At the far side of Alaska’s Kenai Fjord glacier, a heavily armed rock-and-roll band held lock-down control of the politics and treasury of Nanwalek, a Chugach village, until four years ago.
For The Observer/Guardian UK
I am convinced the only person in Britain with a true understanding of the consequences of Freedom of Information is Jack Straw. The home secretary’s critics claim his resistance to FoI is rooted in some pathological distrust of open democracy. That’s quite unfair. His concerns are rational indeed. This government has some very specific information – records of meetings,phone calls, deals – it would hope to keep very un-free.
For The Observer/Guardian UK
At Wal-Mart’s 1992 general meeting, founder Sam Walton asked shareholders to sing God Bless America. The 15,000 Wal-Martians responded to Sam’s call – even though Walton had been dead for two months.
For The Observer/Guardian UK
The story of Bank of Scotland’s painful association with American TV evangelist Pat Robertson can easily be told as a hilarious tale of misjudgement, a public relations disaster that provided huge entertainment for all.
For The Observer/Guardian UK
It’s that time of year again, when executive pay league tables hit the headlines and set off a chorus of union leaders, professors of ethics and the plain jealous who yowl about fat cat pay.
The Monks Partnership issues the most-watched listing and has given The Observer a sneak preview. This year, the finger-waggers won’t be disappointed. The bosses’ pay is up by an average 9 per cent over last year’s 546,000, excluding share options. Take away inflation and that’s three-and-a-half times the percentage pay hike for the average British employee.
The Bank of Scotland has appointed the controversial American TV evangelist Dr Pat Robertson as chairman of its US retail banking holding company. The fundamentalist minister is known in America as founder and president of the 1.2-million member far-right Christian Coalition and for his statements attacking feminists, homosexuals, Democrats and Hindus.
While we were in jail in Washington during the war in Vietnam, my comrades and I spent part of our night as guests of the state singing several choruses of the song, ‘Waist Deep in the Big Muddy’.
I would not compare Scottish Power chairman Ian Robinson to President Lyndon Johnson. And Robinson’s invasion of the US power industry through his plan to purchase PacifiCorp of Oregon is not exactly the landing at Da Nang. But there is a little bit of LBJ’s resolute optimism, while marching deeper into the quicksand, which has me humming that old song.
Talks on Friday failed to boost Scottish Power’s $4.7 billion bid for the US electricity company PacifiCorp. Earlier in the week it was dealt a possibly fatal blow when analysts at the Oregon state utility commission urged regulators to reject it.
For The Observer/Guardian UK
Holy week is especially solemn in Chenega. On Good Friday 1964, a tidal wave swept over the Chugach native village on Chenega Island in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Every home was washed out to sea. One-third of the residents drowned.
For The Guardian UK
Thirty years ago this month, Alaskan natives sold Exxon and its partners an astronomically valuable patch of land — the oil terminal at Valdez for a single dollar.
The Chugach Natives of the Prince William Sound refused cash. Rather, in 1969, they asked only that the oil companies promise to protect their fishing and seal hunting grounds from oil.
For The Observer/Guardian UK
In an attempt to salvage its troubled takeover of US electricity company Pacificorp, Scottish Power on Friday presented a detailed list of the benefits to customers.
By Gregory Palast for The Observer/Guardian UK
The captain, Joe Hazelwood, was below decks, sleeping off his bender. The man left at the helm, the third mate, would never have hit Bligh Reef had he simply looked at his Raycas radar. But he could not. Why? Because the radar was not turned on. The complex Raycas system costs a lot to operate, so a frugal Exxon management left it broken and useless for the entire year before the grounding.
By Gregory Palast for The Observer/Guardian UK
British Petroleum failed to act on warnings of an environmental catastrophe in the run-up to the Exxon Valdez disaster, whose effects are still being felt a decade later, an investigation by The Observer has established.
By Gregory Palast for The Observer/Guardian UK
An international consumer group is calling for world trade authorities to withdraw a key endorsement of Monsanto’s controversial growth hormone for cows in the wake of Observer revelations that the company had obtained access to confidential EU documents.
By Gregory Palast for The Observer/Guardian UK
When US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was a little boy, he dreamed of becoming President – of Brazil. And now his dream has come true. Of course, in light of his Washington address and US nationality, Rubin won control of Brazil the only way he could – through a brilliant swindle.
Monsanto, the US biotech group fined in an English court last week for failing to control genetic modification trials, is under attack on two new fronts. First for obtaining an advance look at confidential European Commission documents during its campaign to win regulatory approval for its controversial bovine growth hormone (BST). Second, because of its legal actions against hundreds of North American farmers for failing to pay for its genetically modified seeds.
Thirty seven per cent of Americans over the age of 15 find sexual intercourse painful, difficult to perform or just plain unenjoyable. Who says so? Doctors Edward Laumann and Raymond Rosen, that’s who. And because they said it in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, it popped up last week in every US newspaper.
Scottish Power’s troubled takeover of United States electricity company Pacificorp is under further pressure this weekend. Veteran consumer campaigner Ralph Nader is preparing legal action to block it, while tougher limits on profits threatened by US regulators could make the deal unviable.
