “Thanks to that plum deal, KBR could be let off the hook after negligently exposing Oregon servicemembers to toxic chemicals. Some indemnification agreements are justified, but many are not, and the Pentagon should have to justify these agreements to Congress.”

Related articles

• War Criminals (brainiac-conspiracy.typepad.com)
• Defense Contractor Guilty Of Poisoning Soldiers Wants Taxpayers To Pay (huffingtonpost.com)
• KBR May Have Knowingly Poisoned U.S. Soldiers in Iraq, But It Won’t Pay a Penny (pogoblog.typepad.com)
• KBR, Guilty In Iraq Negligence, Wants Taxpayers To Foot The Bill (blacklistednews.com)
• KBR, Guilty In Iraq Negligence, Wants Taxpayers To Foot The Bill (anastasia-1782128.newsvine.com)
• War Contractor: Feds Should Pay Lawsuit Damages (abcnews.go.com)
• KBR shouldn’t be able to sue government, Oregon members of Congress tell the Pentagon (oregonlive.com)
• KBR May Be Abusing Indemnification Provision in Iraq Contract (pogoblog.typepad.com)

Transocean’s small fine for BP oil disaster

This video from the USA is called BP Oil Disaster: Fallout Making People And Wildlife Sick – Dean Blanchard Seafood, Inc. Closed.

By Bryan Dyne in the USA:

Transocean settles for $1.4 billion in criminal and civil charges

8 January 2013

Transocean Deepwater Inc. has settled for only $1.4 billion towards all criminal and civil claims relating to the company’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010, which leaked 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico and killed eleven workers. The settlement was announced by the Department of Justice on Thursday.

The settlement, which must still be approved by US District Judge Carl Barbier, precludes other criminal fines that would have arisen if Transocean went to trial in New Orleans over the spill, which was set to begin February 25. Furthermore, the settlement will not require Transocean to plead guilty to any crime relating to the deaths of the eleven workers killed on the oil rig, in contrast to BP, which pleaded guilty to eleven counts of manslaughter.

The deal consists of criminal penalties and fines of $400 million. $150 million of the criminal settlement goes towards restoring the habitats in the Gulf of Mexico that were affected by the spill and a further $150 million will go towards oil spill prevention and response research in the Gulf. The criminal penalties are from a charge of “negligence” against Transocean by the Justice Department. The more serious charge of “gross negligence,” defined as “wanton and reckless conduct,” was not levied.

The civil settlement is $1 billion in civil penalties for violations of the Clean Water Act. $800 million of that will be directed by the RESTORE Act of 2012 and will be used to fund environmental and economic projects for Gulf states. The civil resolution also reserves the claims for natural resource damages and clean-up costs.

Much has been said about the record amount of civil penalties that Transocean is required to pay, more than BP settled for last November. Attorney General Eric Holder called the settlement “significant” and claimed that it is “justice for the human, environmental, and economic devastation wrought by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.”

However, as with the $4.5 billion BP settlement, Transocean is being required to pay a paltry amount, over the course of five years, for its part in the 2010 explosion. It compares to the estimated worth of the Gulf region of more than $1 trillion, ignoring long-term environmental and economic effects. Transocean’s fund for claims from individuals and business for damages relating to the spill is only $2 billion.

The “justice” that is being meted out is merely a further signal by the Obama administration to oil drilling companies that the fines imposed for an oil spill, no matter how damaging, are not punitive but merely the cost of doing business.

The response of the market to Transocean’s settlement was favorable. The shares of Transocean Ltd. rose 6.4 percent Thursday and rose again Friday, by 5.3 percent, closing at $51.82.

The current settlement by Transocean does not include charges against any Transocean officials. In fact, the settlement places the blame on the crew of the Deepwater Horizon. The settlement states that Transocean’s crew “were negligent in failing fully to investigate clear indications that the Macondo well was not secure and that oil and gas were flowing into the well.”

