Author: Press Room

More than 11,000 residents of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta have filed a claim for compensation against Shell at the High Court, London, in a long-running court case set to test multinational companies’ responsibility for environmental damage overseas.The claim from members of the Ogale community adds to one brought by members of the Bille community in 2015, and brings the total number of villagers seeking compensation from Shell to 13,652, Leigh Day, the UK law firm representing the plaintiffs, said on Thursday.The two communities claim that oil spills resulting from Shell’s operations in the region have contaminated drinking water, harmed air…

Unite said in the first nine months of last year, Barclays made profits of £4.6bn, HSBC Holdings more than £8.9bn, Lloyds Banking Group over £3.9bn, and NatWest Group £2.2bnThe Big Four banks raked in nearly £20billion profit in the first nine months of last year as households were left reeling from a surge in interest rates. Union Unite has called for a windfall tax after accusing Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and NatWest of “profiteering”. Lenders have made a packet on the back of a series of Bank of England rate hikes to try to curb inflation. The Bank is expected to…

Batteries, batteries, batteries. The race to attract this industry of the future, and power the electric vehicles that will rule the roads, is as frantic as the rush for AAA cells after an eight-year-old opens their birthday presents. An orgy of subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act is building so-called “gigafactories” across the US, while the UK is agonising over the collapse of its only big battery project. One sign of battery-induced insecurity is the number of start-ups wrapping themselves in the flag, with names such as the failed Britishvolt or American Battery Factory.The logic of batterymania is straightforward. In…

High profile Liberal MP Alan Tudge has been grilled at the Royal Commission into the failed Robodebt Scheme where an entire day has been allocated to hearing his evidence.When pressed, the former human services minister refused to take responsibility for his department’s failure to ensure the debt recovery scheme was legal. Source: Sky News

The eyelash stylist who was allegedly fed a slice of poisoned cheesecake by a Russian dominatrix “looked like a vegetable” and could barely move her eyes when her sister found her, the sibling testified in Queens court Wednesday. Speaking through a Russian interpreter, Iryna Kozachenko, 35, described finding her sister Olga Tsvyk nearly passed out in her Forest Hills home, with scores of pills littering the floor of her second-floor bedroom. “She was feeling very bad and she just looked at me, she looked like a vegetable,” Kozachenko told jurors. “She was extremely tired. She could barely move her eyes. It…

Aeon’s pay offer is likely to push major competitors to take similar measures © BloombergAeon, one of Japan’s biggest supermarket and convenience store groups, said it will raise average wages by an unprecedented 7 per cent across its 400,000-strong workforce of part-time employees.The pay offer by Aeon, which controls the Ministop convenience store chain, Welcia pharmacies and core Aeon supermarkets, is the first such move by a large Japanese retailer and likely to push major competitors to take similar measures.“We will aim to raise efficiency by hiring high-quality talent,” the company said, noting “fierce competition” in Japan’s tight labour market.…

A Hyundai Motor Group supplier announced Wednesday that it will invest $76 million in a new plant near Savannah to manufacture parts for the automaker’s upcoming in plant in nearby Ellabell, hiring more than 500 workers.Seoyon E-HWA said it will build the plant to make interior and exterior parts including door trim, headlining and tailgate trim. The company plans to begin production in October 2024.The company already has a plant with 630 employees in LaGrange, near Hyundai’s plant in Montgomery, Alabama, and Kia’s plant in West Point. Seoyon E-Hwa operates 32 units worldwide.Seoyon E-HWA is the fourth Hyundai supplier to…

Isn’t crossing the border illegally supposed to be frowned upon? A progressive Democrat on the City Council blasted the accommodations at a new emergency migrant shelter in Brooklyn — because it doesn’t seem hospitable enough to make asylum seekers want to stay longer. “It’s a situation that I believe is intended to encourage people to move along as quickly as possible,” Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) griped Wednesday. After touring the converted Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook with other officials, Restler complained there were “a thousand cots lined up in rows that are a dozen long.” “When you’re sleeping in…

West Virginia’s House of Delegates unanimously passed a bill Wednesday to expand the authority of the state foster care advocate to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect.Before the 100-member House voted in unison in favor, Deputy House Speaker Republican Matthew Rohrbach said the bill is “really going to help to make this system accountable, which I think is something that everybody in here wants.”Foster Care Ombudsman Pamela Woodman-Kaehler’s office is located within the Department of Health and Human Resources’ Office of Inspector General. But she works independently as an advocate for foster children and parents, investigating complaints and collecting data…

A horrifying contraption was stumbled upon at a popular Greater Manchester site that could cause untold damage to kids and animals – and there may be more of themPeople have been warned to beware of deadly traps at a Greater Manchester beauty spot after a man found a barbaric-looking device while out walking his dog. The horrifying contraption, which looks like a length of metal piping to which numerous long nails have been welded, was stumbled upon at Tame Valley Park, in Stalybridge. The area, on the site of the former Hartshead Power Station, is popular with children and families,…