"The oil major BP spends aggressively to influence US regulatory insight, and many would argue this has bought it leniency. While the explosion of BP/Transocean's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was a horrific event, it was neither surprising nor unexpected. BP is one of the most powerful corporations operating in the United States. Its 2009 revenues of $239bn are enough to rank BP as the third-largest corporation in the country. It spends aggressively to influence US policy and regulatory oversight. In 2009..."

"Monsanto was created in 1901. The company's first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin. In the 1920s Monsanto expanded into basic industrial chemicals. During the Second World War Monsanto contributed to research on uranium for the Manhattan Project, which lead to the atomic bomb. Monsanto continued to operate a nuclear facility for the U.S. government until the late 1980s. During the 1940s Monsanto also become a leading manufacturer of synthetic fibres and plastics, including polystyrene - ranked fifth i..."

"According to two surviving crew members of the Deepwater Horizon, oil workers from the rig were held in seclusion on the open water for up to two days after the April 20 explosion, while attorneys attempted to convince them to sign legal documents stating that they were unharmed by the incident. The men claim that they were forbidden from having any contact with concerned loved ones during that time, and were told they would not be able to go home until they signed the documents they were presented with. Stephen..."

"Political pressure is mounting to make businesses pay for the damage they cause to the environment, and the latest UN study assessing the impact of the world's biggest companies is almost certainly the first stage in a concerted campaign to calculate how much damage is caused, what it is worth and ultimately how it can be stopped. Another report due later this year, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, led by the economist and UN special adviser Pavan Sukhdev, will be another significant step towards th..."

"Every schoolboy knows that the American economy is the engine of the world economy. There is an ominous knocking sound coming from under the bonnet, and to those who can hear it, it sounds like a Big End. The facts are that the economy of the US in the position of one of its cartoon characters who has run off the edge of a cliff but does not yet realise that there is nothing between its feet and the ground except a thousand feet of thin air. Like an aircraft, the economy can keep airborne so long as it keeps mov..."

"Something big and strange is floating through the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow. Hunters from Wainwright first started noticing the stuff sometime probably early last week. It's thick and dark and "gooey" and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters, according to Gordon Brower with the North Slope Borough's Planning and Community Services Department. Brower and other borough officials, joined by the U.S. Coast Guard, flew out to Wainwright to investigate. The agencies found "globs" of the ..."

"We are in danger of passing an extremely dangerous tipping point, with the frightening discovery of massive deposits of sub-sea methane in the Arctic. Hey, ho, where's the cash flow? Wasn't the bailout supposed to get those streams of credit flowing again? But while the titans of trickle-down and the free-reign rainmakers pray for new rivers of revenue to float their boats, some venerable bodies of water beyond the canyons of Wall Street are in danger of literally evaporating -- and all the money in the world won'..."