This statement is designed to shield and absolve Transocean and BP of any responsibility for the explosion. It ignores the mass of reports that surfaced in the weeks and months after the explosion that the actions of Transocean and BP were directed towards making up cost overruns caused by delays in drilling, which drove the companies to ignore safety concerns around the backlog of necessary maintenance for the oil rig and to attempt to cap the Macondo well with substandard materials.

There were also reports that revealed that BP had advance warning of the explosion, but chose to continue operations to avoid another $500,000 per day rental fee on the rig. Another report indicated that the Deepwater Horizon was drilling for oil at 25,000 feet below the seabed, 5,000 feet deeper than allowed by its permit.

Placing the responsibility for the explosion on the Transocean crew also allows the US government, particularly the Minerals Management Service (since renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy), to avoid any responsibility. From January 2005 to April 2010, there were sixteen fewer inspections of the Deepwater Horizon than there should have been. Inspections from 2010 had data “whited out” without explanation.

Such actions coincide with the policy of the Bush and Obama administrations, which have both done their utmost to protect the oil industry from civil and criminal suits. BP’s fund for compensation for the entire Gulf coast was only $20 billion. BP has been doing its best to avoid paying even that amount.

In addition, the Obama administration has allowed oil drilling to expand. BP has seven operational oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and plans to bring two more operational this year. Shell Oil’s Arctic drilling efforts are ongoing despite a series of accidents over the last year, including the most recent, in which one of its oil rigs ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska.

The next significant settlement dealing with the 2010 spill will most likely involve the full scope of the civil penalties facing BP. A trial is set for February 25. The company faces civil suits for a maximum of $90 billion for the estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil that spilled into the gulf. A settlement is possible before this date.

The author also recommends:

BP settles for $4.5 billion in criminal charges
[17 November 2012]

Related articles

• Transocean agrees oil spill fine (bbc.co.uk)
• Transocean to pay $1.4B for Deepwater disaster (cbc.ca)
• BP tells Halliburton to come clean (upi.com)
• Judge sets Feb. 14 hearing on Transocean plea deal (miamiherald.com)

Bahrain dictatorship and British BP oil

This video says about itself:

Nov 10, 2012

I had the privilege to meet Bahraini human rights defender, Maryam al-Khawaja, for the third time; but this time she was in Stockholm to receive the Stieg Larsson Prize 2012 for her struggle against oppression in Bahrain and her continuous work in highlighting the ongoing violations against human rights in Bahrain.

The Stieg Larsson Prize foundation had a conversation with Maryam al-Khawaja yesterday right after she received the award. This is my recording of the talk.

Here is part 2 of that conversation.

Earlier, this blog reported about one MP in Britain who did not accept a Christmas bribe from the Bahraini absolute monarchy.

However, now it seems that not all politicians in Britain are so incorruptible and anti-dictatorial.

From the Financial Times in Britain:

January 7, 2013 8:54 pm

MPs criticised over Gulf states inquiry

By Simeon Kerr in Dubai

MPs have come under fire for their handling of an inquiry into the UK’s approach to its Gulf allies after it emerged that evidence from the opposition in the troubled state of Bahrain had been excluded.

Lord Avebury, vice-chairman of the parliamentary human rights committee, said he was “very disturbed” about the omission of dissident voices from a Commons probe into the UK’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

In a letter to the foreign affairs committee, which is conducting the inquiry, he said the list of approved submissions published last week excluded “all the pro-democracy and human rights submissions on Bahrain”, while including pro-government contributions.

The committee had requested evidence on how Britain should balance its defence and commercial interests in the Gulf with human rights issues.

The sensitive inquiry comes as the predominantly Sunni-run Gulf states are flexing their economic muscle to influence western opinion over the unrest in Bahrain, which they blame on Shia Iran.

Almost two years since protests broke out in the strategically vital Gulf state, Bahrain remains gripped by political unrest as youths from the majority Shia population protest against the minority Sunni-led government.

Manama says it is reforming after an independent commission last year lambasted its security forces for excessive use of force and the systematic use of torture after Saudi Arabia led Gulf forces into Bahrain to back the brutal quelling of dissent.

