Guardian: WikiLeaks: Shell's grip on Nigerian state revealed

The Guardian outlines the latest scoop from the Wikileaks cables exposé: From the oil-rich nation of Nigeria, US embassy cables reveal a top Shell executive's claims that company 'knows everything' about key decisions in Nigerian government ministries.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-cables-shell-nigeria-spying

Clearly, these revelations have considerable significance for the apparent capacity of multinational companies to compromise the sovereignty of states in the developing world (the article notes that 70% of Nigerians live below the poverty line, despite the oil).

A brilliant example of recent globalisation or something that has already gone on for centuries?

CFR - Slideshow: Environmental Disasters

The Council on Foreign Relations has today published an evocative slideshow (with rich textual annotation) of 'iconic' environmental disasters from around the globe:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/22744/slideshow.html

The website provides a convenient introduction to this useful resource:

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill involving Britain's BP marks the latest instance of an industrial disaster pitting companies from one country against citizens and governments of another. This slideshow provides a chronology of ten major instances in which multinational corporations were involved in industrial incidents, and their legal and regulatory aftermath.

Well worth reading as background to studies of the Environment as a Global Political Issue (Unit 4)...