Courtesy of Shell Oil: One of the worst oil spills in years causes environmental disaster in Niger Delta

© Reuters / Tife Owolabi

A villager shows a bucket of of crude oil spill at the banks of a river, after a Shell pipeline leaked, in the Oloma community in Nigeria's delta region November 27, 2014.

Fishermen and the environment of Niger Delta continue to suffer the consequences of a massive Shell oil spill in the Niger Delta - one of the worst in years. The oil giant says 1,200 barrels had been recovered as of Tuesday.

Traveling to the affected areas of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, Reuters witnessed the devastation in the delta which covers 20,000 km² within wetlands of 70,000 km².

Crude is everywhere, enough in some cases to fill Jerry can with the black gold.

"We saw dead fish, dead crabs ... This spill occurred 7-8 nautical miles from the shore ... so the volume runs into thousands of barrels," Alagoa Morris, head of the Niger Delta Resource Center for Environmental Rights Action, told Reuters.

Morris was referring to the Shell oil spill at the site on the Okolo Launch on Bonny Island in late November where an estimated 3,800 barrels of oil have leaked into the data, according to an investigation by Shell and government officials.

According to the oil giant, the spill was caused by a failed crude theft.

© Reuters / Tife Owolabi

Crude oil washes up near the shore after a Shell pipeline leaked, in the Oloma community in Nigeria's delta region November 27, 2014.

While Shell shut down its 28 inch pipeline carrying Bonny Light crude on November 22, the company has discovered that the origin of the leak happened on a smaller 24 inch pipe, which was shut last year.

Shell continues the recovery effort of the spilled oil and so far managed to clean up 1,200 barrels, a spokesman told Reuters.

Home to 20 million people and 40 different ethnic groups, the Niger Delta is the largest wetland in Africa and contains one of the highest concentrations of biodiversity on the planet. The unique ecosystem also has more species of freshwater fish than any ecosystem in West Africa. This fragile environment now suffers.

"We can't go fishing anymore. It has destroyed our fishing equipment," Boma Macaulay, a fisherman from Bonny told Reuters, adding that it was the worst spill in at least five years.

© Reuters / Tife Owolabi

Crude oil flows at the banks of a river, after a Shell pipeline leaked, in the Oloma community in Nigeria's delta region November 27, 2014.

Shell claims that it is committed to environmental recovery efforts, but says that significant environmental damage in the Niger Delta is the result of sabotage of facilities that result in oil spills. In the last five years some 70 percent of all oil spills have been the result of sabotage, Shell claims.

But Shell's reputation is tainted in the region from oil spills over previous years. In November, a week before the most recent oil leak, Amnesty International revealed that Shell has repeatedly made false claims about the size and impact of two major oil spills at Bodo in Nigeria that happened back in 2008. The aim of the company was to minimize its compensation payments for the damage caused to 15,000 people whose livelihoods were devastated by oil pollution, the NGO claimed. In a high-profile compensation case in England's High Court, the Shell did confirm that the two spills had been far greater than the previously believed. Yet Shell did not give a revised figure, which now stands at 4,144 barrels.

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Another miscarriage of justice as Texas grand jury declines to indict cops caught on video beating black woman in police station

A Texas grand jury declined to indict two former Jasper police officers who were caught on video assaulting a woman inside the police station last year.

The Beaumont Enterprise reports white officers Ricky Grissom and Ryan Cunningham will not face criminal charges for the May 5, 2013, incident in which they were recorded slamming a black woman's head into a desk and dragging her across the floor.

Overhead surveillance cameras recorded the violent assault of Keyarika Diggles.

The case became a centerpiece of the ongoing racial tension in the Texas town, according to The Texas Observer

Among the troubling aspects of the case was that the officers arrested Diggles for little more than unpaid parking tickets the day of the assault. Diggles had reportedly been paying down her debt to the city and owed only about $100 the day the officers showed up at her door to arrest her.

The video of the incident clearly shows the two officers violently manhandling Diggles before they dragged the handcuffed woman to a so-called detox cell. Her attorneys said she spent hours in the dark cell before she was eventually strip-searched by a female officer.

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The Jasper City Council later voted to fire Grissom and Cunningham.

Diggles settled a civil rights lawsuit against the officers and the city last December for $75,000.

Her attorney, Cade Bernsen, said he was disappointed the prosecutor was unable to secure an indictment in the incident.

That failure came despite the support of Mayor Mike Lout, who promised to work with the district attorney while exploring the possibility of criminal charges.

"The law is the law for everyone, and just because you have a badge on doesn't mean you have the right to break the law, or do something wrong," Lout said at the time.

Bernsen expressed disbelief the grand jury declined to indict Grissom and Cunningham given the video evidence.