But the opposition says pledges of change are window-dressing and bloody repression continues.

Bahrain’s highest court on Monday reaffirmed sentences of up to life in jail for 13 political leaders for attempting to overthrow the monarchy, in another blow to UK-aided attempts to forge a dialogue within the island state’s polarised society.

Richard Ottaway, foreign affairs committee chairman, declined to comment. But one official said the publication of 36 submissions was not intended to indicate “the total sum of accepted evidence”.

An official said: “A further publication of evidence is expected in due course,” adding that oral testimony would be heard before the committee issued its report – expected before the summer.

Nine groups and individuals critical of the government have written to the committee, raising objections against the “disproportionate number” of submissions from those linked to the government “but who do not make these affiliations clear”.

Of the 36 approved submissions, most provide testimony in line with the government’s position, including Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, the Gulf state’s foreign minister.

Evidence has also been provided by lobbyists including Sir Graeme Lamb, a senior retired British army officer, who works for a consultancy that has been advising the [Bahraini] government.

Critical voices have been included, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a UK-based satellite television station associated with the opposition movement.

But the main Shia opposition group, al-Wefaq was surprised to find that its submission had not been included.

Abduljalil Khalil, a senior al-Wefaq member, said the group’s exclusion was “unexpected.” He expressed concerns that the committee was failing to take a broad spectrum of opinion on the political crisis.

The UK is treading a delicate balance between fostering democratic development while maintaining its commercial relations in the Gulf, an export market worth £15bn a year.

The oil-rich Gulf states have become increasingly sensitive to criticism in the wake of the Arab uprising as the youth-driven wave of dissent spread to Bahrain, exacerbating decades of festering sectarian grievances.

Blaming the Bahrain protest movement on interference from Shia Iran, the Sunni Gulf states want western allies to show stronger support for their increasingly security-conscious policies.

In July, BP was excluded from a pre-qualification process for the extension of Bahrain’s 75-year-old oil concession.

When the foreign affairs committee inquiry was launched in September, Saudi officials threatened to reassess relations with the UK, rejecting “any foreign interference in the workings” of the Gulf states. David Cameron visited the Gulf in November .

After strenuous diplomacy, BP was later readmitted to the oil-concession bidding process.

‘Forsaken by the West’: Obama and the Betrayal of Democracy in Bahrain: here.

Bahrain arrests photographer who documented dissent: here.

Related articles

• European Union supports Bahrain dictatorship (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Bahrain dictatorship jails photographer (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Bahrain dictatorship arrests another human rights activist (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Bahrain dictatorship’s European allies (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Bahrain under pressure over refusal to reconsider activists’ sentences (guardian.co.uk)
• Bahrain protester sentences slammed (independent.ie)
• Bahrain regime detains United States journalist (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Arab dictators ‘for democracy’ in Syria (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)

World’s worst corporations, poll

This is a music video by British punk band Crass, of their song Securicor (another name for G4S corporation). Lyrics are here.

By James Loveland in Britain:

G4S and Lonmin up for world’s worst companies awards

Friday 04 January 2013

A disreputable parade of corporate ghouls including scandal-hit private security giant G4S and blood-drenched mining firm Lonmin were unveiled today as this year’s candidates for the Public Eye people’s awards 2013.

Organisers Greenpeace Switzerland and the Berne Declaration invited people across the world to begin voting in the contest to decide the firm guilty of “the worst cases of corporate rights abuses and environmental misdeeds.”

NGOs across the globe put forward names for this year’s award, which looks set to be a tricky contest between the bad, the worse and the ugly.

Trading firm Goldman Sachs makes the seven-strong shortlist for being a “vampire of finance capital” profiting from the misery of others.

So too does oil company Shell, shortlisted for its breakneck rush to be the first to exploit resources beneath the fragile Arctic wilderness.

Coal India, which has a deadly safety record, bribe-happy engineering corporate Alstom and Swiss energy firm Repower make up the rest.

