"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..."

"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..."

"The Caspian Basin located under the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakkstan, holds an estimated 300 trillion cubic feet of gas and 100-200 billion barrels of oil. Securing the world’s last remaining known energy Eldorado is strategic priority for the western powers. China can only look on with envy. But there are only two practical ways to get gas and oil out of land-locked Central Asia to the sea: through Iran, or through Afghanistan to Pakistan. For Washington, Iran is tabu. That leaves..."

"Whenever the US takes military action in the Middle East, critics are quick to ask: Is this really about oil? Clearly, that question is moot with respect to the current air strikes against Afghanistan. But Central Asia experts point out that energy politics did help set the stage for the current crisis, and that at least one US oil company has provided aid to the Taliban regime in pursuit of a business deal. Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, Western energy interests have hungrily eyed the massive, unta..."

"In 1980, Hinckley Sr. was a Texas oilman who, the records show, strove mightily to get fellow Texas oilman George H.W. Bush the Republican nomination for president. The Bushes and the Hinckleys were frequent dinner companions. But far beyond their social connection, neither Bush nor Hinckley wanted Ronald Reagan to become president, because Reagan was opposed to tax breaks for the oil industry to which Bush, Hinckley and other Texans were highly dependent. The effort to make Bush Sr. president in 1980 f..."

"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..."