Oilandgasiq. Contributor: Asdza Nadleehe Posted: 08/28/2012 12:00:00 AM EDT Rate this Article: (4.4 Stars | 8 Votes) In the light of the recent tragic events at PDVSA's Amuay facility in Venezuela, Oil & Gas IQ looks at the Date: May 5, 1988 Location: Norco, Diamond County, Louisiana, USA Casualties: 7 fatalities, 42 injured Estimated cost: $ 706 million Details: The explosion at this Shell-owned oil refinery occurred at 3:40 am on the morning of May 5th after gas escaped from a corroded pipe in one of the facility's catalytic cracking units and was ignited.
Unfortunately, this was not the first deadly industrial accident centred around the Norco refinery.
War Child International - Home page. Youth For Human Rights Organization: Videos, Human Rights Definition. Malaysia. Iran. Idea's. Israel/Palestine. USA. 'The whalers have won absolutely everything': veteran activist | Environment. Roger Payne first came to prominence more than 40 years ago, when he and a colleague made the discovery that whales sing eerily beautiful songs as a way of communicating. Their 1970 recording of whale sounds, Songs of the Humpback Whale, helped to galvanize the global anti-whaling movement, which led most countries to scrap their whaling fleets.
Payne, the founder of the conservation group, Ocean Alliance, has continued his groundbreaking work on whales, including recent landmark studies showing how whales worldwide have high levels of pollutants — including DDT — in their bodies. He also is continuing a 40-year study of more than 2,000 right whales in Argentina, identifying individual whales by the markings on their heads. In an interview with Yale Environment 360 contributor Christina Russo, Payne talked about current threats to the world's whale populations, including the ongoing killing of whales by Japan and other nations — a practice he describes as inhumane.
Roger Payne: Yes. What Julian Assange does with WikiLeaks is not only right. It is morally right, it is ethically right and it is legally right. By Jennifer Robinson. Professor blog proudly presents a new great contribution by Jennifer Robinson, the acclaimed media and human rights lawyer. She also is a legal adviser of WikiLeaks founder – editor and journalist Julian Assange. Jennifer Robinson participated in these days in the forum at the University of Technology in Sydney “Don’t shoot the messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy”. We publish here a transcript of her lecture at the event, in agreement with Jennifer. We acknowledge on behalf of the author that she has not reviewed the transcript published here, which is credited to Green Left. The event on February 17 at the University of Technology, Sydney, counted also with the participation of human-rights advocate Christine Assange, Greens Senator Scott Ludlum, and historian Humphrey McQueen.
Jennifer Robinson is a guest columnist in Professors blog./ Prof. "What Julian Assange does with WikiLeaks is not only right. By Jennifer Robinson And my response was, how do you think it is for him? Human Rights and the internet at Livewire. Exploring how the human rights and high-tech sectors can better plan for and manage the human rights implications of new technologies. (c) By Widney Brown, Senior Director, International Law and Policy, Amnesty International Technology companies have built their businesses squarely in the sphere of human rights. And their profits reflect the hunger people have for exercising these rights. We are hungry to speak our mind. The video from the streets of Sa’ana, Yemen, shown in real time at the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference being held this week, was a powerful reminder of the depth of this hunger.
Freedom of expression, the right to information and the right to privacy are at the heart of the business of digital technology companies. The debate remains if and whether to regulate the sector; whether technology companies have any role to play regarding human rights; whether there is a place for anonymity on the internet; and whether to comply with laws that are patently illegitimate. Dictators can thank Twitter for its new censorship policy. This Reporters Without Borders opinion column was published on the Nouvel Observateur’s website Le Plus on 2 February.
“Twitter Revolutions” – the term is widely used and has been applied to the Arab spring, not only on the virtual “walls” of Facebook but also on the real walls of Middle East capitals where messages of support and thanks to the social networking website have appeared. But could it already be becoming obsolete? Could Twitter lose the fund of sympathy it has built up among human rights activists in recent months?