G4S was nominated as worst corporation of 2012 by British NGO War on Want, which urged people to back its choice as voting opened today.

Among other charges the security firm stands accused of supplying security equipment and services for use at Israeli checkpoints in illegally occupied Palestine, and helping to run Israel’s prison system.

War on Want also cited its record running Britain’s immigrant detention centres and carrying out forcible deportations, including one in 2010 in which Angolan Jimmy Mubenga died.

The charity’s campaigner Rafeef Ziadah said G4S – the world’s largest private military and security company – is a “key player in the dangerous trend towards privatisation of war and outsourcing of state functions to corporations.

“It is time to intensify pressure on G4S by voting for the multinational as the worst corporation of 2012.”

Last year’s Public Eye awards were won jointly.

Barclays bank was chosen for crimes including lobbying against regulation of food price rises hitting the world’s poorest, while mining giant Vale was duly recognised for repeated human rights abuses during its 70-year history.

Voting is open until 12 noon on January 23 via the Public Eye Awards website at www.publiceye.ch.

Related articles

• Lonmin nominated for worst company (iol.co.za)
• Lonmin boss quits mining group (guardian.co.uk)
• Strike-hit mining firm CEO quits (bbc.co.uk)
• Barclays’ ‘A-MAIZING returns’ (newint.org)

Shell oil rig disaster in Alaska

This video is called Point Hope, Alaska and Shell’s offshore drilling plans.

From the New York Times in the USA:

Breakaway Oil Rig, Filled With Fuel, Runs Aground

By HENRY FOUNTAIN

Published: January 1, 2013

An enormous Shell Oil offshore drilling rig ran aground on an island in the Gulf of Alaska on Monday night after it broke free from tow ships in rough seas, officials said.

The rig, the Kulluk, which was used for test drilling in the Arctic last summer, is carrying about 139,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 12,000 gallons of lubricating oil and hydraulic fluid, the officials said.

A Coast Guard helicopter flew over the rig after the grounding at 8:48 p.m. and “detected no visible sheen,” said Darci Sinclair, a spokeswoman for a unified command of officials from Shell, Alaskan state agencies and other groups that has been directing the response since the troubles with the rig began last Thursday.

Ms. Sinclair said that more overflights were planned after daybreak on Tuesday, and that the unified command would be monitoring the fuel situation as it planned further actions. “The focus will be around salvage,” she said.

The 266-foot diameter rig ran aground on the east coast of Sitkalidak Island, an uninhabited island that is separated by the Sitkalidak Strait from the far larger Kodiak Island to the west. The nearest town, Old Harbor, is across the strait on Kodiak Island; it has a population of about 200 people.

Ms. Sinclair said the coast where the Kulluk ran aground has a combination of rocky and sandy terrain.

Earlier Monday, a Shell spokesman had said that the rig had been brought under control after towlines were reconnected to two ships during a break in what had been several days of extremely rough seas and high winds.

But late Monday afternoon the line from one of the ships, the Aiviq, became separated. Then several hours later, the other ship, the Alert, was ordered to disconnect its towline, out of concern for the safety of the ship’s nine-person crew. At the time, Ms. Sinclair said, swells were as high as 35 feet and winds were gusting up to 65 miles an hour.

The Kulluk, one of two rigs that Shell used to drill test wells off the North Slope of Alaska as part of the company’s ambitious and expensive effort to open Arctic waters to oil production, was being towed by the Aiviq to a Seattle shipyard for off-season maintenance when the towline initially separated during a storm on Thursday.

The Aiviq then lost power, and other support ships and a Coast Guard cutter were brought in to help with engine repairs and to reconnect towlines to the Kulluk, which does not have its own propulsion system. The 18 workers aboard the rig were evacuated by Coast Guard helicopters on Saturday.

Over the weekend, support crews struggled in 25-foot swells to reconnect towlines, succeeding several times. But each time the lines separated again, leaving the rig in danger of drifting toward land.

