A Japanese oil tanker has exploded off the country's south-west coast near Himeji port, leaving one of the eight people aboard missing, the country's coast guard has said. Four others were severely injured in the accident on Thursday.
Fire gutted the middle of the Shoko Maru – the 998-tonne tanker, based in the western city of Hiroshima, was left leaning over in the water after the accident and was being doused by firefighting ships.
First the Athabasca Chipewyan partnered with Canadian rocker Neil Young in a treaty-rights awareness tour. Then, this past weekend, the 1,100-person northern Alberta First Nation – whose members feel its land and water are being sacrificed for an estimated $200-billion in oil-sands investment over the next decade – hosted renowned human-rights leader Desmond Tutu, who toured the oil-sands region and, at a weekend conference on treaty rights and the environment, called Canada’s bitumen production “filth.”
There’s only one way in and out of a small Wet’suwet’en camp located in a remote part of British Columbia’s Interior – a logging road and a single lane bridge. Right now, though, a truck is parked in front of the bridge, blocking access to the rugged territory. The move is meant to keep out a host of unwanted visitors – including anyone who works for Enbridge Inc.
There’s only one way in and out of a small Wet’suwet’en camp located in a remote part of British Columbia’s Interior – a logging road and a single lane bridge. Right now, though, a truck is parked in front of the bridge, blocking access to the rugged territory. The move is meant to keep out a host of unwanted visitors – including anyone who works for Enbridge Inc.
Canada must consider how Alberta’s oilsands contribute to global climate change and make moves to cut its carbon emissions before it's too late, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu told reporters in Fort McMurray. “Only those who don’t want to listen, only those who want to be blind can’t see that we are sitting on a powderkeg,” he said Friday. “If we don’t do something urgently, quickly, we won’t have a world.” Tutu is in the northern Alberta city for a two-day conference on oilsands development and aboriginal treaties, was hosted by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.
Live Update: Scroll to the bottom of this page for an on-the-scene interview with an activist chained to the gates of the Chevron facility in British Columbia.
Christy Clark loves to do photo-ops wearing a hard hat. That was basically her uniform on the campaign trail last year. It was meant to symbolize her commitment to jobs, as she touted the “trillion dollar” bonanza that B.C. would reap from expanding Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) exports. If only Premier Clark were as committed to and respectful of actual workers in this province as she is to imaginary future workers in this one sector of the economy.
CALGARY - Ottawa wants the Commission for Environmental Co-operation to drop its investigation into whether laws are being properly enforced when it comes to oilsands pollution.
The CEC asked the federal government in December to respond to allegations that it has failed to enforce provisions in the Fisheries Act by allowing harmful substances to leak from tailings ponds into water sources downstream of mines in northeastern Alberta.
EDMONTON - Critics say Albertans are in danger of being shut out of discussions on how the province's natural resources are developed.
Expert observers and opposition politicians worry Alberta's new energy regulator is drawing the circle of who can speak so tightly that one hearing on a proposed energy project had to be cancelled because no one was allowed to appear.
The area in Northern Alberta known as the Tar sands has been the subject of a raging debate over the past years. On the one hand, the business community claims the exploitation of the region's unconventional oil reserves to be Canada's most effective engine of economic growth and job creation; that further exploitation will allow for the country to become self-reliant in energy and end its dependence on foreign oil. The other side of the debate is often dismissed as being made up of environmentalists who care more for nature than their fellow human beings.