Such a turn of events is no longer improbable, as indicated by the outraged reaction of some Internet users and dissidents throughout the world to the site’s announcement that it was introducing country-specific censorship in order to satisfy local laws in countries where it hopes to develop its business. Cooperation with Internet censors The first reaction by Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei was to threaten to stop tweeting if Twitter began censoring content. How to Film a Revolution - a tutorial - Occupy the Movie.
Frack Off Shell! Egyptians Launch Anti-Fracking Campaign. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights have condemned fracking by Shell, Apache and Dana Petroleum in Egypt as dangerous and called for an immediate end to the practice Fracking has faced criticism worldwide due to concerns that it contaminates drinking water and triggers earthquakes. Now, Egyptians have launched a campaign against Shell’s hydraulic fracturing operations in three wells in Egypt’s Western Desert. In a press release the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) state that Shell has failed to carry out an environmental impact assessment and is putting local freshwater resources at risk of contamination.
They have also asked the Egyptian government to place an immediate moratorium on fracking until it is independently declared safe. Reem Labib, the Environmental Justice researcher at EIPR explains: “Fracking threatens Egypt’s drinking water but Shell and Dana’s drilling is mired in secrecy. In an ideal world, there would be time and support for all these concerns. Shell sues Greenpeace to stop Arctic protests. British MPs: - Halt "reckless" oil and gas drilling in the Arctic British MPs are calling on Shell and others to halt "reckless" oil and gas drilling in the Arctic until stronger safety measures are put in place. Associated Press writes that Shell wants the environmental organization fined €1 million ($1.3 million) if any of its members approach within 500 meters (yards) of any Shell property.
The suit shows Shell going on an offensive to protect its $4.5 billion investment in two projects off the coast of Alaska it says will create hundreds of jobs. Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment. This year’s summer has taken a large chunk out of the Arctic ice. Arctic ice at rock bottom A satellite image of 2012’s last summer day on 9 September shows erosion means there is 0.6 million square kilometers less ice than the previous all-time low of 2007. Read also: Front page - click here! Activate - iProtest. Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China. Sri Lanka: A child is summarily executed - Asia - World. The short clip dates from the final hours of the bloody 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the secessionist rebels of the Tamil Tigers, the LTTE. A 12-year-old boy lies on the ground. He is stripped to the waist and has five neat bullet holes in his chest.
His name is Balachandran Prabakaran and he is the son of the LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. He has been executed in cold blood. Beside him lie the bodies of five men, believed to be his bodyguards. The footage – dating from 18 May 2009 and which seems to have been shot as a grotesque "trophy video" by Sri Lankan forces – will be broadcast for the first time on Wednesday night in a Channel 4 film, Sri Lanka's Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished – a sequel to the controversial investigation broadcast last year which accused both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This, they insisted, would answer the international criticisms. Iraq militia stone youths to death for emo style. The Escape of Raymond Manalo. Underground: The Julian Assange Story (2012) S Arabia may not have oil to export by 2030. If the headline doesn't concentrate the world's efforts to find alternatives nothing else will. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, could become an oil importer by 2030, according to analysis by Citigroup's Heidy Rehman. It appears Saudi Arabia consumes a quarter of all its production. In fact, on a per-capita basis, the kingdom is using more oil than most industrialised nations. And it's going to gorge itself on even more as demand for electricity soars.
Saudi Arabia could be an oil Importer by 2030 - Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil producer (11.1mbpd) and exporter (7.7mbpd)," Rehman wrote.It also consumes 25% of its production. As with most things in the Gulf states, public-sector workers and most residents don't need to pay for their electricity and (desalinated) water. It could be time to rethink such policies although this could be unpopular. But it's not like the Gulf states have not thought long and hard about their own energy needs. KONY 2012. WikiLeaks' Brilliant MasterCard Commercial Parody.