The Kulluk, which was built in Japan in 1983 and upgraded over the past six years at a cost of $292 million, is designed for icy conditions in the Arctic. It can drill in up to 400 feet of water and up to 20,000 feet deep. During drilling season it carries a crew of about 140 people, Mr. Smith said.

Shell has spent six years and more than $4 billion in its effort to drill in Arctic waters, one of the last untapped oil-producing regions in the United States. But the effort has faced regulatory hurdles and opposition from American Indian and environmental groups.

Last summer, the Kulluk drilled a shallow test well in the Beaufort Sea while another rig drilled a similar hole in the Chukchi Sea to the west.

But Shell announced in September that it would be forced to delay further drilling until this year after a specialized piece of equipment designed to contain oil from a spill was damaged in a testing accident.

The episode was one of a number of setbacks for the Arctic drilling program last year.

Shell now says it hopes to drill five exploratory wells in the region during the 2013 drilling season, which begins in mid-July.

See also here.

Congress calls for probe into grounded Shell oil rig: here.

UK: Environmental group WWF has set out plans to reduce the risk of future accidents on the 20th anniversary of the Braer oil spill disaster off the coast of Shetland: here.

New rules to make sure oil drilling firms can afford to clean up spills won’t stop them from happening in the first place, environmental campaigners warned today: here.

Related articles

• Shell drill ship runs aground on island off Alaska (miamiherald.com)
• Shell Drill Ship Runs Aground off Alaska (abcnews.go.com)
• Shell drilling rig runs aground in heavy Alaska seas – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
• Shell drill ship runs aground on island off Alaska (utsandiego.com)

BP oil’s toxic ‘clean-up’

This video is called Inside Story Americas: Environment still engulfed by BP’s oil spill.

From Wildlife Extra:

Oil spill treatment may make the pollution much worse

Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic

December 2012. If the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill was an ecological disaster, the two million gallons of dispersant used to clean it up apparently made it even worse – 52-times more toxic.

That’s according to new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico.

The study found that mixing the dispersant with oil increased toxicity of the mixture up to 52-fold over the oil alone. In toxicity tests in the lab, the mixture’s effects increased mortality of rotifers, a microscopic grazing animal at the base of the Gulf’s food web.

Rotifers

Using oil from the Deep Water Horizon spill and Corexit, the dispersant required by the Environmental Protection Agency for clean up, the researchers tested toxicity of oil, dispersant and mixtures on five strains of rotifers. Rotifers have long been used by ecotoxicologists to assess toxicity in marine waters because of their fast response time, ease of use in tests and sensitivity to toxicants. In addition to causing mortality in adult rotifers, as little as 2.6 percent of the oil-dispersant mixture inhibited rotifer egg hatching by 50 percent. Inhibition of rotifer egg hatching from the sediments is important because these eggs hatch into rotifers each spring, reproduce in the water column, and provide food for baby fish, shrimp and crabs in estuaries.

Dispersants are poorly understood

“Dispersants are preapproved to help clean up oil spills and are widely used during disasters,” said UAA’s Roberto-Rico Martinez, who led the study. “But we have a poor understanding of their toxicity. Our study indicates the increase in toxicity may have been greatly underestimated following the Macondo well explosion.”

Martinez performed the research while he was a Fulbright Fellow at Georgia Tech in the lab of School of Biology Professor Terry Snell. They hope that the study will encourage more scientists to investigate how oil and dispersants impact marine food webs and lead to improved management of future oil spills.

Crude oil may be less harmful than the dispersants

“What remains to be determined is whether the benefits of dispersing the oil by using Corexit are outweighed by the substantial increase in toxicity of the mixture,” said Snell, chair of the School of Biology. “Perhaps we should allow the oil to naturally disperse. It might take longer, but it would have less toxic impact on marine ecosystems.”

The findings are published online by the journal Environmental Pollution and will appear in the February 2013 print edition.

See also here.

