Companies from oil majors like BP and Exxon to minnow explorers will all have to pay more for insurance, spill prevention, better equipment and more thorough safety standards under new recommendations by the Oil Spill Commission. For example, they will need to demonstrate they have the technology to control an underwater blow-out before being given permits to drill
Highlights from the 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival emerged today, with the festival announcing titles competing in its sections spotlighting 12 directors making their narrative feature film debuts as well as ten first time doc filmmakers. The festival is also spotlighting 13 premieres from Africa and will continue its tradition of screening a majority of the films that have been submitted for Best Foreign Language consideration for the Oscars.
PSIFF will screen 40 of the 65 official submissions to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
THE Green Party wants to define "economic treason" in the Constitution to tackle white-collar crime, despite the phrase being commonly used to attack the Government.
The party wants to lay claim to the phrase used by its Senator Dan Boyle and provide for a tougher approach with white-collar crime and fraud.
AN undercover British police officer who infiltrated a radical environmental movement encouraged illegal activity during protests opposing the controversial Shell Corrib pipe-line in north Mayo, an Irish Examiner investigation has revealed.
Environment and human rights code to be ratified soon, says Gormley
LORNA SIGGINS, Western Correspondent
THE GOVERNMENT is due to ratify a key international convention linking environmental and human rights which had been promised by the Green Party over three years ago.
A SENIOR official from Shell Ireland told the second-in-command of a US delegation to Ireland that his company thought there may be "20 or more” offshore gas fields of the size of the Corrib gas development off the west coast of Ireland, according to a leaked diplomatic cable.
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an avoidable disaster caused in part by a series of cost-cutting decisions made by BP and its partners, the White House oil commission has concluded.
[Shell to Sea] Please be advised that the Irish Independent is controlled by Tony O Reilly, who also owns oil & gas exploration company Providence Resources.
Also that in 2007, Kevin Myers wrote regarding Shell to Sea campaigners that "Shell has been scandalously remiss in not employing someone to bump off a few of these fellows."
Chin up, everyone. The era of those FFers is almost at an end, and we're rocking, rucking and helping each other out like never before. Una Mullally counts the reasons to be cheerful for 2011
[See reason 6: Plundering natural resources to make us rich beyond our wildest dreams]
Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe’s first contact with a TD came about because he saw Clare Daly TD on ‘Tonight with Vincent Browne’ talking about policing of Corrib Gas protests, writes William Hederman
The repercussions for Garda whistleblowers Maurice McCabe and John Wilson will be familiar to others who have publicly embarrassed An Garda Síochána. They were clearly acting in the public interest, but their revelations brought the force into disrepute, and the two men suffered as a result. Revenge was exacted – not only by colleagues, but also by way of public denunciation by the Garda Commissioner (“disgusting”), the Minister for Justice (“not co-operating”) and by various other parties loyal to the force.