"We are shocked by the failure of the prosecutor to get an indictment," Bernsen said. "I'm wondering what investigation was done because the video speaks for itself."

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More reasons to manipulate the oil market - Western leverage over Iran during nuclear talks

© Associated Press / Ronald Zak

Iran’s Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, Minister of Petroleum, speaks to journalists prior to a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, at their headquarters in Vienna, Austria, on June 11, 2014.

A wild card in the seven months of extended negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over its nuclear program is the continuing plunge in global oil prices and its impact on Tehran's finances.

U.S. and European officials said they had a growing sense earlier this year that Tehran and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei believed they were weathering the West's international sanctions - despite the halving of Iranian oil exports since 2012, largely driven by a European embargo.

Under an interim agreement reached with the West a year ago, Iran has been receiving $700 million in monthly payments from oil revenues frozen in overseas accounts.

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani also stabilized the country's currency, the rial, over the past year by cutting government spending, particularly on subsidizing food and energy.

But pressure on Iran's finances has re-emerged over the past week, potentially giving the U.S. more leverage in the nuclear talks, which were extended last week until July.

The failure of Iran and global powers to reach a comprehensive agreement in Vienna by a Nov. 24 deadline depressed the rial and the Tehran Stock Exchange, according to Tehran-based businessmen. Optimism had been growing in Iran's business community that a deal was imminent that would bring an easing of Western sanctions.

"Here it's definitely somber in the business community, and shock in the Tehran Stock Exchange," a Tehran-based banker said.

Even more problematic for Iran, though, was the decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, last Thursday to maintain its production output levels. The decision has led crude oil exports to plunge below $70 a barrel from over $110 in recent years.

The drop isn't expected to be reversed in the near future and could have a crippling impact on an Iranian government budget that is traditionally 60% derived from oil exports.

U.S. and European officials believe the drop could increase pressure on Iranian negotiators over the next seven months to make concessions on the future of Iran's nuclear program that they haven't in the past year of talks. What remains to be seen, they said, is Mr. Khamenei's assessment of the depths of the threat to Iran's finances.

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Oil spill in Israeli nature preserve causes one of country's worst environmental disasters

Millions of liters of crude oil gushed out of a breached pipeline in southern Israel early Thursday, causing what one Environmental Protection Ministry official called "one of the gravest pollution events in the country's history."

The official, Guy Samet, said there is a seven-kilometer (4.3 mile) long river of oil flowing through the Evrona Nature Reserve in southern Israel, some 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) north of Eilat.

Firefighters, police, Environmental Protection Ministry officials and oil pipeline maintenance teams were dispatched to the site of the spill, and managed to curtail the flow after about two hours.

The breach occurred during maintenance work that was part of preparations for the international airport under construction in Timna, in southern Israel. Once the leak was discovered, pipeline company officials shut the pipeline's valves - but not in time to prevent the spillage of millions of liters of oil.

The pipeline, which links Eilat to the port city of Ashkelon, opened in the 1960s to facilitate the movement of Iranian oil from the Persian Gulf to European markets. Since the rupture in Israeli-Iranian relations in 1979, it has mostly been used to move oil and oil products from Eilat to different parts of Israel.

The Environmental Protection Ministry's Green Police is investigating the cause of the spill, whether it could have been prevented and how it was handled once discovered.

Eilat Police ruled out foul play as the cause of pipeline breach, saying it was likely caused by a technical malfunction from previous maintenance work.

The main road leading to Eilat, a Red Sea resort, from central Israel was closed intermittently as emergency teams contained the leak.

Evrona Nature Reserve, one of the most important reserves in the Arava, is home to a large deer population and the northernmost douma palm trees in the world.

© Environmental Protection Ministry

Oil spill at Evrona Nature Reserve

"Crude oil flowed throughout the reserve, causing serious damage ... to flora and fauna," Samet told Israel Radio on Thursday. He estimated the spillage at millions of liters.

"Rehabilitation will take months, if not years .. This is one of the State of Israel's gravest pollution events. We are still having trouble gauging the full extent of the contamination."

There was no damage on the Jordanian side of the frontier. However, Jordanian news outlets reported that large amounts of hydrogen sulfide were detected in the air around Aqaba - and some reports said that more than 80 people were hospitalized with breathing difficulties after inhaling fumes.

Shaul Goldstein, director-general of the Nature and Parks Authority, said the authority would examine the conduct of the oil pipeline company to determine whether the spill was an accident or a result of negligence.

"We must examine whether the company fulfilled the detailed guidelines about this type of oil pipeline work that were formulated with the Environmental Protection Ministry after the serious pollution cause by the leak at Nahal Zin," he said, referring to a previous ecological disaster.

