More than a few African entities are represented on a list of 636 fossil fuel lobbyists attending the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, a number that the anti-corruption Global Witness organization, publishers of the list, say is more than 25% higher than a year ago in Scotland. The names were…
At least 227 people died last year directly because of their environmental activism, an unfortunate toll that’s hit a new record as climate change impacts increase. That’s according to the Global Witness organization in the UK. The annual report warns that while most deaths still happen in the Americas, there…
At least 164 people across the globe were killed in 2018 while seeking to protect their land, water and other environmental rights, according to a Global Witness report released this week. That works out to more than three people each week, with the greatest losses in the Philippines and the…
An investigative report from Global Witness accuses a high-ranking though disreputable military leader in Democratic Republic of Congo of acquiring illegally traded timber licenses in a matter of days, and then selling the associated company to a Chinese timber kingpin already operating in the country. General Gabriel Amisi Kumba is…
The Nigerian people were cheated out of an estimated USD$6 billion when a 2011 oil rights deal enriched its own officials but really benefited two international oil majors – Royal Dutch Shell and the Italian Eni – instead of Nigeria, according to a report released Monday by London-based NGO Global…
South Sudan’s oil production is recovering from years of conflict, according to Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, the country’s Minister of Petroleum, but many obstacles remain even as oilfield operations come back online. Security was top of mind as South Sudan took the spotlight during the Africa Oil & Power conference in…
For much of this summer, the topics of environmental crisis and climate change have exploded into the news cycles of the developed world with the same frightening alacrity as the floods and wildfires forcing the headlines. Storms and rain at the weekend have broken a historic heat wave in the…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
The UK-based Global Witness NGO has called on the United States to investigate oil major Exxon for its role in a 2013 oil block deal in Liberia, one it says implicates Exxon in corrupt business dealings. A Global Witness investigation released this week charges that Exxon knew that the oil block,…
South Sudan’s Ministry of Mining, Ministry of Petroleum and the state-owned Nile Petroleum Company were among 15 oil-industry entities added to the U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List on Thursday, for what officials say is their funding of the country’s ongoing conflict and actions deemed “contrary to the national security…
The United States has announced it will publish Thursday the names of 15 oil-industry entities in South Sudan that U.S. officials say are supporting the country’s ongoing crisis with their revenues. The decision to place the South Sudanese businesses on the U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List means licensing will…
An initiative designed to protect environmental defenders around the world from threats, intimidation, harassment and murder was launched Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Program. The UN Environmental Rights Initiative was introduced in Geneva with guests on hand including John Knox, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment;…
Executives of Royal Dutch Shell and Italian oil major Eni will stand trial in Milan on corruption charges tied to a widely investigated Nigerian oil rights deal dating back to 2011. An Italian judge on Wednesday set a March 5 date for the case against Eni’s current CEO Claudio Descalzi,…
A report from the Global Witness organization finds that Zimbabwe’s military and intelligence personnel, along with political elites, are siphoning off the country’s diamond wealth and hiding it from a nation where three-fourths of the people live in poverty. The new “An Inside Job” report looked at five mining companies…
At least 200 environmental activists, NGO personnel, journalists and wildlife defenders died in 2016, and the work of rangers in the national parks of Democratic Republic of Congo continues to make the country among the seven deadliest in the world, the new “Defenders of the Earth” report from Global Witness…