Related articles

• Study: Dispersant Made Oil 50 Times More Toxic To Gulf Of Mexico Microorganisms (thinkprogress.org)
• Disperant Made BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill 52 Times More Toxic (treehugger.com)
• BP Clean-Up Made Oil Spill 52 Times Worse (medicaldaily.com)
• Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic (eurekalert.org)
• For tiny critters, Gulf spill clean-up kills (futurity.org)
• Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic (esciencenews.com)

US Republicans’ Saudi royal money

This video is called Torture of Kenyans In Saudi Arabia.

From The Nation in the USA:

Saudi-Led Oil Lobby Group Financed 2012 Dark Money Attack Ads

Lee Fang on November 29, 2012 – 5:10 PM ET

The “American” in American Petroleum Institute, the country’s largest oil lobby group, is a misnomer. As I reported for The Nation in August, the group has changed over the years, and is now led by men like Tofiq Al-Gabsani, a Saudi Arabian national who heads a Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) subsidiary, the state-run oil company that also helps finance the American Petroleum Institute. Al-Gabsani is also a registered foreign agent for the Saudi government.

New disclosures retrieved today, showing some of API’s spending over the course of last year, reveal that API used its membership dues (from the world’s largest oil companies like Chevron and Aramco) to finance several dark money groups airing attack ads in the most recent election cycle.

Last year, API gave nearly half a million to the following dark money groups running political ads against Democrats and in support of Republicans:

• $50,000 to Americans for Prosperity’s 501(c)(4) group, which ran ads against President Obama and congressional Democrats.

• $412,969 to Coalition for American Jobs’ 501(c)(6) group, a front set up by API lobbyists to air ads for industry-friendly politicians, including former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA).

• $25,000 to the Sixty Plus Association’s 501(c)(4), which ran ads against congressional Democrats.

Jack Gerard, the president of API, was a close ally to the Mitt Romney campaign. Like the US Chamber of Commerce, API is one of several large trade associations that has spent heavily in support of Republican candidates.

The disclosures also show that in 2011, API spent over $68 million for public relations/advertising with the firm Edelman, $5.4 million on “coalition building” with the firm Advocates Inc, and $4 million with DDC Advocacy for “advocacy.” DDC is the firm led by Sara Fagen, the former Bush White House aide ensnared in the DOJ purges scandal. DDC now works with corporations to help them communicate with workers on how to vote.

API’s Saudi leadership is perhaps one of the most salient examples of how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has opened the door to foreign influence.

For many years, trade associations like API courted foreign businesses to forge industry-wide lobbying coalitions. But because of a court decision in 1990 (Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce), trade associations could  participate in elections only by spinning off regulated political action committees, subject to strict disclosure and contribution limits. The foreign leadership of trade associations had a clear firewall against interfering in American elections.

Justice John Roberts and the conservative court changed that. The court’s decisions in 2007 (in a case called Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC) and 2010 (Citizens United v. FEC) to deregulate soft money allowed trade associations to behave akin to campaign committees, funneling corporate cash to attack ad and electioneering efforts—except without the disclosure requirements. That cleared the way for a substantial loophole. A foreign national cannot administer a Super PAC or candidate committee, but they can run a trade association like API that can now run candidate ads or finance third party campaign efforts. The foreign corporate money given to a trade association, from a Saudi oil firm or a French chemical company, for example, can now find its way into an attack ad. The lobbyists and companies, and perhaps many of the politicians, know where the money for the ads is coming from—but the American people have no clue.

Editorial intern Nicholas Myers assisted with the research for this post.

For more on API’s cash game, check out Lee Fang’s August report.

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• Saudi Arabian king ‘clinically dead’ (tribune.com.ng)
• Discounted Saudi Crude Shaped Refiners’ Political Contributions, Paper Finds (blogs.wsj.com)
• How British companies pour cash into the American elections (guardian.co.uk)
• saudi spending on US election ads (niqnaq.wordpress.com)
• CIA, Qatari, Saudi Conspiracy To Violate United Nations Mandates and International Treaties (therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com)
• Activists: Saudi forces detain protesters (edition.cnn.com)