Doron Nissim, director of the nature reserves and national parks in Eilat, said hundreds of acres of nature reserve were damaged by the spill. The main threat is to insects and rodents that live on or close to the surface, Nissim said, adding that the pollution has not seeped deep into the ground. He also said the nature reserve's deer population is not at risk.

Treating the pollution caused by the spill will require removing large swaths of land that are steeped in oil, which will further damage the surface, said Dr. Gilad Golub, CEO of the Environmental Services Company, a state-owned firm that deals with all the hazardous waste produced in Israel.

Several hours after the spill occurred, oil pipeline company tankers began pumping oil wherever possible. "It is important to extract as much oil as possible," said Golub, "but the most heavily polluted land must be removed immediately afterward. This land must be burned."

Golub said that less polluted land should be removed as well and treated using bacteria that break down the pollutants. If that doesn't happen, the oil will seep further down into the land and rainfall will cause it to spread and contaminate other parts of the reserve.

The Evrona reserve covers some 17,000 dunams (4,200 acres) of land.

This is not the first time an Israeli nature reserve has been damaged by oil pipeline maintenance. In June 2011, the reserve at Nahal Zin in the Negev was damaged when 1.5 million liters of jet fuel leaked into the soil.

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Protests Ignite Across 50 U.S. Cities Demanding Justice For Mexico'S 43 Missing Students



Activists in the United States planned to march in more than 50 cities Wednesday promoting peace as an alternative to Mexico’s so-called war on drugs — the latest in a series of rallies demanding justice for 43 Mexican students who were disappeared after police opened fire on a protest in Guerrero state in September.

"We're turning our attention to what we can do as people living in the U.S.," Monica Novoa, a spokeswoman for #USTired2, a group aimed at ending U.S. aid to Mexican security forces, told Al Jazeera. "We know that billions have gone to the drug war and that this money goes to security forces. And in that way the U.S. is complicit in what's happening in Mexico."

Thousands were expected to march in front of federal buildings — including in New York City, Los Angeles, and Ferguson, Missouri — to call on President Barack Obama and Congress to stop sending billions of tax dollars for military aid and training to Mexican security forces, which have perpetuated human rights violations, Novoa said.

Mexico escalated its war on drugs in 2007, when former President Felipe Calderón dispersed roughly 20,000 federal police and soldiers across the country in a large-scale war against organized crime — with financial aid from the U.S. under the Merida Initiative. That offensive left roughly 100,000 dead and over 25,000 disappeared between 2007 and 2011.

Though rampant violence has continued in Mexico in recent years, with at least 10,000 killed since President Enrique Peña Nieto took power in 2012, the disappearance of the 43 students from a rural teachers training college has convulsed Mexican society and sparked protests not seen in generations. Protesters flooded streets across the country, criticizing Pena Nieto's response to the crime and called for him and his cabinet to resign.

Classmates, relatives and supporters of the missing students from Ayotzinapa Normal School in Mexico’s poverty-stricken Guerrero state have flooded streets across the country since the disappearances. They blame the Peña Nieto administration for the crime, with protesters often holding banners reading, “Fue el estado” or “It was the state.”

Confessions from dozens of police officers and drug gang members arrested after the disappearance have suggested that a corrupt local mayor and his wife in Iguala, Guerrero, ordered the crackdown on the students. Local police then handed over the students to a local gang, ordering their executions, it is alleged.

On Wednesday, #USTired2 activists were to host a series of vigils and conferences in solidarity with the Ayotzinapa students. Hundreds of U.S. protestors already marched in New York City last month, from the Mexican consulate in midtown Manhattan to the United Nations headquarters.

U.S. activists say aid to Mexico’s security forces is illegal under U.S. law. Human rights provisions under the “Leahy Law” male it illegal for the State Department or Department of Defense to provide military assistance to “any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such a unit has committed a gross violation of human rights,” the group said in a press release.

The Ayotzinapa student disappearances are not the only example of human rights abuses by Mexican security forces that would outlaw U.S. military aid to the country, activists say. Mexican soldiers were accused of executing 22 suspected criminals in a warehouse in the town of Tlatlaya, near Mexico City, in June.

Peña Nieto’s handling of the case has come under close scrutiny. While the army said the incident took place following clashes with criminals, witnesses have testified that it was a massacre.

International rights groups have deplored the state of impunity surrounding these crimes. And a series of mass graves discovered in the search for the 43 missing students has further revealed Mexico’s recent history with violent crime.

In a memorandum to Pena Nieto earlier this year, Amnesty International accused the president of prioritizing economic and political reforms while ignoring human rights.

