Denda dikenakan kepada Chevron

Pemeliharaan alam sekitar perlu diperhebat supaya alam kita diami sekarang ini dapat dinikmati oleh generasi akan datang. Islam sendiri menganjurkan pemeliharaan kepada makhluk-makhluk Allah yang lain. Namun, ahli politik dunia nampaknya memandang enteng isu ini. Brazil telah mengenakan denda kepada syarikat minyak Chevron (US) atas pertumpahan minyak yang berlaku di perairan Brazil. Teruskan membaca..

Brazil has announced it is fining US oil company Chevron $28m (£17.9m) for causing an oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Chevron has accepted responsibility, saying it had underestimated the pressure of underwater oil deposits while drilling.

Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said Chevron could face further fines if an investigation into the spill revealed more infractions.

Chevron says the leak has been plugged.

The head of Chevron's Brazil operation, George Buck, said the company had underestimated the pressure of underwater oil deposits while drilling, causing oil to rush up the bore hole and seep into the surrounding seabed.

Mr Buck said the leak had been plugged, but that there continued to be a residual oil flow from undersea rock near the well in the Frade oil project, 370km (230 miles) off the Brazilian coast.

'Serious accident'

According to Brazil's National Petroleum Agency (ANP), the leak released between 200 and 330 barrels a day at the height of the spill.

The head of the ANP, Haroldo, Lima said the accident was "serious, but not major".

He said there was "no comparison" between this spill and last year's disaster at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, where 11 people died and some 3,000 barrels a day were leaked.

Police environment experts have been trying to assess the scale of the latest spill.

They have also questioned the methods Chevron was using to clean up the spill.

Head of the Federal Police Environmental Division Fabio Scliar said the company was pushing the oil to the bottom of the sea, rather than gathering it, putting corals in the area at risk of pollution.

In recent years Brazil has discovered billions of barrels of oil in deep water that could make it one of the world's top five producers.

So far there has been little public debate about the environmental dangers of offshore drilling.

Political discussion has instead focused on how future oil revenues should be divided between different states.

Sumber: BBC News

Disediakan oleh : MUHAMMAD YUSRI BIN ABDUL AZIZ

Kempen UNHATE di Itali

ITALIAN clothes company Benetton has been forced to pull a controversial photo montage showing the Pope kissing a leading imam from its new global ad campaign after a Vatican backlash.

The company, which is no stranger to controversy over its advertising campaigns, said it was "sorry that the use of the image had so hurt the sensibilities of the faithful''.

The statement, issued yesterday, came shortly after the Vatican expressed "the firmest protest for this absolutely unacceptable use of the image of the Holy Father''.

Benetton's poster showed Pope Benedict XVI kissing on the lips Egypt's Ahmed el Tayyeb, imam of the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo and a leading voice in Sunni Islam.

It launched a new global advertising campaign called UNHATE that contained a series of photo montages of political and religious leaders kissing.

The company defended the campaign, saying its purpose "was solely to battle the culture of hate in all its forms''.

There were other shock pictures showing US President Barack Obama kissing Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in one picture and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in another.

Benetton posters

French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel also formed part of the advertising campaign called unhate. Picture: AFP

Source: AFP

One picture showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu smooching Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.

In another, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is depicted kissing German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

A picture of Silvio Berlusconi kissing Merkel was pulled at the last minute after the jovial billionaire submitted his resignation last week.

The Vatican strongly criticised the Benedict ad.

"We must express the firmest protest for this absolutely unacceptable use of the image of the Holy Father, manipulated and exploited in a publicity campaign with commercial ends,'' Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

"This shows a grave lack of respect for the pope, an offence to the feelings of believers, a clear demonstration of how publicity can violate the basic rules of respect for people by attracting attention with provocation,'' he said.

The Vatican was examining what steps to take "to guarantee a fair defence of respect for the image of the Holy Father'', he added.

The posters appeared in Benetton clothing stores across the globe as well as in newspapers, magazines and on Internet websites.

The passionate embrace between the pope and the imam was briefly shown on a banner held up near Rome's landmark Castel Sant'Angelo castle not far from the Vatican.

Benetton deputy chief Alessandro Benetton said earlier in a statement that the ads were "constructive provocation'' intended "to give widespread visibility to an ideal notion of tolerance''.

Benetton "chooses social issues and actively promotes humanitarian causes that could not otherwise have been communicated on a global scale'', he said.

But Luca Borgomeo, head of the Association of Italian Catholic Television Viewers, called for the ad to be removed.

"Is it possible Benetton could not come up with anything better?'' he said.

The company, which became famous in the 1990s with a series of shocking ads, said it was also setting up a foundation to promote international tolerance.

"The central theme is the kiss, the most universal symbol of love, between world political and religious leaders,'' the company said.

One of the iconic Benetton ads - photographed by Oliviero Toscani - was of a young nun in white kissing a priest dressed in a black cassock, and others addressed important social issues such as AIDS and homosexuality.

Relations between the pope and the Al-Azhar imam, one of the leading voices in Sunni Islam, have been very tense particularly after Benedict expressed his solidarity with the victims of an attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria.

The statement was interpreted by Tayyeb as interference and he did not send a delegation to an inter-religious meeting hosted by Benedict last month.

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Semakin Surut

BANGKOK: Ibu negara Thailand, Bangkok kelihatan sudah mulai surut daripada banjir yang melanda beberapa wilayah dan sekitarnya di utara, tetapi arahan berpindah masih dikeluarkan setiap hari di daerah luar manakala penduduk masih lagi berhadapan dengan minggu-minggu yang sukar. 

Jabatan Saliran dan Pencegahan Bencana semalam berkata, seramai 562 penduduk maut dalam banjir yang melanda sejak Julai lalu dan sejumlah 22 daripada 77 wilayah di Thailand masih lagi terjejas.

Banjir mulai surut di beberapa bahagian di Bangkok, tetapi disifatkan masih lagi tinggi di tebing barat sungai Chao Phraya, yang mengalami air pasang besar di Teluk Thailand serta di timur ibu negara itu di mana pihak berkuasa mengalihkan aliran banjir dari utara untuk melindungi kawasan tengah Bangkok daripada tenggelam.