“Reports of human rights abuses committed by police and security forces, including enforced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention continue and impunity for all crimes remains the norm … the justice system continues to fail victims, accused and society.” said Amnesty in a statement. “Mexico continues to face serious challenges to the rule of law and respect for human rights.”

Originally published by Al Jazeera America

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SOTT EXCLUSIVE: US jumping for joy over South Stream pipeline closure

© AP Photo/ Gerry Broome

Shouldn't he be dead by now? John McCain.

Anyone who takes the time to fully understand the reasons why Russia cancelled the South Stream pipeline project and then listens to the US response to the news can only conclude that the US government has lost all touch with reality.

US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on Tuesday:

"The news that Russia has pulled back from its South Stream pipeline to southern Europe... is indicative of the mounting cost that Russia is paying for its behavior," Rice said. "As a result, a major project, which had been championed by Putin and the Russian government, is now not likely to materialize."

"When you look at where the Russian economy is, it has suffered over the last year substantially as a result of sanctions and also as a result of declining oil prices and the combination is pretty powerful."

President Obama also crowed on Wednesday:

[Obama] doubted Russian President Vladimir Putin will change course until politics catch up with the rough economic situation in Russia.

Obama said Putin has promoted a nationalist, backward-looking approach to Russian policy that scares neighbors and hurts Moscow's economy.

Have mercy! The only way Obama and Rice could have come up with that conclusion is if they were somehow mistaking themselves for Putin and US foreign policy for Russian foreign policy. We can almost hear these two earnestly tell the EU: "Don't worry this is going to hurt Russia more than it will hurt you. So man up!" Meanwhile, EU bureaucrats must be 'sweating bricks' at the projected loss of billions for EU economies as a result of the death of South Stream. But what can they do? It is almost certain that they are being blackmailed by the USA, courtesy of the NSA and its pathological voyeurism. This isn't going to end well.

Two ranking senators also showed their pleasure with the canceled project.

Bob Corker, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said:

"I will say the overall abandonment of the larger pipeline certainly was a setback to Putin and his interests in the region."

The new chairman of the Armed Services Committee, John McCain, also piped in and was pleased with the Russian decision to cancel South Stream.

"It's a big setback for Vladimir."

McCain was giddy with excitement that the US would certainly step up to the plate and provide Europe with all its natural gas needs:

"I think we can do it before then," McCain stated when asked about US projections becoming a significant exporter nation before 2020. "We can do it a lot quicker than that," he added.

McCain further told Sputnik that he is satisfied with Bulgaria's decision not to allow the construction of the proposed South Stream pipeline project. "I'm just glad our friends in Europe cancelled the pipeline that was going to go through Europe," he said.

In a Tuesday press release, McCain stated that his personal efforts to urge the Bulgarian government to look toward Europe to secure its energy interests and refrain from working with Russia, "were successful" and "culminated with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's decision to forgo the pipeline project entirely."

Yup, McCain personally shut down the South Stream project. Now he is going to frack the hell out of the US.

The fact that the Bulgarian government listened to McCain and bowed to US manipulation is not going down well in Bulgaria, where ordinary Bulgarians will pay the cost of higher gas prices and the loss of another mega investment in Bulgaria. And that is quite apart from the yearly loss of €400 million in transit fees.

So will the EU pay more for natural gas from America that will not arrive until 2020 or will it come to its senses and stop prostrating itself before "American Exceptionalism" and start considering their ow interests?

Stay tuned for the next move on the grand chessboard.

William Barbe

William joined the SOTT news team in 2014. A 30-year veteran of the semiconductor industry, in 2007 he began being interested and paying more attention to world events and living a healthier lifestyle. Hobbies and interests include hiking, photography and reading non-fiction books on history, economics, psychology, science, unexplained anomalies and politics.

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Woman left bloodied after attack by koala in Williamstown, Australia

Ms Forster was taken to hospital after the koala bite.

But despite her injuries, she says she doesn't blame the animal for the brutal attack.

Williamstown woman Mary Anne Forster said she was walking her two dogs a fortnight ago when they pulled her towards a koala at the base of a tree.

"Obviously the koala felt very threatened because it attached itself with its mouth, jaws, to my leg and bit very hard, bit very deeply," she said.

After a struggle, she managed to break free.

"Because it wouldn't let go, I put my fingers in its mouth and pried its jaws open to release my leg," Ms Forster said.

The assistant principal hobbled more than two kilometres home and was then taken to hospital.

She needed 12 stitches.

"All wild animals have dirty bites and so it was a matter of covering with the antibiotics because it became very infected, it was very swollen and painful," she said.

Environmental experts have warned people to keep their distance if they spot a koala out in the wild.

"Just leave them alone, certainly don't let dogs go near them because they will fight back, they've got big claws and big teeth," Dr Deb Kelly from the Environment Department said.

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